Peggy McIntosh’s piece “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” was a very interesting read for me. I say this because when I began reading this I must have had an ignorant, perspective because as I read the list I did not relate to most of her tallies. I felt she was being truly redundant and trying to relate all issues of racism in common day-to-day situations (whenever I walk into a room I do not think to act differently when different races are present).I truly understood McIntosh’s point when she stated she “did not see” herself “as a racist because” she “was never taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferred unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.” Once she stated this, I realized that I was brought up in a perspective like closely relative to that. Following this realization, I went back and read over her tallies, and began to catch myself understanding all of her points, enter my belief in her piece “White Privilege.” This type of turn-around has not happened to me in a reading throughout my study here at Colgate. Therefore, this was a truly original reading experience for me.
Audre Lorde’s piece “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” starts off similar to McIntosh’s piece, by telling the reader of the importance of “examining our many difference,” prior to correlating a “theory” (whether it be feminism, racism, sexism-as shown in both articles). Lorde’s piece originated in 1984 which I see as truly interesting as well because a feminist perspective from over thirty years ago, portrays that women have been fighting for this cause for such a long time (and even prior to this), and feminism is still strong today. This article in a way made ‘eat my own words’ from the previous posts when I stated that, “it is not a marathon but a race,” because this proves that many women have been documenting their history of feminism and are referencing all known documents, which shows the true endurance of feminism.
Worse Then I Thought.....
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