Talking Point # 1!

For my first talking point, I chose White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh. While reading this piece, it reminded me a lot like the reading from Johnson about the Privilege, Power and Difference. Both of the authors had some of the same views on privilege, in that the privileged ones get something out of it and the others get hurt by it. I think that this reading was very easy to understand and this reading along with the other readings make me realize how many things I have taken for granted in my life.

"For this reason, the word "privilege" now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one's race or sex" This quote reminded me much of reading Johnson. Many people think of the word privilege as a good thing but for some that isn't always the case.

"Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity." I had to read this quote over a few times for it to sink in but then I realized that it meant that many white people think that if they aren't racist against it doesn't have to do with them, but if you flip the table blacks could think the same way.

"One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see." This quote was a bit confusing to me. I get the active forms, but I'm not quite sure about the embedded forms...