Think Points #1 McIntosh

1. "As a white person, i realized i had been taughtabout racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white priviledge, which puts me at an advantage".
This quote is really important to the text. It sets basis that white people are most definatley priviledged, but we are taught not to see it or acknowledge it. It is not taugh in schools or at home to see that because you are white you have certain rights in society. Now the type of rights like a law, more like "control of power" rights. Like that we are able to be around white people if we wanted to be. Everywhere I go, I know there will be a white person there. Eeven places you expect there would not be very many white people, im sure you could find atleast one. So though we are priviledge, we are not taught to see it or even really talk about it.

2. " I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overpriviledged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged".
This quote grabbed my attention because of a discussion i have had in one of my classes in high school. Men defiantley notice and acknowledge that women are at a disadvantage and are willing to have conversations about it. But if the guys are said to be the ones that are priviledged, they try to deny it. They will not accept that they do have an advantage over women. They know that it is easier to get a job if you are a high class white male, they know that we have only had male leaders in our government, but they are reluctant to admit that they are priviledged. I think that this ignoring of a priviledge is a good fact in why whites are still at a priviledge. Even though we know that other cultures and races in our society are underpriviledged, we don't look at ourselves as priviledged. We see problems in our life just like everyone else does, so that doesn't make us seem priviledged at all. But when you truley think about it and look at McIntosh's bulleted points in her text you do notice the priviledges white people have.

3. "I have come to see white priviledge as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which was "meant" to remain oblivious."
I like that McIntosh used this example of what she sees white priviledge as. She is absolutley right about the "unearned" part. Because we did not earn the rights we have as whites. What makes me earn the right to be stopped less times than a black male or female would be? I didn't do anything special to earn that right. I wasn't able to choose my race, and therefore I shouldn't be more priviledged because i was born the same race as the "rule-makers". And these priviledges aren't used by whites at special times, they are in our everyday lives, just like McIntosh states in her piece. All the bullets she states are mostly things she has an advantage in through her everyday life. Just with her sitting down and writing them down she named 26 of them. I'm sure if she actually sat down longer and with more people, they would be able to come up with more than that.

I like that she started out talking about how males don't acknowledge the priviledge they have over women and then ended up tying that into how we, as white people don't acknowledge that we are priviledged over african americans. The bulleted points she made were well used to clearify exactly what she was talking about being white priviledged. While i was reading it, i was saying, "oh yeah, i never thought about that as being a priviledge".
When i was younger i used to always play with dolls. I had all sorts of dolls; big dolls, little dolls, barbie dolls, dolls that went to the bathroom and dolls that actually ate, but i never realized thats every single one of those dolls were white. When i thought about, when i was little i never even saw a doll that was colored. Even my hispanic and african american friends had white dolls. Now i go over my boyfriends house and his little sister has tons of african american dolls. She makes all of her characters different races on games. Her parents think its really weird that she does this, but i tell them its a good thing. She has been brought up throughout school and throughout her home life to think that everyone of different color skins are equal. She doesn't see color like most of our parents and grandparents generations do. But besides that, i never really thought of my toys being a priviledge when i was younger. It defiantley was easier to go into a store and find a white colored doll rather than a dark skinned doll.
I defiantley see white priviledge a little bit clearler now that i read her piece. She was helpful in explaining exactly what it is and gave examples of things in everyday life that i could relate to. She was an easy read but a very informative.