My Family History

This class has taught me so much about culture and about pride. Everyone I met was proud of whom they are and I admired all of our differences. I learned so much about people in this class than I would have in any other. I can now look at these fellow students and see who they are as person, instead of the color of their skin. Because I am an Irish American woman, I had never realized the impact that racism had on others or how much it still is practiced into today’s society. Takaki really opened my eyes to the history of Irish Americans. I can only imagine the hard ships my family had to go through when they first came to America. I am happy and excited to learn more about my family and really wish I was able to know more about my father’s background. Even though my father was adopted, he was so proud of his family’s background and he looked at it on his own. He had such a passion for his family history and he felt so connected to his background. The people I met during this class have really made me want to stay connected to my ethnicity. My family had to fight against negativity and reticule when they first came here, it makes me wonder how my life would have been back then. I am no longer just another white woman with blinders on. I am an Irish and English American woman who protects her family history and respects others in turn.  

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack By Peggy McIntosh

“As we in Women’s Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, ‘Having described it what will I do to lessen or end it?’”. This is a powerful excerpt from Peggy McIntosh’s article and it is also the perfect support for my paper on white privilege in America. McIntosh describes how men are taught not to recognize the privilege they have over women. They deny that they have any advantage over women’s disadvantages and are in many cases completely blind to it. As a woman it is easy to see these disadvantages because of gender, but as a white woman do I notice the advantages I receive because of my skin color. Just as men are blind to their power over women, white Americans are blind to the power they have over other skin types. She makes a metaphor, unpacking the invisible knapsack, to describe noticing and stopping these day-to-day activities that put us at an advantage over others. She makes a list of normal activities that she didn’t realize before that she took for granted, not thinking how a person of another color may not have those same advantages.

            The list is just a way of making one realize the rights that they have, that someone else of another race doesn’t. She describes how she could move freely to wherever she wanted and that she could fit in nicely and be treated fairly. Her children can be protected from those looking to arm them and they, “will be given curricular activities that testify to the existence of their race”. She isn’t asked to speak for her entire race or forced to prove herself because of it. What McIntosh is trying to tell people is that in order to distinguish between earned power and unearned power we must first realize what exactly separates us. This article gives me a great insight for my paper. I can make my own list of activities that others out of my race don’t receive. By identifying these advantages, I can work on achieving my goals through hard work and not because of the color of my skin.  

McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack. White privilege and male privilege: a personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies Wellesley, MA: