White Privilege - Henry Wilkinson (2/7/17)

I found Peggy McIntosh’s essay “White Privilege” quite provocative and well-informed and I am very glad that I read it. Her experience seems to speak for mine as well, as I can relate to many of the instances of privilege she has experienced. As she says on page 79, “my skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make,” and this is very true for me as well. Being a white male, I benefit from white privilege as well as male privilege. However, I am self-aware and thus realize that I am given privileges I did not earn while others all around me are not benefiting from the same privileges. In the society I grew up in, it was easy to see people who looked like me and if I wanted to see people who didn’t look like me, I had to look a little harder. Thankfully, I grew up in a fairy liberal college town with people attending and teaching at the university from all around the world. Thanks to this I grew up around people of very different cultural backgrounds and was able to see that my experience as a white male in America was very different from the experiences of women or people of color also living in America. When I was older and realized I was not straight, this immediately opened up a whole can of worms that I had not thought about. Through hiding a part of myself I could benefit from certain privileges but if I was to be honest about who I am I would lose those privileges. I knew immediately that the latter was the choice I had to make because how would it be fair for me to lie about myself and gain privilege, while others could not hide parts of themselves and not do the same? I still have to, as McIntosh puts it, “labor under pervasive negative stereotyping and mythology,” but I still have male and white privilege. Others do not. What I have learned in my own experiences is to use my privileges to speak up for those who are not heard. I have learned not to overpower their voices, but rather help their voices reach a wider audience. Hopefully in the future I will find more ways to help in the effort of dismantling white and male privilege.