Privileges
[This is a post responding to Peggy McIntosh’s list of “white and male privileges”]
Peggy McIntosh’s list of white privileges moved me in certain ways. It wasn’t the fact that I had been privileged with most of the items on the list; or the fact that I know black people I’m close with have been forced to fight for those privileges while they know they’ll never gain them in this lifetime; but it was the few facts that I had never even thought of. Things I didn’t consider privileges before I thought about them. That was the way this list of privileges I am granted with affected me.
46: I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
I don’t walk through CVS and worry about the fact that “flesh” colored bandages won’t match my skin. Even worse than that, I am not forced to wonder why the universal color for “flesh” is clearly not the color of my flesh. Furthermore, if the universal color for “flesh” is not mine, I’m forced to contemplate whether my color is wrong. These are worries that arise from one box of bandages. I am privileged to be able to walk into a drugstore and buy bandages that will roughly match my skin tone without having to wonder if I’m “wrong.”
14: I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
This was the strongest phrase in this entire list. To think that a parent can’t have the assurance of knowing their child will be safe all because their skin color is not white is disgusting. I tend to think that a lot of over-emotional claims are made of racism, whether it be a kid not doing well on a test because the teacher is “obviously racist,” or a black young man not getting the job he applied for because the manager is a “bigot,” but this fear of protecting your children I feel for. I want to be a father when I grow up, and I hope that I won’t ever have to experience black parents being tormented by the fear that their kid will be harmed due to his/her skin. I hope society will have come far enough, even though I’m sure it won’t have, that a black kid’s childhood will be as safe as any white kids. When I read this line, my aspirations to be a dad had my heart go out to black parents and made me relieved that I was white in this world.