5/24/2023 0 Comments Knapsack of white privilege![]() “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious. ![]() “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege,” wrote Peggy McIntosh. The Invisible Teacher Bag of White Privilege Once I began to examine the contents of the invisible tool bag I carried with me each day, I realized that every white teacher in America has a responsibility to do the hard work of examining their internal biases and seeing the world through the lens of racially-based social hierarchy if they ever hope to be an effective teacher to non-white students. Once I began to unpack it, the disconnect between me and my students became clear. I didn’t understand how pervasive a factor my race was until I sat down with my invisible teacher bag full of privilege. A more complex - and ultimately, more important - answer to this question is that although we may use our intellectual tools the same way, the world responds differently to white people critically thinking, reading, writing, calculating, speaking, and criticizing than they do to black and brown people doing the same thing.Īnd if the tools I teach them are going to be used and perceived by the world in a way I have never experienced, how can I truly prepare them? I naively asked myself many times, “If I’m objectively teaching them the skills they need to discover the world for themselves, what does it matter if I’m white and they’re black? Don’t we all use our intellectual tools the same way?”Ī simple answer to this question is ‘yes,’ I learned we all use our skills to critically think, read, write, calculate, speak, and criticize similarly. I saw myself as a gender-less, race-less, sexuality-less, age-less, anti-political purveyor of knowledge. But I made a rookie mistake: I overestimated my excitement to work with them as being enough I mistook the influence my race had in my classroom. I was honored to work with my students, and I was honored to work in a socioeconomic community which mirrored my own growing up. I was a white woman (which is the typical demographic of America’s public school teachers) teaching mostly brown and black children (which is the typical demographic of America’s public school students) in the hood. ![]() In 2016, my high school English classroom was exactly the type of classroom Christopher Emdin had in mind when he wrote his book For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood. With reflection, it can also be a turning point for you. This list provided a turning point for me in my work as a young educator because I reframed it and applied it to my job as a white teacher working with non-white children. In this excerpt, she details a list of 50 ‘Daily Effects of White Privilege,’ which is a widely used guide for unpacking the invisible knapsack of racial privilege in anti-racist workshops. Peggy McIntosh is a gender equity scholar and the author of White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, an excerpt from her paper “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988). Introduction: Peggy McIntosh and the Invisible Knapsack Understanding the invisible tools you possess as a white educator can help you scale the racial barrier between you and your students of color to produce a more equitable school environment. White Educator Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Teacher Bag
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