McIntosh Response

After reading White Privilage: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, I was extremely bothered by one of the last comments she had to say. I mean I suppose it could be true in a sense, but her just going out and saying that everyone is racist no matter what is kind of rediculous. Then when she says that men don't recognize their privilage, that bothers me as well. I understand that we have these invisible privilages, we've talked about it over and over, but has anyone ever touched base upon how everyone else is privilaged as well? Even if you are lower than "white men" there is a very good chance that you are way better off than a lot of people in this world. All over there are homeless people, abused families, and those who can't even take care of themselves for whatever reason. Like this family who can barely take care of their family because they have too many issues of their own http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3akft5wENjw. Those people are the underprivilaged, everyone else is just sweating the small stuff. They have the problems everyone else has, and more. Anyway, then there was a few bullet points that interested me, while others were just silly. Point 6 mentions how we learn about how our nationality made things the way they are. That is true and kind of unfair. I would like to know how everyone contributed to how everything is the way it is now, and yet all we see is how we did it. Then point 20 where she says how she can find all sorts of white toys and cards etc, but not any other kind of variety. It reminded me of what Heather had to say about how she had white dolls for the kids but none for the other races of kids. Then the rest of them kind of bothered me. Like point 4, anyone can be harrassed or followed and it happens all the time to all kinds of people. Then point 9 where she says how she can easily find music and such of her race represented. This is true because there are a lot of white singers, but there are also a lot of black and every other kind of singers I guess she forgot to mention that there was a whole bunch of other variety there too!! Basically I had many problems with this and don't care very much for it. Though it is just Wikipedia, it is a useful site and has much information on white privilege http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege