Peggy McIntosh, author of "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, au as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow "them" to be zaidi like "us."
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting au purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral au pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed au harassed.
5. I can turn on the televisheni au open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage au about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
7. I can be sure that my children will be aliyopewa curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
9. I can go into a muziki duka and count on finding the muziki of my race represented, into a maduka makubwa and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's duka and find someone who can cut my hair.
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards, au cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
12. I can swear, au dress in secondhand clothes, au not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to bad morals, the poverty, au the illiteracy of my race.
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much i fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge," I will be facing a person of my race.
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over au if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
21. I can go nyumbani from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, au feared.
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in au will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
24. I can be sure that if I need legal au medical help, my race will not work against me.
25. If my day, week, au mwaka is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode au situation whether it has racial overtones.
26. I can choose blemish cover au bandages in "flesh" color and have them zaidi au less match my skin.
In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness kwa members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
Such terrific guidelines for life!
