49 pages • 1 hour read
Peggy McIntoshWhite Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1989A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Essay Topics
Most persuasive nonfiction begins with a description of the problem and ends with a call to action. How does McIntosh’s essay “White Privilege” follow this pattern or break from it? How does the structure of McIntosh’s argument help her make the points she wants to make?
How did reading McIntosh’s essay influence the way you think about matters of race in your own life?
Imagine you encounter a white person who says that her childhood poverty was more of a detriment to her than her whiteness was an advantage. Would this statement seem plausible to you? Using compassion and kindness, respond to this person. You may use essay or letter form.
One unanswered question in McIntosh’s essay is why she treats privilege as zero-sum. That is, she seems to assume that for one group to gain privileges another group must give them up. Does this assumption seem warranted to you? Why or why not.
Many people commented on the casting of a Black actor to play Ariel in Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Using insights from McIntosh’s essay, what do you make of such examples of “race-changing” in popular art and entertainment?
McIntosh’s extended metaphor of the “invisible knapsack” has 26 items in it. Do you agree with all her items? What would you add, and why? What would you remove, and why?
“White privilege” was published in 1989. Is it still relevant today? In what ways are McIntosh’s arguments still persuasive? In what ways have they become dated?
In 2012, science fiction author John Scalzi wrote a blog post titled “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.” Like McIntosh, he uses an extended metaphor: the difficulty settings of an imaginary video game called “The Real World.” It is by far the most-read piece of nonfiction Scalzi ever wrote and has received by far the most pushback. Based on insights from McIntosh’s much older essay, examine why Scalzi’s blog post garnered so much attention.
McIntosh cautions that merely disapproving of racism does nothing to lessen white privilege because it is invisible even to progressive white people. What then can a person who believes in equality do to even the playing field in the US today?
“Affirmative action” describes the effort to include or encourage members of minority or marginalized groups to participate in or apply for work, school, or other opportunities. It can be anything from hard quota numbers to marketing that targets members of groups that are usually underrepresented in the organization. Write an essay in which you defend or challenge such a policy.
