Privilege

As I read through the McIntosh reading, I was challenged to realize the privileges afforded to me as both white and male. At first I was slightly offended although not much surprised simply because it's the big elephant in the room that gets mentioned quite often when it comes to human behavior and sociology. I understand the article is twenty years old and that racism and sexism both exist at the very least on a subtle level of the human conscience.

I do however take issue with some of the ones she listed for the white privileges, however the author did state that these are just her personal observations (although I still take some of her more general ones), and that they shouldn't be used to form generalities. I think that's probably the biggest problems with homophobia, racism and sexism is taking a small sect or extreme cases of those respective groups and making that the face and applying to the whole group. I also think that the author doesn't stress enough important on the economic position when making her list.

After reading the entire article I think the basis of being sexist or racist as a white/male is that the privilege however subtle or overbearing it is or isn't, is about maintaining any sort of advantage over everyone else. As a white male specifically it's very competitive culturally growing up here, and any sort of weakness is considered to be effeminate so giving up or even recognizing those advantages may result in the loss of them.