Slapped by the White

I have read McIntosh’s article prior to ever taking the course. Coming across it again in a Women Studies class did not surprise me. The considerable amount of truth coming from her piece made me ponder on how white people practice the arm of privilege in their everyday lives.

On a personal level I have been slapped with this white hand of privilege. In high school, where the student body was predominately Latino, and Asian the momentous amount of white people was most prevalent in the courses that I took. AP/IB classes did not welcome open arms of discussion of one’s heritage or beliefs. In fact, I felt almost subjected to hiding my cultural background. Upon reading Lopez and Hasso’s investigation on how Arab women and Latino women dealt with learning in a white institution made me reminisce the days when I would walk to into my White American History class and exchange notes with my white friend who daily “unpacked his invisible knapsack” of white privilege. I had no problem having white friends I got along well with everyone but when it came to getting in contact with my friends who were as much bruised by the white slapping, I felt like an outsider. In addition, to being an outsider at school I had to deal with being an outsider with my friends. They reproached me because I didn’t do things that would be normally seen as the acceptable to them. Besides being in different classes than my friends I also had to deal with fitting in with my water polo team. Water polo is the white man’s sport and seeing a brown body amidst a sea of lightly tan bodies appears funny to me now—the year book varsity pictures can attest to that.