"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" is a 1989 essay written by American feminist scholar and anti-racist activist Peggy McIntosh. [1] [2] [3] It covers 50 examples, or hidden benefits, [4] from her perspective, of the privilege white people experience in everyday life. [5]
McIntosh outlines "invisible systems" at work, [1] as well as the main theme of an "invisible package of unearned assets", examined in the form of a metaphorical knapsack. The essay features 50 of her insights into experiential white privilege, listed numerically. These have been described as "small benefits that white Americans enjoy every day". [6]
The Atlantic has written that the intention behind the essay was to inspire "self-reflection, enhancing their capacity for empathy and compassion". [7] It has been described by Vice as one of the most authoritative texts on the subject of white privilege, [8] and The Harvard Gazette have called it a "groundbreaking article" and the most important of McIntosh's academic career. [9] It has been cited as responsible for the mainstreaming of discussion of white privilege, [10] becoming a "staple of discussions about bias" in society. [11] In 2018, artwork and studies inspired by the essay had become popular in social justice sections of social media, such as Tumblr. [12]
The essay has become one of the key teaching resources in the study of white privilege in the United States and Canada. [13] [8] In 2016, some New York City public schools assigned the essay to high school students. [4] In 2017, a high school in Caledon, Ontario, incorporated the essay in an 11th grade anthropology class. [13] Conor Friedersdorf recommended including the essay in college curricula. [14]
McIntosh's essay inspired "Privilege Walks", workshops, and other activities to help students identify their privileges. [15]
The origin of Privilege Walks (initially known as "Power Shuffles" [16] ) is often attributed to McIntosh in the 1990s. Although her essay inspired them, in 2021, McIntosh denied any association with such practices and emphatically discouraged engaging in them:
I did not invent the exercises... and in fact I urge people not to undertake such exercises. They are too simple for complex experiences relating to power and privilege. I don’t know where they originated. They seem to answer a craving for instant one-size-fits-all awakenings. I think they are counterproductive. [16]
This exercise, inspired by Peggy McIntosh's (1989) "White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack," helps learners locate themselves within a spectrum of environmental privilege, centering the roles of socio-economic class, race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, and global disparities in environmental experience.