In Peggy McIntosh's article White Privilege she explores the assumptions and notions she has about white privilege. McIntosh relates it to noticing men discounting the privilege that they have, noticing that the same thing happens with whiteness. One passage that I found I could agree with is on pg. 3 it says, "...as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated." After many other readings about the same topic of white privilege, one thing that I have come to realize is that white privilege is perpetuated everywhere. We as teacher have to fight hard against curricula, resources and media promoting white privilege.
One thing I'm not so sure I agree with is when McIntosh said, "...I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious." When it comes to male privilege I feel that those who truly exercise it to an extent know what they are doing. I think that unfortunately, still a lot of males think that women cannot do certain things that men can, which we all know is preposterous. I do feel though that there are quite a few men who believe that they are superior to women.
The quote that urges me to take action is in the list of privileges that McIntosh writes out, "6. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is." This is just one of the things in this article that gets me going because generally when you are learning about the country you are in school, that makes this point something that we as teachers can challenge by providing books with historical figures of color. We can teach a curriculum that is not as white-centered as it has been up to this point.
I agree with and like that you mentioned, "We as teachers have to fight hard against curricula, resources and media promoting white privilege." I completely agree. This will not be easy and it will be largely a personal crusade within our classroom. We also need to make it a public crusade against the media, textbook publishers and resources that focus on a single story. Teaching is both a personal crusade in the classroom and a public crusade for systemic change. I appreciate the fact that Lewis and Clark sees teachers as change agents both within and outside of the classroom.
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