Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Xanh Tran

ASA 002 - A01

Response #4: White Privilege and Male Privilege

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

           McIntosh’s description of the way most men deny their overprivileged status made me reflect on myself and my relationship with my privilege. I recognized that I have certain unearned advantages over others, and have often sympathized or even pitied those who I knew were underprivileged, such as the token poor, starving children in Africa. But as McIntosh points out, there is a difference between recognizing and accepting, and yet a wider gap between accepting it and doing something about it. As she puts it, “Having described it, what will I do to lessen it?” Some of the privileges I know I don’t enough to return are my access to higher education and my family stability.

          Privilege is also strongly tied to the concept of a meritocracy. Once you acknowledge that unearned privilege exists, you must also acknowledge that by nature, a meritocracy cannot. This connects to the debate and controversy over SCA 5, affirmative action, and race- or gender- conscious programs.

          My question now is, what other unearned privileges are many people, including myself, gaining from without even realizing it? It is human nature to know what you don’t have, but how hard is it to recognize what you do have?