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Arriya Uong

WR 37, Fall 2019

Professor Lynda Haas

8 December 2019

Two Perspectives on White Privilege: A Rhetorical Analysis

The American conversation of race and power has been an issue within the United States

since America was first founded. Racism is socially constructed into our society and many

people don’t even realize it. For most of American history, one type of person was always the

leader and had the most power, the white male. A current example is the federal government, our

president and his administration are all white males. In 2016, Judge Aaron Perksy, a white male,

sentenced a white college student a lenient sentence for raping an unconscious girl (Cohen). He

only gave Stanford student, Brock Turner, six months in prison (Astor). Compared to this case,

in 2012, an African American mom was sentenced to five years in prison because she sent her

child to a school that was outside her district (“Mother Given…”). Here shows an example of

how many white people, especially males get away with so much things, plus how unfair the

court system can be towards individuals of color. Today, America struggles with stereotypes and

prejudices that were socially constructed into society, they lead people to jump to conclusions

and be negative towards a certain group of people. A type of race and social power is white

privilege, which has been around for about four hundred years, since 1619, when slaves were

brought to America (Guasco). Well, what exactly is whtie privilege? Lisette Meija says white

privilege is “a benefit that comes with having an ‘accepted’ skin color, regardless of other factors

like class or sexual orientation or gender.” Based on Cory Collin’s article, after the civil rights
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act of 1964, discrimination was still present in society and that’s why people started to think that

white privilege was subconsciously present and makes white people have this “lack of

awareness” of the power they have. Carl Liggins says having white privilege is not having to go

through the hardships that most people of color have to go through, such as having to deal with

racism, being the least likely to be selected for a job, and to be thought of as a criminal for no

reason.

Throughout most of America’s history up until present day America, white Americans

have always been considered superior. However, white privilege isn’t solely about a person’s

economic status, it’s about how they are given more advantages than someone who has a

different colored skin (Meija). Peggy McIntosh and Audre Lorde are both females born into the

pre-civil rights era and both lived dramatically different lives. McIntosh is a white feminist and

anti-racism activist and Lorde is an African American writer, poet, feminist, and civil rights

activist. In her text, McIntosh focuses on unearned advantages she had when growing up. Lorde

on the other hand focuses on a family trip that made her realize that America is white and people

of color don’t have the same rights as them. Although they are just life stories written over 20

years ago, they contribute to the ongoing conversation of white privilege. Furthermore, in her

text, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” McIntosh talks about education and

unearned advantages she and many other white Americans have. She explains that “knowledge is

white and knowledge is male” (McIntosh). She lists unearned advantages she has based on her

skin color and then explains how white Americans oppress minority groups. Lorde in her text,

“The Fourth of July,” expresses her anger through her story of her family trip to Washington

D.C. Her story is about pre-Civil Rights and happened during the Jim Crow era of US history.
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She angrily expresses how she found out the reality of America and that African Americans

don’t have the same opportunities or rights as white people.

Figure 1. ” The 5 Stages of White Privilege Awareness.” www.nancyrust.com

People don’t get to choose their skin color, they are born into their destiny and how the

world will treat them; people were born into slavery because of the dark color of their skin. Some

people were born into poverty. Sixteen percent of white Americans born into poverty will

eventually end up in the top one-fifth before they are forty years old; while for African

Americans, that percentage is just three (Mejia). White Americans are considered the ideal

employees for companies and more. It’s easier for a white American to climb their way up than

an African American. Figure 1 summarizes the racial wealth gap between, white, African, and

Hispanic Americans. The figure shows that white Americans make more money, about two and a

half times more than an African American. This implies that white Americans are given more

opportunities and better jobs with better pay than minority groups. In addition the stereotype of

an African American employee is that they are not hard workers and might steal things. These

stereotypes are not true, but society makes it seem that way and make people not want to hire

them.
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Both authors express how skin color affected their lives. McIntosh’s work is about

equality and how white men have power, and how people of color are treated differently. In her

text, she mentions how being a white female made her life easier compared to that of a person of

color, and to help support this quote she lists unearned advantages she has. Some advantages are

knowing that her neighbors will always be kind to her and that when she feels like she belongs

when she is in a meeting (McIntosh). Having white skin has helped her all her life. Lorde on the

other hand, noticed that her skin doesn’t help her. In her memoir, she talks about how her sister,

even though she went to a white school, had fewer opportunities, she couldn’t even go on the

school trip because she was black (Lorde 240). Also, because of her and her family’s skin, they

were limited to what they could do and had less freedom than a person with light, white skin. Her

family was born into segregation and the lack of freedom and opportunities. During 1947, the

time she wrote about, there was African American segregation, discrimination, and lynching. She

wanted to spread how bad times were back then and how things should change. McIntosh quotes

in her essay that “a ‘white’ skin in the United States opens many doors for white.” She is saying

that because a person is white they are given more opportunities than a person of color. Those

doors that are open to white Americans are jobs, government power (especially for men), and

freedom. Lorde, on the other hand mentioned that her family, “straight-backed and indignant,

one by one...got down from the counter stools and turned around and marched out of the store,

quiet and outraged as if we had never been black before” (242). Instead of the hypothetical door

being open for them to eat at the diner, it was closed. People of color had to and still have to face

closed doors. Currently, there are many people of color who still feel uncomfortable and
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unwelcomed in certain situations and locations. Lorde has felt this way for the majority of her

life. She and McIntosh were born into this same era, yet they have very different experiences.

White people are oblivious to the fact that white privilege is a thing. McIntosh’s piece

was written during the 1980’s, which was a time when important leaders realized “that America

could not afford to neglect its schools, nor any part of the rising generation“ (Ravitch). In her

text she lets her main audience of fellow scholars know that at first she didn’t even realize that

she oppressed others and had all of these advantages. White privilege only stood out to her when

she realized that male’s oppressiveness was unconscious, then she realized that women of color

have said that the white females they work with are oppressors. McIntosh says “my schooling

gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a

participant in a damaged culture.” She was taught, indirectly, that she was considered a norm and

better than people of color. According to Cory Turner, schools don’t usually teach slavery

because it is such a hard topic to teach. They usually focus on the positive side of things and

ignore the many hardships African American slaves had to go through (Turner). McIntosh wasn’t

taught about all of the cruel things white Americans did to slaves, so she didn’t know. On the

other side, Lorde wasn’t taught about oppression until she went out and realized it for herself.

Her parents tried to keep it a secret from her, to try to save her from reality. After her trip to

Washington D.C. she furiously expresses that “the waitress was white, and the counter was

white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington, D.C ...was white, and the white heat and the

white pavement and the white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick

to my stomach.” (242). Lorde saw all the advantages and privileges white people have and had.

They were prevented from doing many things because of their skin color. Expressing to her main
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audience of fellow black communities, she showcases the anger she felt at the time. She

expresses how mad she was when she realized reality. Her main topic for this writing is civil

rights and how blacks were treated so differently back when she was growing up. She talks about

the things her and her family couldn’t do during that time because of the color of their skin. She

felt like white people were oblivious to white advantages and wanted to show them that it’s not

right nor fair. Back then, white people would just go on with their days and not even realize how

cruel they treated people of color. They wanted to segregate from anybody who was different

and not like them. They didn’t realize how much they were oppressing African Americans.

Likewise, present white American males are still trying to keep their power and would do

anything to keep their own type high in power. Technically, they are, in a way, slightly trying to

segregate people of color from the government. Furthermore, in the past they didn’t realize how

they prevented a whole community from increasing and improving their knowledge. All they did

was care about their own race, and how they can improve and be better. For example, in Thomas

C. Holts piece, “Knowledge is Power: The Black Struggle for Literacy,” where he talks about

slavery and what happened after it, he expresses that “if blacks were to receive any education at

all, it had to be of a type that wouldn’t change anything fundamental in the southern labor and

social systems” (97). They would receive one that they couldn’t grow from. Whites only gave

the African Americans used books and didn’t help them to build schools or gave them many

teachers, and if they did provide teachers, the teachers would say that the black students don’t

have the ability to learn and belittle the African American students (Holt 101). The black

community couldn’t have grown with used materials that had missing pages and inaccurate

information. However, white people got new materials, clean and nicely-built schools. White
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people sometimes don’t even realize they have these advantages and don’t even realize they are

oppressing others.

White Americans have always had more opportunities and advantages than people of

color. According to Paul F. Campos, in 2009, African American low-waged job applicants got

called back at half the rate as a white American with the same qualifications. Plus, white

Americans who just got out of prison have a better chance at getting a job than African

Americans and Latinos who have a clean record (Campos). Companies and employers are

mainly calling back white Americans and aren’t giving much people of color opportunities for

the jobs the provide. Cory Collins says a reason for this is because if they gave more jobs to

people of color the community of white Americans can’t rise and have more “economic

opportunities.” Again, looking at the current government officials who are high in the line is an

example. They’re all old white males.

Society has been shaped like this for all of American history and it seems like the

government and all the white men in charge want to keep it that way. McIntosh lists unearned

advantages such as criticizing the government and not being judged because of her skin color,

and if she was ever pulled over it wouldn’t be because of her skin color (McIntosh). Sometimes

African American people are pulled over for no reason and are searched for no such reason based

off of all the videos on social media. Plus, if a person of color was to insult the government

people would think that they don’t belong and aren’t true Americans. McIntosh said “white

privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports,

codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.” She realized these are most of all the assets

she has received easily just because she was born white. Many people of color have to apply for
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passports and visas. They have to wait years to get these things, however, white people, get it so

easily. Lorde on the other hand experienced many events in her life that showed the many

opportunities she didn’t get to share with white people. She says in her text that her “mother

never mentioned that black people were not allowed into railroad dining cars headed south in

1947” (239). Even one tiny thing as being in the same dining car as white people wasn’t allowed.

If something so small wasn’t allowed, then it can be implied that they weren’t allowed to do

many other things, especially big things like having a government position. In addition, she

mentions how they couldn’t sleep in the same hotel as white people and had to go to their own,

and that they weren’t even allowed to eat at the same diners or restaurants (Lorde 240-242).

These were some of the many rules back then during the Jim Crow era. African Americans were

only allowed into shops, diners, or hotels that belonged to fellow African Americans. Today,

there are no segregation laws, but black people feel like they don’t belong, and they still do feel

segregated in certain situations. Even today, even though our population is so diverse, schools

are still so segregated. According to Richard Rothstein, these schools are segregated because

they are located in “segregated neighborhoods” that are far from the nice middle and upper class

neighborhoods. He mentioned to desegregate schools, the neighborhoods need to be

desegregated. However, society makes it seem wrong to blend neighborhoods. Most cities are

known for their poverty and the many homeless people. Moreover, schools that contain mostly

minority groups don’t have efficient and beneficial resources and teachers to provide the

education needed to prepare students for college and life. This is because these schools don’t

have the funding for these materials like white neighborhood schools whose community has the

money to donate and provide these materials. Not gaining the knowledge and education they
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need, minority students will have a hard time trying to succeed in life, leading them to less likely

be accepted to favorable schools and get well-supporting jobs. Minority groups can’t really grow

in society because white males in power make it hard for them.

Even though Peggy McIntosh and Audre Lorde were born into the same era, they both

express the same idea of white privilege and white power. In their texts that were made twenty

plus years ago, they both contribute materials and ideas to the current conversation of white

privilege. White privilege has been around for pretty much all of United States history. That is

why it is subconsciously embedded into white people’s minds. Many white people don’t see it

and get rather very offensive when the topic of white privilege is talked about. White fragility is

when a little bit of racial stress becomes intolerable and white people start getting defensive and

feel guilty and try to self-pity themselves (Alder-Bell). It’s when white people try to defend

themselves and say they don’t have privileges, that they’re poor and have worked so hard to get

where they are today. However, they don’t realize that the color of their skin has opened up so

many doors for them and that because of their skin color they have twice, probably even more,

the amount of opportunities a person of color has. Today, people are struggling to grow in power

and white people, especially white men, make it challenging for people of color and women to

rise in society and become better and successful. White men are in charge and have always been

in charge. White privilege does exist and has always excited from the start of American history.

White people have more advantages and opportunities than minority groups and many don’t see

how much they have oppressed other races and groups and have seen the damage they have done

and created.
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Works Cited

Alder-Bell, Sam. “America's White Fragility Complex: Why White People Get so Defensive

about Their Privilege.” ​Salon​, Salon.com, 18 Mar. 2015, ​https://www.salon.com/2015/03/

17/the_white_fragility_complex_why_white_people_gets_so_defensive_about_their_priv

ilege_partner/.

Astor, Maggie. “California Voters Remove Judge Aaron Persky, Who Gave a 6-Month Sentence

for Sexual Assault.” ​The New York Times, ​The New York Times, 6 June 2018, https://

www.nytimes.com/2018/06/06/us/politics/judge-persky-brock-turner-recall.html.

Campos, Paul F. “White Economic Privilege Is Alive and Well.” ​The New York Times,​ The New

York Times, 29 July 2017, ​https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/opinion/sunday/​black-

income-white-privilege.html.

Cohen, Claire. “Judge Who Gave Stanford Sex Attacker Brock Turner 6 Month Jail Sentence Is

Recalled from the Bench.” ​The Telegraph,​ Telegraph Media Group, 6 June 2018, https://

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/judge-gave-stanford-sex-attacker-brock-turner-6-month

-jail-sentence/.

Collins, Cory. “What Is White Privilege, Really?” ​Teaching Tolerance,​ 2018,

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2018/what-is-white-privilege-really

Guasco, Michael. “The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S.

Damages Our Understanding of American History.” ​Smithsonian.com​, Smithsonian

Institution, 13 Sept. 2017, ​https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/misguided-​focus-1

619-beginning-slavery-us-damages-our-understanding-american-history-180964873/.

Holt, Thomas “’Knowledge is Power’: The Black Struggle for Literacy.” The Right to Literacy,
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Andrea A. Lunsford, Helene Moglen, and James Slevin, eds. New York: MLA, 1990.

91-102.

Liggins, Carl. “​Bold Expressions w/ Carl: White Privilege on Apple Podcasts.” ​Apple Podcasts​,

30 Apr. 2019, ​https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bold-expressions-w-carl/id14611330

19?i=1000436954746.

Lorde, Audre. “Full Text of ‘the_fourth_of_july’ .” ​Internet Archive​, 13 Feb. 2016, ​https://

archive.org/stream/the_fourth_of_july/the_fourth_of_july_djvu.txt​.

McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” ​Peace and Freedom

Magazine,​ July 1989, pp. 10-12, ​https://docs.google.com/document/d/12nTwUnEz1

GJmHtfDl6sHxVL5QsY59RSkoGfc8mqRsxc/edit​.

Mejia, Lisette. “We Must All Talk About White Privilege.” ​POPSUGAR News,​ 15 Mar. 2016,

https://www.popsugar.com/news/What-White-Privilege-40523831.

“Mother Given 5 Yrs Prison for Sending Child to School Outside Her District.” ​Your Black

World​, An Elite Cafemedia Lifestyle, 6 Mar. 2012, ​http://yourblackworld.net/2012/03/06/

mother-given-5-yrs-prison-for-sending-child-to-school-outside-her-district/.

Rothstein, Richard. “Modern Segregation.” ​Economic Policy Institute,​ 6 Mar. 2014,

https://www​.

epi.org/publication/modern-segregation/.

Rust, Nancy. “The 5 Stages of White Privilege Awareness.” ​Nancyrust.com​, 27 Feb. 2014, ​http://

www.nancyrust.com/2014/02/the-5-stages-of-white-privilege-awareness-4/​.

Turner, Cory. “Why Schools Fail To Teach Slavery's 'Hard History'.” ​NPR​, NPR, 4 Feb. 2018,
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https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/04/582468315/why-schools-fail-to-teach-​slaver

ys-hard-history.