Review video and materials below, and follow the discussion assignment instructions below.
Video: https://youtu.be/GTvU7uUgjUI?feature=shared
Then reflect here on any or all of the following questions:
What surprised you most about the Power Privilege Checklist and why?
How have the various forms of power/privilege and/or the lack thereof, impacted you personally in life?
The phrase “white privilege,” can sometimes be heard/processed as a personal attack – even when that is not the intention of the speaker. It is common to hear relatively-non-racist people say something along the lines of, “What do you mean ‘white privilege?’ Nobody gave me anything. I worked hard for everything I’ve ever gotten in life.” The defensive reaction is so common, that scholars have coined the term, ‘white fragility’ to describe it.
Full disclosure: I personally identify as Caucasian, and this was my first gut-reaction upon hearing the phrase for the first time as well. I get it now, but didn’t then. The first time I heard it, it sounded to my subconscious mind like, “Everything you have was given to you because you are white. You have done something terrible to all people who are not white and are enjoying the advantages of that terrible thing you did.”
So my question is – Does the phrase, “white privilege” get the job done? Is it the best and most effective way to communicate the concept? It certainly seems accurate once one has taken some time to get past that initial, defensive gut reaction – but doesn’t it cause far more people to put up a defensive wall and “fight back” as opposed to listen further? Can you think of a better way to communicate the concept of systemic advantages? Perhaps one that might not be so instantly processed as a direct and personal attack? Or is that, “slap in the face,” a necessary and valuable part of waking people up to the ways that other people experience the world?
The  Power  Privilege  Checklist  
Media  10  
 
This  exercise  is  to  help  you  consider  those  areas  of  your  life  in  which  you  have  privilege  
and  those  areas  in  which  you  do  not.  Check  off  or  circle  in  each  column  the  descriptions  
that  most  apply  to  you.    
 
MORE  PRIVLEGED  
LESS  PRIVLEGED  
Men  
Women  
White  
People  of  color  
Heterosexual  
Lesbian,  gay,  bisexual  
Non-­‐transgender  
Transgender  
Wealthy  
Poor  
Adult    
Child  
Traditionally  educated  
Self-­‐educated  
Society’s  definition  of  sane  
Other  than  society’s  definition  of  sane  
Temporarily  able-­‐bodied  
Differently-­‐abled  
Society’s  definition  of  attractive  
Other  than  society’s  definition  of  attractive  
Society’s  definition  of  emotionally  stable  
Other  than  society’s  definition  of  emotionally  stable  
Young  adult  or  Middle-­‐aged  
Older  
English  speaking  
Other  language  speaking  
Average  size  
Other  sizes  
White  collar  
Blue  collar  
Non-­‐institutionalized  
Institutionalized  
Non-­‐victims  
Survivors  
Christian  
Those  with  other  beliefs  
North  American  
The  rest  of  the  world  
Two  heterosexual  parents  per  family  
Other  family  compositions  
Healthy  
Less  healthy  
Landowners  
 
 
Tenants  
 
 
 
Confronting  Media  Privilege  (by  Laura  Portwood  Stacer,  PhD)  
 
Check  all  that  apply  to  you.  
   
Gender  
• I  can  name  a  Hollywood  director  who  is  the  same  gender  as  I  am.  
• I  can  name  five  Hollywood  directors  who  are  the  same  gender  as  I  am.  
• I  rarely  see  jokes  on  tv  and  in  movies  mocking  my  gender.  
• When  the  lead  character  in  a  tv  show  or  movie  has  the  same  gender  as  I  do,  it’s  hardly  noticed  
or  commented  on  by  anyone.  
• When  a  celebrity  of  my  same  gender  wins  a  big  award,  their  gender  is  not  excessively  pointed  
out.  
• If  I  want  to  get  a  job  in  the  media  industries,  I  don’t  have  to  worry  about  being  pigeon-­‐holed  
into  certain  positions,  companies,  or  topic  areas  based  on  my  gender.  
   
Ethnicity  
• I  can  name  a  tv  show  where  most  of  the  main  characters  are  the  same  ethnicity  me.    
• I  can  name  five  tv  shows  where  most  of  the  main  characters  are  the  same  ethnicity  me.  
• I  can  name  a  Hollywood  director  who  is  the  same  ethnicity  as  I  am.  
• I  can  name  five  Hollywood  directors  who  are  the  same  ethnicity  as  I  am.  
• I  rarely  see  jokes  on  tv  and  in  movies  mocking  my  ethnicity.  
• When  a  celebrity  of  my  same  ethnicity  wins  a  big  award,  their  ethnicity  is  not  excessively  
pointed  out.  
• I  can  regularly  find  television  shows  in  the  same  language  my  parents  speak  at  home.  
• I  have  access  to  a  television  channel  in  the  same  language  my  parents  speak  at  home.  
• I  have  access  to  five  television  channels  in  the  same  language  my  parents  speak  at  home.  
• People  of  my  ethnicity  are  frequently  featured  on  the  covers  of  mainstream  magazines.  
• People  of  my  ethnicity  are  frequently  featured  in  advertisements.  
• If  I  want  to  get  a  job  in  the  media  industries,  I  don’t  have  to  worry  about  being  pigeon-­‐holed  
into  certain  positions,  companies,  or  topic  areas  based  on  my  ethnicity.  
   
Sexual  identity  
• When  tv  or  movie  characters  have  the  same  sexual  identity  as  I  do,  it  is  not  seen  as  
controversial.  
• I  can  name  a  tv  show  where  most  of  the  main  characters  have  the  same  sexual  identity  as  I  do.  
• I  can  name  five  tv  shows  where  most  of  the  main  characters  have  the  same  sexual  identity  as  I  
do.  
• I  can  name  a  Hollywood  director  who  has  the  same  sexual  identity  as  I  do.  
• I  can  name  five  Hollywood  directors  who  have  the  same  sexual  identity  as  I  do.  
• I  rarely  see  jokes  on  tv  and  in  movies  mocking  my  sexual  identity.  
• When  a  lead  character  in  a  tv  show  or  movie  has  the  same  sexual  identity  as  I  do,  it’s  hardly  
noticed  or  commented  on  by  anyone.  
• When  a  celebrity  of  my  same  sexual  identity  wins  a  big  award,  their  sexual  identity  is  not  
excessively  pointed  out.  
• People  of  my  sexual  identity  are  frequently  featured  in  advertisements.  
 
• I  can  name  five  shows  with  main  characters  who  share  my  gender  and  my  ethnicity  and  my  
sexual  identity.  
The Male Privilege Checklist
By Barry Deutsch
(With respect for and reference to the Peggy McIntosh article: Unpacking the Invisible
Knapsack)
1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are
probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are
skewed.
2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex –
even though that might be true.
3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex.
4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against
my entire sex’s capabilities.
5. I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are.
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances
are people will think I did a better job.
7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are
relatively low.
8. On average, I am taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces much
less than my female counterparts are.
9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.
10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not
be called into question.
11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary
parenting if I’m even marginally competent.
12. If I have children and a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.
13. If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I hire to take care
of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the press.
14. My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious
and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.
15. When I ask to see “the person in charge,” odds are I will face a person of my own
sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.
16. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my
sisters.
17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media
featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for
it; male protagonists were (and are) the default.
18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands
just as often.
19. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or
situation whether or not it has sexist overtones.
20. I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see
people of my own sex widely represented.
21. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.
22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.
23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
24. Even if I sleep with a lot of women, there is no chance that I will be seriously labeled
a “slut,” nor is there any male counterpart to “slut-bashing.”
25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual
availability.
26. My clothing is typically less expensive and better-constructed than women’s clothing
for the same social status. While I have fewer options, my clothes will probably fit better
than a woman’s without tailoring.
27. The grooming regimen expected of me is relatively cheap and consumes little time.
28. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the
same car.
29. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to
ignore.
30. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of
being called a bitch.
31. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being
seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a
general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called
“domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)
32. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always
include my sex. “All men are created equal,” mailman, chairman, freshman, he.
33. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be
questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
34. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t
change my name.
35. The decision to hire me will not be based on assumptions about whether or not I
might choose to have a family sometime soon.
36. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even
God, in most major religions, is pictured as male.
37. Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife
and children should be subservient to me.
38. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so
that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding
tasks.
39. If I have children with my girlfriend or wife, I can expect her to do most of the basic
childcare such as changing diapers and feeding.
40. If I have children with my wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to
make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career
sacrificed should be hers.
41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography,
and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal
to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer.
42. In general, I am under much less pressure to be thin than my female counterparts are..
If I am fat, I probably suffer fewer social and economic consequences for being fat than
fat women do.
43. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or
lover.
44. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to
“smile.”
45. Sexual harassment on the street virtually never happens to me. I do not need to plot
my movements through public space in order to avoid being sexually harassed, or to
mitigate sexual harassment.
45. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by
men.
46. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Peggy McIntosh
SECTION 1:
“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible
systems conferring dominance on my group”
Through work to bring materials from women’s studies into the rest of the curriculum, I
have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though
they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women’s
statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support
the idea of lessening men’s. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of
advantages that men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male
privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since
hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while
privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been
taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught
not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught
not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like
to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of
unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to
remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special
provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women’s studies
work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who
writes about having white privilege must ask, “having described it, what will I do to
lessen or end it?”
After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I
understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the
frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are
oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we
don’t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin
privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.
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. I was taught to see myself as
an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling
followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught
to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that
when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more
like “us.”
Section 2:
Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of
white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach
somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic
location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I
can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come
into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count
on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have
learned to mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an
area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to
me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be
followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my
race widely represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that
people of my color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the
existence of their race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only
member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in
which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented,
into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a
hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work
against the appearance of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like
them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own
daily physical protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if
they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’
attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having
people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute
the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and
behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a
person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t
been singled out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and
children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied
in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to
jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a
program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting,
even if my colleagues disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race
will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist
programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be
more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people
of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a
reflection on my race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers
on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or
situation whether it had racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and
advise me about my next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without
asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to
do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get
in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection
owing to my race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people
of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences
of my race.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less
match my skin.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in
those who deal with us.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family
unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and
social.

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