White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack.

Taken from the Article: 11. I feel confident that I can protect my children from people who do not like them most of the time (Paraphrased). I chose this from McIntosh's list to isolate specifically some of the issues I have with her logic. Just so I understand her correctly, it seems she suggests that it's a white privilege to protect my children from people who do not like them. I didn't realize my children would need protecting from people who, "do not like them". I'm sure plenty of people are not going to like my children or me for that matter. How this has anything to do with being white is beyond me. I admit that some of her points addressed in this white guilt list are valid to today's society, most notably the issue of job discrimination favoring white men. This issue continues to exist as both a racial and sexual discrimination in the work place.
  But some of these "privileges" are vague, far fetched, and more dependent on class than race. The point of view Peggy McIntosh should have identified with more accurately was Upper Class White Privilege. I found it interesting that she never talked about her financial background or where she grew up. I suppose I could be pegging her all wrong.

Omni & Winnant: Racial Formation.


"As a result of prior efforts and struggles, we have now reached the point of fairly general agreement that race is not a biologically given but rather a socially constructed  way of differentiating human beings" (128).

As an individual pursuing a curriculum of history and social studies I found this statement to express a similar perception of race I share better than I could have said myself. Where Omni and Winnant went further in expressing that the extreme arguments surrounding race are both antiquated I couldn't agree more. You cannot simply make race an abstract construct or argue that race is some concrete object that purveys all aspects of our lives. In the end as both writers express, the idea of race falls somewhere in the middle. That it exists as a balance between something that cannot be denied and something that is more a human idea than a human trait.

Hollins Relating Ethnic & Racial Identity 

I'm sure everyone reading this selection was loath to identify with "type one" teachers. I can personally attest to experiencing my fair share of "type one" teachers as a student growing up.
I would be lying if I told you I was a step three teacher. I would certainly like to think I come closer to step two but then my students would be better judges of this than myself. I truth I have never thought about the idea that being white and not feeling a positive sense of my own culture might be playing a part in racial tensions between whites and other cultures.

It's hard for me to identify what I am doing in a classroom that may be ruled by perceptual schema developed during my early childhood. I think about my experiences as a  Girls basketball coach. Some of my players are black. Reading text like this started to poke at my resolve and begged the question as to whether I was unconsciously not recognizing the difference in cultural perspective they may have. I have a good relationship with these girls but I wonder if some of my chiding at certain behavior I found to be counter-productive had more to do with my own limitations than theirs.