Discrimination is one of the major problems in our society today. This discrimination is not only limited to race but further extends to gender, nationality, education, physical appearance and even social status. According to the article “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh the heart of this problem rests in our basic understanding of these scenarios. We are taught by our society that these particular groups are underprivileged so we need to help but the major problem that is often ignored and may even be considered taboo to address is that certain groups are outright over privileged; may it be males over females or whites over blacks. This analogy that Peggy McIntosh sketches is quite fascinating to me I actually never considered this as a possibility. I just thought that racism and sexism are societal discretement. Therefore, these notions are foul fragments of our society and they must be actively eradicated. However; I never realized that it could just be the opposite i.e. certain people are just over privileged because of social hierarchies and how (as in race, community, social status, gender etc.) they are born so these privileges should be take down instead of tacking underprivileged individuals.
Most civilizations/societies are formed with an innate fault of some kind of pecking order. These errors are responsible for blessing certain people with enhanced privileges as opposed to others just as Peggy McIntosh listed all the privileges she had over others in her society just because of her skin color and the worst part is that I she was a man with the same skin color this list of privileges would keep on growing. Some of these privileges are present in every society but there are others that on pertain to one’s phenotypical traits and social status.
This privilege was one of the principle causes that gave birth to the idea of “The White Man’s Burden” which basically meant that White people are superior to other races in all aspects of life such as religion, education, technology and much more so it was their responsibility to help elevate other races that they considered to be primordial or savage. America as a nation carried this idea around the globe first for “Manifest Destiny” (spreading from Atlantic to Pacific “sea to shining sea”) and then for imperialism (spreading beyond the borders to other countries). The White man’s burden was used as an excuse to interfere in Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Puerto Rico, Egypt, Vietnam and many other areas around the world. All this ties back to the idea of over privileged societies (the White races in this case).
In the article “Racism without Racists” Edwardo Bonilla-Silva list a lot of statistical information such as the ratio of races stereotyped, number of Latinos that express high affect towards blacks and many more to show how racism is still prevalent even though societies generally deny it or they unconsciously incorporate it into their systems. Some of the examples include segregated societies based on race scattered all around the country such as “residential segregation among Asians and Latinos” as discussed by Silvia. Such societies are also prevalent in Brooklyn like Brighton beach is a place where there is a high density of Russian population.