"White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies" by Peggy McIntosh

I really enjoyed reading "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies" by Peggy McIntosh. It was written in a straightforward manner, easy to follow, full of everyday examples of privileges that I guess people do not notice because such privileges are so common and people are so used to them that they do not consider them privilege, and finally because this reading selection helped me understand better the other two poems I read: "And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You" by Jo Carillo and " The Bridge Poem" by Donna Kate Rushin.

An issue I think McIntosh does not discuss in any detail in the selection, and that I believe is of some importance, is that once people recognize that they do enjoy a particular  privilege, they have to decide how to go about solving the privilege problem. I can see two ways in which this can be done, either by providing the privilege to the other group that did not enjoy it, in which case the privilege ceases being a privilege because everyone will enjoy it,  or by the people who are enjoying presently relinquishing the fruits of that privilege so that no one will enjoy that privilege. Because race and gender issues depend a lot on personal attitudes and beliefs I do not think that it will be feasible to end privilege by granting everyone the living conditions of the white male in the United States. It would require a major change in personal attitudes. I think that though affirmative action this country tried to effectuate the second alternative to ending privilege, relinquishing privileges, that white males have enjoyed and give it to those who do not enjoy the privilege, for example seats in colleges and universities.  The problem with this system is that the group "white male" selected to relinquish a privilege is also defined by class, and poor white males do not understand that they have enjoyed the privilege that they are being asked to relinquish. I am coming to the belief that to really understand social issues you cannot artificially divide and focus groups into isolated variables  such as : gender, race, etc. This is really complicated.