Peggy Mcintosh Argument Against Racism

Sara Ahmed’s critique of white studies centered itself around the problems that arise when white people attempt to critically evaluate the role their own complacency has played in propagating white privilege. Ahmed points out, through her six declarations on whiteness, that the main issue associated with white studies is that, in its attempt to present itself as not self-serving, most of what actually results serves to reinforce the dominance of whiteness and prioritize the feelings of white individuals over those that the writer, whether deliberately or inadvertently, has deemed as “other”. Ahmed would have focused on the self serving elements of Peggy McIntosh’s piece, deconstructing McIntosh “unpacking of [the] invisible knapsack”. In doing so, Ahmed would seek to reveal that despite how commendable McIntosh’s intentions may have first appeared, her piece is actually far more beneficial for her than it beneficial for actually resolving the problems of white privilege. Declaration 3 of Ahmed’s piece states “I am/we are ashamed by my/our racism”. Ahmed argues that this acknowledgement of racism allows white people to mistake feeling badly or shameful about their racism with
McIntosh talks of how white privilege often is not discussed and how traditional schooling fails to explain the integral role white privilege plays within society. Still, her piece seems to suggest, McIntosh has become enlightened about white privilege and that this awareness has given her a new outlook on aspects of her life she otherwise “took for granted”. Sara Ahmed would cite McIntosh’s newfound knowledge as deeply rooted in the widely held belief that racism is centered in ignorance and thus, anti-racism is rooted in knowledge. This is a classist approach to understanding racism. McIntosh aligns herself with the progressive type of “new whiteness” that is “not equally available to all whites, let alone any