Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Paper instructions:
Read an article by Peggy McIntosh titled Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. The article is posted on blackboard under the assignments tab. In the article, McIntosh lists numerous ways in which white privilege affects her own life.After reading this article, answer/consider the following questions and statements. You must respond to all of these particular questions and statements in order to get full credit for the paper.
For page one:
1. Create your own list of ways in which your race/ethnicity and gender affect your life in both positive and negative ways. Your list must include at least 6 items and the number of items should be roughly equal between race/ethnicity and gender.
a. If you repeat only what McIntosh listed, you will receive no credit for this assignment. You can think of unique ways that race/ethnicity and gender affect your life.
For page 2 and on,
2. Looking over McIntosh’s list, choose two-three of the points that she makes that you think are the most influential or important. Explain why you choose those particular points and why those points are the ones that you believe are the most influential or important.
3. Discuss the process of creating your list. Describe what you thought about in creating your list and how the things you listed affect your life (you do not need to do that for all of the items).
4. Finally, choose one item that demonstrates how your race/ethnicity affects your life and one item that demonstrates how gender affect your life that you believe is the most important.
a. Explain why these items were chosen as the most important.
b. Hypothesize about how this also affects others.
i. For example: If you discuss how gender is affecting your life in unique way, imagine how that same thing affects someone of the opposite gender.