WHITE PRIVILEGE

"WHITE PRIVILEGE"

"Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy Mcintosh."


My name is Abner Richet. I have decided to write my blog on this essay by Peggy Mcintosh.

This essay reminds me strongly about an incident in Haiti that I witnessed in August of 2009 before the earthquake. I had the opportunity to take two caucasian friends, Garen and John, to Haiti. Garen had been to Haiti several times and surely knew what to expect. However,this was the very first time John had traveled to Haiti. Our very first week in Port-Au-Prince,we had a marvelous time downtown. We had the privilege to go; grocery shopping, bike riding, to the restaurants, and we saw a great deal of Haitian art. We also bought lots of Haitian goodies. We were having a wonderful time down there.

One day John, Garen, three of my Haitians cousins, and I went to Delimart store, which is part of a popular market chain in Haiti. There are lots of major department stores, super markets, banks, and gas stations, and bureaus. There are armed guards for security purposes in these establishments. Their jobs are to stop people who are shop lifting and to protect tourist customers. The very first thing that I experienced upon of our arrival in the store, one of the security guards asked everybody to surender their bags before entering the store. Luckily, I did not have a bag with me; Garen had his fanny pack with him; my other freind John had his backpack with him; and my three cousins had bags they were carrying as well. I was amazed to see the security guards let John and Garen go into the market without having to surrender their bags, while my three cousins were required to surrender theirs.

We went in the store, and I can remember, we maybe spent 30 minutes to one hour. Right after we finished with our shopping, we went to the cash register and we made our purchases. On our way out from the store, my three cousins went to the security to retrieve their belongings. Before we left the store, I politely went to that one security guard who questioned my three cousins to surrender their bags while John and Garen were not questioned. I said to him," What you did was so wrong; it was really sad the fact that my cousins were asked to leave their bags while you did not even bother to ask those two caucasian males to leave their bags behind. Those two caucasian males are my friends, and I brought them here with me on vacation from the United States. In case you did not know, I was born and raised here in this country, and I now live in the US. Because you live in Haiti, you may not understand the definition of racism, but I do. Because I have been living in the United States for quite sometime, I know exactly what its like to live in the shadow of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. your job is to ask everyone to leave their bags - or no one. In America I experienced racism in many ways."

For me to come to my home country to witness racism done to Haitians by other Haitians makes me sad. I kept talking to him, "In America, there is a word that is often used towards people of color that is called Stereotype. There would be many kind of nationalities in a department store shopping for the same purpose, there would be a hiden camera in the strore to monitor people who are shop lifting. That hiden camera would be focussing on black folks to make sure that they are not stealing anything, while other nationalities, including white people, are getting busy with stealing." The guard and his colleagues appeared surprized to hear this crticism. He answered with a soft voice,"The reason I did not ask the white people to leave their bags is because I know that they are tourists and sometimes they are afraid of leaving their personal belongings including their pasports and other important documents with strangers." He said to me, he realized he was wrong and that he will never do that again., I certainly did not fall for that answer, but I saw it as an excuse just to get himself off the hook. He had a smile on his face, and he seemed sincere.

Peggy Mcintosh who is a white woman has some realistic words to say about white privilege in the essay, "White Privilege" she wrote.

HERE ARE A FEW OF THEM

"I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time"

"I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me."

"I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed by security."


"I can turn on my television or open to the fron page of the paper and see people of my race

widely represented."

"When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what is."


"I can speak in public with a powerful male group wihout putting my race on trial."


"I can critisize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider."

I stongly support those comments that were made by Ms. Peggy Mcintosh. White Privilege is a word my generation would find very inadequate and find hard to understand what it really means to be white and to play the privilege of it. White privilege does not only occurr in America, like some of us seem to be mistaken, rather than all over the world. That one experience I witnessed in Haiti with my two white friends has proved to me that whites were destined to be privileged, but some of them have failed to realize it. Who would have imagined a poor country like Haiti would happen to be on the contest of segregation? Well, from my own experience as a Haitian American, "YES" prejudice and social-class have been playing a major role in that poor island for a very long period of time for as long as I can remember. My two white friends did not have any idea that the Haitian security guard would actually let them go scott-free without having to leave their bags like everone else.


INTERDISCIPLINARY CLASS

TAUGHT: BY RACHEL DAVID AND RUTH GREGORY

POSTED BY STUDENT: ABNER RICHET