Extending the Knapsack: Using the White Privilege Analysis to Examine Conferred Advantage and Disadvantage

Abstract

This article describes a self-awareness activity that utilizes a directed reading on privilege and a small-group discussion format to examine unearned disadvantage and unearned advantage in one’s life. This exercise can help clinicians to better understand systemic and individual sources of power and privilege in society. Beginning with my previous work on white privilege, students can extend this analysis to other domains of privilege, including, for example, gender, class, sexuality, age, nationality, and physical ability, to name a few. The primary goals of this reflective exercise are to help clinicians understand how clients’ lives are influenced by societal disadvantages and advantages, to encourage a new understanding of oneself, and to increase empathy towards clients.

KEYWORDS:

• awareness-raising
• circumstances of birth
• class
• disadvantage
• ethnicity
• gender
• privilege
• race
• serial testimony
• sexual orientation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article includes an authorized excerpt of McIntosh’s original white privilege article, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies,” Working Paper 189 (1988), Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College, MA, 02481. © Peggy McIntosh 1988.