White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack Summary

In 1988 Peggy McIntosh wrote an article called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. In the article she described the daily effects of white privilege and examples of conditions that prove one has white privilege.
The condition that stood out the most to me was item number forty-six, “I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin”. I remember seeing a bit on the news about this problem a few years ago. The fact that “nude” is usually depicted as a pale Caucasian tone. There is a lack of representation of truly nude items in the clothing and beauty industry. Undergarments that are nude reflect the same pale shade. Makeup, specifically foundation, has very few darker shades. Basically this shows how the standard was set to Caucasian women and not until recently has there been a shift towards including diversity. Condition forty-six should still be considered relevant.
A condition I would change would be condition number twelve. Condition twelve
As discussed in class there are many different factors that come into play when discussing privilege. There is social class, gender, ability, gender identity, sexual orientation and citizenship. The author was basically saying that she doesn’t feel like white privilege applied to her because she grew up in a lower social class level. Which understandably has it’s challenges but I disagree with her. Out of all of those categories of privilege, skin color is the only one that cannot be faked. It is blatantly obvious and one cannot pretend they are considered in said category. In addition, Crosley- Corcoran still has more privilege than people of color in the same social class. The fact that she had the ability too climb the social class ladder and get an education proves how she has