Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack has become a foundational text within educational work critical of racism. In her list, which Peggy McIntosh compiled as part of her essay “
White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies.”
published, she lists 50 items that name her personal white privilege. In doing so, she aims to illustrate the extent to which a position of whiteness involves structural advantages that racialized people fundamentally do not hold, in order to highlight and oppose racist relations of oppression.
Peggy McIntosh 1988: White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies. Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.