Privilege

While all of the readings assigned this week were very interesting and enlightening, I found myself particularly drawn to Peggy MacIntosh’s, “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. While I was reading it, I felt myself get especially full of emotion reading through her list of white privileges. Those feelings ranged from anger to jealousy to confusion to guilt then back to anger again because I could not claim those same privileges. I have a lot of confusion when it comes to what I identify as in terms of race. I am half Kenyan half American but usually just identify by saying, “as a person of color” so as not to ruffle anyone’s feathers or to identify as the “wrong” race. I cannot count the number of times a person has told me I am not black whenever I say something relating to black people or jokingly told me that I am the “whitest” black person they know. I’ve been asked why I don’t talk like a black person or have the same cultural traditions as many African American families which leads me to have to explain to them that my family is from Kenya and not all black people are from the same culture. I was raised by very open-minded parents who made it one of their goals to raise my brother and I in an environment where we wouldn’t feel our race defined who we were. That is why they decided to move us from a small town in South Dakota to Austin when we were little. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop me from realizing that I was not the “ideal” race or having some major identity issues when I got older.

       To give a little more background, my mother was born in a small, impoverished village in Eldoret, Kenya and overcame such large obstacles to get where she is now that it really makes me believe that anything is possible. My father grew up in completely opposite circumstances- he was born to a middle-class family in South Dakota and faced nowhere near the struggle my mom faced to get to where he is now. He is a middle-aged, educated, white man- society’s “ideal” citizen. That is, until he married a black woman and had two mixed kids. Anyways, back to Peggy MacIntosh’s article, she mentioned that it is important to identify your privileges. I realized that to better understand who I am and to turn some of the anger I feel knowing that society see’s the color of my skin as a disadvantage, I have to realize my privileges. I see my biggest privilege as having two loving parents who raised my brother and I in a safe and secure household free of drugs, abuse, or violence. Although we struggled financially early on, I never had to worry about much. All of my basic needs were met. While it might be easier to focus on what I don’t have, it is important to remember that privilege comes in all different forms and that I am in fact, quite privileged.