Progressive Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Tote Bag
decivitate.substack.com
This piece is inspired entirely by Peggy McIntosh’s classic article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” to which I am immeasurably indebted. I have noticed lately that my liberal-progressive friends have begun casually adopting the tools of gender and race studies in their daily lives, scrutinizing not just American society as a whole, but their own personal relationships through the lens of feminism and other critical disciplines. It is more and more common for me to see discussions where an argument is not answered with a counter-argument, but with an accusation of blindness based on the arguer’s “unchecked privilege.” (I do not deny that I find many of these accusations to be high comedy. This spring’s anti-microaggression campaign at St. Olaf College – already a bastion of political correctness – was perhaps the silliest thing that has ever happened, ever.)
Progressive Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Tote Bag
Progressive Privilege: Unpacking the…
Progressive Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Tote Bag
This piece is inspired entirely by Peggy McIntosh’s classic article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” to which I am immeasurably indebted. I have noticed lately that my liberal-progressive friends have begun casually adopting the tools of gender and race studies in their daily lives, scrutinizing not just American society as a whole, but their own personal relationships through the lens of feminism and other critical disciplines. It is more and more common for me to see discussions where an argument is not answered with a counter-argument, but with an accusation of blindness based on the arguer’s “unchecked privilege.” (I do not deny that I find many of these accusations to be high comedy. This spring’s anti-microaggression campaign at St. Olaf College – already a bastion of political correctness – was perhaps the silliest thing that has ever happened, ever.)