Categories
Blog

Repost from The New Yorker, “The Origins of ‘Privilege'”

Today on Joshua Rothman’s blog at The New Yorker, there is an interesting interview with Peggy McIntosh, one of the pioneers in the academic discussion of the concept of “privilege.” Here are some excerpts:

The idea of “privilege”—that some people benefit from unearned, and largely unacknowledged, advantages, even when those advantages aren’t discriminatory —has a pretty long history. In the nineteen-thirties, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about the “psychological wage” that enabled poor whites to feel superior to poor blacks; during the civil-rights era, activists talked about “white-skin privilege.” But the concept really came into its own in

Read more “Repost from The New Yorker, “The Origins of ‘Privilege'””