WMNST 105N Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Issa Rae, White Privilege, Intersectionality
■Culture isn’t always consistent and coherent
■people don’t always act or conform to social expectation
○Rebellion
■Taught to act one way
■Choose to act another way
●What is privilege?
○an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports,
codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks
○Examples
■A parent is an alumni of the college you want to attend.
■You showed early signs of athleticism and your parents were able to enroll
you in sports camps from an early age.
■You are able to walk home from a party alone late at night without fear of
getting raped.
■When you get pulled over for a minor traffic violation, you can be fairly
sure that you will not be beaten or arrested by the police officer.
■You can simply head out your door without thinking ahead about
negotiating stairs, restrooms, and long distances from parking lots.
○Intersectionality
■way that race, class, gender, disability, sexuality, etc. operate together in
overlapping and conflicting ways
■affect all aspects of human experience
●Quiz
○Crosley-Corcoran
○Racism
■system of power and privilege that can be manifested in people's attitudes
but is rooted in society's structure
○Issa Rae
○Prejudice
■hostile attitude toward people who are presumed to have alleged negative
characteristics associated with a group to which they belong.
○McIntosh
■White privilege
■Race and sex
■Gender privilege
Document Summary
People don"t always act or conform to social expectation. An invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. A parent is an alumni of the college you want to attend. You showed early signs of athleticism and your parents were able to enroll you in sports camps from an early age. You are able to walk home from a party alone late at night without fear of getting raped. When you get pulled over for a minor traffic violation, you can be fairly sure that you will not be beaten or arrested by the police officer. You can simply head out your door without thinking ahead about negotiating stairs, restrooms, and long distances from parking lots. Way that race, class, gender, disability, sexuality, etc. operate together in overlapping and conflicting ways. System of power and privilege that can be manifested in people"s attitudes but is rooted in society"s structure.
