In the reading “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh it talked about “White Privilege” in how your skin is a privilege such as white people having more privileges than those who are colored skin. For example, if a white person can be getting interviewed for a job and a colored person can go for the same job and may have a degree too but the white person gets hired. In my experience one time after school me and my friends went to a Sephora and went inside like any other person and looked around and the whole time there was a security guard following us around. Until my friend said something to the security guard, he stopped following us and we still decided to walk out because we didn’t feel comfortable being in the store anymore. This shows how in society people judge you for your color or appearance not because of who you are. You usually see that white people are more privileged to walk around without having to be afraid to get stopped by a police officer but someone of any other race would be afraid of getting stopped by a police officer. For instance, if a white person was to commit murder and a person of other race such as Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc. committed the same crime the white person would get less years in jail than those who are from any other race.
In the reading “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye says a quote, “Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires.” Marilyn Frye is basically representing the birdcage as women being oppressed. Society only sees what’s in front of them, but they don’t see the other barriers people have in their lives. For example, when a woman gets raped people think that she enjoyed it, but they don’t realize what really happened to her. She could be feeling upset or scared but people think that she enjoyed it just because of what the media portrays her as. The reading “Oppression” describes the word oppression as people judging others but the actions that are done but they don’t see the barriers that they have. Marilyn Frye gives the example of what women could wear such as dressing like she doesn’t care about herself or “unfeminine”. A woman can be judged for her appearance and make her look bad in front of someone else. Society judges a person for their appearance but, they don’t realize what that person may be going through. I like the picture my classmate Hillary shared with us because it states that a skin color of a person can determine the opportunities that they can get in life. For example, someone can be getting on the train whether they are Hispanic, black or Asian and they could be looked at in a weird way and a person can move to the other side of the cart but if it was a white person they wouldn’t be looked at weird and the person sitting wouldn’t move to the other side of the cart.
