When Wellesley College’s Peggy McIntosh first published the short essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” in 1988, she re-focused the concept of white privilege for many in the academic world. The career-defining essay offered a fresh angle of looking at race, power and privilege in America and though progress has been made over the intervening years, the essay is still relevant and highly influential today.
McIntosh will give the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations’ 2014 Spring Lecture at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, March 14, at 4 p.m. in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, HOL 180. The lecture is free and open to the public. The event will be streamed live online – check the UF Law website for further details – and parking restrictions at the law school will be lifted for the event.
McIntosh will discuss her personal experiences with white privilege through the years with the presentation, “An Academic Understanding of White Privilege: My Ongoing Journey.”
In her original essay, McIntosh addressed the concept of white privilege head-on, laying out 26 advantages she could identify in her daily life simply because she is white, including being accepted easily into social situations and being given the presumption of financial stability.
McIntosh is currently the associate director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, and is founder and co-director of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Education Equity and Diversity). She also directs the Gender, Race and Inclusive Education Project.
The University of Florida Levin College of Law’s CSRRR is committed to fostering communities of dialogue on race. The center creates and supports programs designed to enhance race-related curriculum development for faculty, staff and students in collegiate and professional schools. Of the six U.S. law schools with race centers, the CSRRR is uniquely focused on curriculum development. This is CSRRR’s 14th Spring Lecture.
For more information, contact Matt Walker at 352-273-0650 or mlwalker@law.ufl.edu.
