Talking Points #1

Peggy McIntosh "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"                                   Kevin Cordeiro

"I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are over privileged, even though they may grant that women are advantaged."

"...in facing it [white privilege] I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country."

"Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or dominate."

"Disapproving of the systems won't be enough to change them."

McIntosh, as someone with a stated background in women's studies takes a wonderfully encompassing look at the issue of tunnel vision towards white privilege in our society. The emphasis on acknowledging that the reason why these privileges are in fact intended to be kept primarily in social subconscious was a wonderful point. Another point of great focus in the piece was the deduction that by discussing the various manners by which white privilege provides an unearned leap forward in society and using this to directly deconstruct the "myth of meritocracy." She does all of this with a tone in her writing that is far from both that of a preacher and a critic but more so like a scientist take a cold calculated look at the subject in-front of her.

"In the struggle of life you'll find, you'll find more love. And in the struggle, you will be loved also." Bartolomeo Sacco

Have you ever noticed that poets and artists are the only ones allowed to start anywhere but the begininng. I am neither so I'll make my start with an introduction:


My name is Kevin the appropriate description of myself is a part time worker at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in the Emergency Room, a full time student at RIC who is majoring in history Secondary Education, the son of to immigrants from the Azores who understood the American dream was a surrealist piece of work but never the less came here for reasons all their own. my appropriate likings include the music made by those infront of you and a night out for billiards with my comrades.

inappropriately I am described as a libertarian-socialist involved in and interested in syndicalism and libertarian educational philosophy. I am a delegate and communication secretary of the Providence chapter of the Industrial Workers of the World. My passion is radical leftist politics and radical education. My introduction to libertarian education came from reading Emma Goldman's essays on anarchism and her telling of the story of Francisco Ferrer y Guardia and the Modern School of Barcelona. (maybe I'll speak on that some other time) My time is spent in the world of ideas and action; vegetarianism, straight edge, anarchism, libertarian socialism, radical unionism, syndicalism, education, philosophy, ecologically sound adaptions of modern life. I hold the world and the people in it to a high standard because I know that we are capable of such astonishing hights of compassion and mutual respect. Musically i miss the times when people made records, recording of people coming together to make music side by side in a single room with less technology and more passion. Because of this I lean towards Hardcore punk, rocabilly, indie-folk, folk, traditional culutral music.


When it comes down to it, I'd rather share with you my inappropriate self...