1. What Else is in My Invisible Knapsack?
Broadening Love’s reach in our congregations

2. Pivotal Notions
Society uses similar mechanisms to create social identities based on difference
Privilege works similarly regardless of the basis of privilege
Anti-Oppression tools may be useful across oppressions
Note: “Similar” does not mean “the same”
These are the points to listen for in this presentation.
(Organizational slide – may remove)

3. Who are you? How do you think of yourself? Good listener
Silly sense of humor
Highly analytical
Baseball fanatic
Self-concept has nuances that social identities don’t

4. Who do ‘they’ say that you are?
“The media typically describe people according to certain categories….
How would the media categorize you?”
From a recent telephone poll
Society puts us into groups for its own convenience

5. Society’s favorite boxes
Gender
Race and Ethnicity
Sexual Orientation
Physical and Mental Abilities
Age
Class
Ask them to think of how society would sort them using these identities; contrast with self-concept

6. Social Construction of Identity
“Social construction means that society tends to divide people into arbitrary groups (e.g., black/white, able-bodied/non-able bodied). These categories become so taken for granted that it is assumed that they represent absolute reality. The categories created can divide groups into those viewed positively and those negatively stereotyped… “
Rev. Laurie Thomas
“Perspectives on Disability: A Curriculum for Liberal Religious Adults”

7. Both/And
Many of us are part of the dominant group for some identities and the non-dominant group for others.

8. Origins of the “Invisible Knapsack”
“White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.”
Peggy McIntosh
Peggy McIntosh
“White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988) Working Paper 189
Associate Director, Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesley College

9. Hidden Privilege
We are not supposed to notice where we have privilege. We think it’s normal.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor confirmation example

10. How would my life be different
If I had a different
Gender?
Race or ethnicity?
Sexual Orientation?
Physical or Mental Ability?
Invite them to Imagine how your own life might be different…
Let it linger, briefly
Invite them to Keep thinking about how a change in your physical or mental ability might make your life different, while I read some examples of ableist privilege:
Invite them to think about this:
Exercise from Beyond Categorical Thinking workshop, also in Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G. Johnson (2nd ed.,ch2)

11. Examples of Ableist Privilege
Television, movies, and advertisements often show people who look like me.

12. Examples of Ableist Privilege
I can dress in a hurry or talk to myself without people attributing it to the pitifulness of my disability.

13. Examples of Ableist Privilege
I can do well in a challenging situation
without being called courageous.
There are a million of these. Figure out if you want to use more? Any?

14. Unmasking Privilege Matters
“To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions.”
Peggy McIntosh