When examining the life a multiracial people we may see that they are only discriminated against based on their skin color and only by the lighter colored race, but this is wrong. Multiracial people are discriminated against by everyone and a lot of the time they do not get treated equally to who they are talking to.
In 1989 an article was published titled, White Privilege Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, this article was written by Peggy McIntosh. This was the earliest article found introducing the idea of privilege. Considering this it is a fairly recent article. Mclntosh introducing the idea that people of color have an unfair advantage that white people do not have to deal with.
Throughout the article privileges listed are things such as having hair products found easily for your hair type, or bandages matching your skin color. These examples are used and are talked about in reference to race, not skin color. You cannot look at someone and assume their race. A light-skinned multiracial person does experience things that would be considered unprivileged and that can be proved through examples given by multiracial people such as Sierra Fang-Horvath. She is an Asian American who shared her experience with KQED Radio, in this interview she shares her experience when she took a survey to measure how much privilege they had. In this survey she came across the question asking if Bandaids matched her skin color, she responded by saying ” should they?”. In this one sentence alone she explains how people should think. After the survey, she felt like she would be looked at differently because in her eyes she never questioned her identity. Before the interview, a picture of Fang is shown and you would assume that she would not have a problem with privilege based on Mclntosh’s article but you really have no clue how a multiracial people think or feel.
When you read the article with Fang you are shown that you really were not aware how unprivileged you were until you are told to check it. This makes multiracial people feel more uncomfortable because then they will be seen by others as having something they do not. You are no longer yourself and are a label of your skin color.
Rowan Counterintuitive 