3 responses

• Arkansan Apr 24, 2008
   

  I'm a cat lover, and I look at LOLCats every day, but I don't know what to make of this knapsack series.

   
• todd Apr 25, 2008
   

  yeah, i'm with you. it's not nearly as funny as this LOLcat, for example.

   
• amanda Apr 25, 2008
   

  I feel that opening up dialog on race and privilege through humor is a good tactic; it's a topic that makes lots of people 'uncomfortablz'. Particularly when recognizing their own privilege given to them at birth by virtue of their race. "I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in the invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth." McIntosh encourages white people to be aware of their "knapsack" and to not just disapprove of their institutionalized privilege but to do something about it. And if LOLCats are the vehicle for doing that, right on. I suppose it could come of as flippant or disparaging, but I believe it comes from a well intended place. Also I think that "white kitteh takes knapsack. moves to suburbz" is pretty frickin' hilarious. But maybe that's related to my impression that suburbanites here are afraid of Minneapolis proper as a big scary city (that also may have people with a different skin color than theirs).