I'm in the category of people who apparently hasn't read the relevant info, because the phrase "Quite an impressive knapsack" is meaningless to me. Unless you're complimenting someone's camping gear, in a fairly random non sequitur.
(*wonders where she knows your user name from; reads user profile; aha, fireandcheese is our link*)
Yes, until about 12 months ago I was in the same boat. It keeps turning up in a vaguely-feminist community I read, so eventually I went and found the original, fed up with being told about it without anyone ever bloody citing it properly! White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh (actual full title "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies" but it's known most places by the short form). It's a decent enough shorthand for 'you don't know you're privileged because you never have to think about it', but if, like me, by 1998 you'd pretty much stopped reading new political writing, it's easy enough for it to have passed you by. (It also passed me by partly for geographical reasons.)
I hadn't read the "invisible knapsack" but felt like I understood the metaphor as having "baggage" i.e. people who have (roughly) reactions that 1) derive from past experiences and 2) negatively affect their ability to interact with others.
But now I know about the essay bopeepsheep mentioned, I do think I understand more specifically what was meant.
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Yes, until about 12 months ago I was in the same boat. It keeps turning up in a vaguely-feminist community I read, so eventually I went and found the original, fed up with being told about it without anyone ever bloody citing it properly! White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh (actual full title "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies" but it's known most places by the short form). It's a decent enough shorthand for 'you don't know you're privileged because you never have to think about it', but if, like me, by 1998 you'd pretty much stopped reading new political writing, it's easy enough for it to have passed you by. (It also passed me by partly for geographical reasons.)
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But now I know about the essay bopeepsheep mentioned, I do think I understand more specifically what was meant.