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Whiteness studies is the study of the structures that produce
white privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With root ...
, the examination of what whiteness is when analyzed as a race, a culture, and a source of
systemic racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, healt ...
, and the exploration of other
social phenomena Social phenomena or social phenomenon (singular) are any behaviours, actions, or events that takes place because of social influence, including from contemporary as well as historical societal influences. They are often a result of multifaceted pr ...
generated by the societal compositions, perceptions and group behaviors of
white people White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...
. It is an
interdisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
from
white trash White trash is a derogatory racial and class-related slur used in American English to refer to poor white people, especially in the rural southern United States. The label signifies a social class inside the white population and especially a ...
studies and critical race studies, particularly since the late 20th century. It is focused on what proponents describe as the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the
social construction Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
of "whiteness" as an ideology tied to
social status Social status is the level of social value a person is considered to possess. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honour, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. St ...
. Pioneers in the field include
W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
("Jefferson Davis as a Representative of Civilization", 1890; '' Darkwater'', 1920),
James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; ...
(''
The Fire Next Time ''The Fire Next Time'' is a 1963 non-fiction book by James Baldwin, containing two essays: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind". T ...
'', 1963), Theodore W. Allen (''The Invention of the White Race,'' 1976, expanded in 1995), Ruth Frankenberg (''White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness'', 1993), author and literary critic
Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, '' The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' S ...
('' Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination'', 1992), and historian David Roediger (''The Wages of Whiteness'', 1991). By the mid-1990s, numerous works across many disciplines analyzed whiteness, and it has since become a topic for academic courses, research and anthologies. Some syllabuses associate the dismantling of
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White ...
as a stated aim in the understanding of whiteness, while other sources view the field of study as primarily educational and exploratory, such as in questioning the objectivity of generations of works produced in intellectual spheres dominated by white scholars. A central tenet of whiteness studies is a reading of history and its effects on the present that is inspired by
postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...
and
historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...
. According to this reading, racial superiority was socially constructed in order to justify discrimination against non-whites. Since the 19th century, some writers have argued that the
phenotypical In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological prop ...
significances attributed to specific races are without biological association, and that what is called "race" is therefore not a biological phenomenon. Many scientists have demonstrated that racial theories are based upon an arbitrary clustering of phenotypical categories and
customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
, and can overlook the problem of gradations between categories. Thomas K. Nakayama and Robert L. Krizek write about whiteness as a "strategic rhetoric," asserting, in the essay "Whiteness: A Strategic Rhetoric", that whiteness is a product of "discursive formation" and a "rhetorical construction". Nakayama and Krizek write, "there is no 'true essence' to 'whiteness': there are only historically contingent constructions of that social location." Nakayama and Krizek also suggest that by naming whiteness, one calls out its centrality and reveals its invisible, central position. Whiteness is considered normal and neutral, therefore, to name whiteness means that one identifies whiteness as a rhetorical construction that can be dissected to unearth its values and beliefs. Major areas of research in whiteness studies include the nature of
white privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With root ...
and white identity, the historical process by which a white
racial identity A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...
was created, the relation of culture to white identity, and possible processes of social change as they affect white identity.


Definitions of whiteness

Zeus Leonardo defines whiteness as "a racial discourse, whereas the category ‘white people’ represents a socially constructed identity, usually based on skin color". Steve Garner notes that "whiteness has no stable consensual meaning" and that "the meanings attached to 'race' are always time- and place-specific, part of each national racial regime".


Development of the field

Studies of whiteness as a unique identity could be said to begin among
black people Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in ...
, who needed to understand whiteness to survive, particularly in slave societies such as the American colonies and United States.
bell hooks Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author and social activist who was Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She is best known for her writings on ...
, "Representations of Whiteness in the Black Imagination", ''Black Looks'' (1992); republished in Roediger, ''Black on White'' (1998).

Link to journal.
An important theme in this literature is, beyond the general "invisibility" of blacks to whites, the unwillingness of white people to consider that black people study them anthropologically. American author
James Weldon Johnson James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871June 26, 1938) was an American writer and civil rights activist. He was married to civil rights activist Grace Nail Johnson. Johnson was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peop ...
wrote in his 1912 novel ''
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man ''The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man'' (1912/1927) by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a young biracial man, referred to only as the "Ex-Colored Man," living in post-Reconstruction era America in the late nineteenth and early t ...
'' that "colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them". Author
James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; ...
wrote and spoke extensively about whiteness, defining it as a central social problem and insisting that it was choice, not a biological identity. In ''
The Fire Next Time ''The Fire Next Time'' is a 1963 non-fiction book by James Baldwin, containing two essays: "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation" and "Down at the Cross: Letter from a Region of My Mind". T ...
'' (1963), a non-fiction book on race relations in the United States, Baldwin suggests that
"White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this—which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never—the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed."
A major black theory of whiteness connects this identity group with acts of
terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
—i.e., slavery, rape, torture, and lynching—against black people, who were treated as sub-human. White academics in the United States and the United Kingdom (UK) began to study whiteness as early as 1983, creating a discipline called "whiteness studies". The "canon wars" of the late 1980s and 1990s, a term that refers to political controversy over the centrality of white authors and perspectives in United States culture, led the scholar
Shelley Fisher Fishkin Shelley Fisher Fishkin (born May 9, 1950) is the Joseph S. Atha Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English at Stanford University. Fishkin received her B.A. and M.Phil. in English, and her Ph.D. in American Studies, all from Yale Univer ...
to ask "how the imaginative construction of 'whiteness' had shaped American literature and American history". The field developed a large body of work during the early 1990s, which, according to Fishkin, extends across the disciplines of "literary criticism, history, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, popular culture, communication studies, music history, art history, dance history, humor studies, philosophy, linguistics, and folklore". As of 2004, according to ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'', at least 30 institutions in the United States including
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, the
University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, the
University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
and
University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...
offer, or have offered, courses in whiteness studies. Whiteness studies often overlaps with
post-colonial theory Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...
, the study of
orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
, and anti-racist education. One contribution to White Studies is Rich Benjamin's '' Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America''. The book examines white social beliefs and white anxiety in the contemporary United States, in the context of enormous demographic, cultural, and social change. The book explains how white privilege and segregation might flourish, even in the absence of explicit racial animus. Another contribution to whiteness studies is
Gloria Wekker Gloria Daisy Wekker (born June 13, 1950) is an Afro-Surinamese Dutch emeritus professor (Utrecht University) and writer who has focused on gender studies and sexuality in the Afro-Caribbean region and diaspora. She was the winner of the Ruth Bened ...
’s ''White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race'', which discusses the immutability and fluidity of white identity and its relationship to innocence in the context of post-colonial
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In Wekker’s analysis, the process of separating Dutch from “Other” is facilitated through skin tone and non-Christian religious practices. According to Wekker, the process of racialization is reserved for mid-to-late twentieth century immigrant groups (Muslims, Black Surinamese, Black Antilleans), as a means of delineating groups outside the constructed immutable “norms” of Dutch society. Sociologist Michael Eric Dyson contributed to the discussion of white identity in his 2017 book Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America. Dyson's book specifically addresses "five dysfunctional ways that those regarded as white respond when confronted with the reality that whiteness is simultaneously artificial and powerful" as well as "dysfunctional ways that black people sometimes respond to white racism."


Areas of study


Whiteness

Whiteness studies draws on research into the definition of race, originating with the United States but applying to racial stratification worldwide. This research emphasizes the historically recent
social construction Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
of white identity. As stated by
W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
in 1920: "The discovery of a personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing,—a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed." The discipline examines how white, Native, and African/black identities emerged in interaction with the institutions of slavery, colonial settlement, citizenship, and industrial labor. Scholars such as
Winthrop Jordan Winthrop Donaldson Jordan (November 11, 1931 – February 23, 2007) was an American historian and professor who specialized in the history of slavery in the United States and racism against Black Americans. His 1968 work ''White Over Black: ...
have traced the evolution of the legally defined line between "blacks" and "whites" to colonial government efforts to prevent cross-racial revolts among unpaid laborers. Princeton professor
Nell Irvin Painter Nell Irvin Painter (born Nell Elizabeth Irvin; August 2, 1942) is an American historian notable for her works on United States Southern history of the nineteenth century. She is retired from Princeton University as the Edwards Professor of Ameri ...
, in her 2010 book '' The History of White People,'' says the idea of whiteness is not just a matter of biology but also includes "concepts of labor, gender, class, and images of personal beauty".(p. xi) The earliest European societies, including the Greeks and Romans, had no concept of race and classified people by ethnicity and social class, with the lowest class being slaves, most of whom were European in origin.(p. xi) Race science, developed in Europe in the 1800s, included intense analysis of different groups of Europeans, who were classified as belonging to three or four different races, with the most admirable being from northern Europe.(pp. 215–6) From the early days of the United States, whiteness was a criterion for full citizenship and acceptance into society. The American definition of whiteness evolved over time; initially groups such as Jews and Southern Europeans were not regarded as white, but as skin color became the primary criterion, they were gradually accepted. Painter argues that in the 21st century the definition of whiteness - or more precisely the definition of "nonblackness" - has continued to expand, so that now "The dark of skin who happen to be rich ... and the light of skin from any (racial background) who are beautiful, are now well on their way to inclusion."(pp. 389–90.) Academic Joseph Pugliese is among writers who have applied whiteness studies to an
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
n context, discussing the ways that
Australian Aboriginals Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isla ...
were marginalized in the wake of the European colonization of Australia, as whiteness came to be defined as central to Australian identity, diminishing Aboriginal identity in the process. Pugliese discusses the 20th-century
White Australia policy The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...
as a conscious attempt to preserve the "purity" of whiteness in Australian society. Likewise Stefanie Affeldt considers whiteness "a concept not yet fully developed at the time the first convicts and settlers arrived down under" which, as a social relation, had to be negotiated and was driven forward in particular by the labour movement. Eventually, with the Federation of Australia, " erlaying social differences, the shared membership in the 'white race' was the catalyst for the consolidation of the Australian colonies as the Commonwealth of Australia".


White backlash

White backlash or white rage in association with or as a consequence of whiteness is an area of investigation in whiteness studies. Sociologist
Matthew Hughey Matthew Windust Hughey is an American sociologist known for his work on race and racism. He is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, where he is also an adjunct faculty member in the Africana Studies Institute; American Studies ...
has described this examination of racially-based backlash within its historical context; "Another approach to the study of whiteness centres on the white "back-lash" against the advances born from the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
." Political scientist
Danielle Allen Danielle Susan Allen (born November 3, 1971) is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also the Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 2015, Allen ...
has analyzed the intersection of whiteness with North American demographic changes, stating how they can "provoke resistance from those whose well-being, status and self-esteem are connected to historical privileges of 'whiteness'". Discussing the method of this resistance,
Veronica Strong-Boag Veronica Jane Strong-Boag (born 1947 in Prestwick, Scotland) is a Canadian historian specializing in the history of women and children in Canada. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia, where she was Professor of Women's ...
's co-edited ''Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History'' explores how white backlash in Canada attempts to frames the defending of white interests as a "defence of national identity", rather than an acknowledgement of the political action of whiteness. Scholar
George Yancy George Dewey Yancy (born June 3, 1961) is an American philosopher who is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. He is a distinguished ''Montgomery Fellow'' at Dartmouth College, one of the college's highest honors ...
has explored the societal response to perceived loss of racial privilege in his 2018 book ''Backlash''; how reactions derived from whiteness fluctuate between
Robin DiAngelo Robin Jeanne DiAngelo (née Taylor; born September 8, 1956) is an American author working in the fields of critical discourse analysis and whiteness studies. She formerly served as a tenured professor of multicultural education at Westfield St ...
's concept of
white fragility White defensiveness is a term to describe defensive responses by white people to discussions of societal discrimination, structural racism, and white privilege. The term has been applied to characterize the responses of white people to portrayal ...
versus the more extreme backlashes throughout history.


White education

The study of white education and its intersection with whiteness is a continuing area of research in whiteness studies. Scholarly investigation has critiqued white-derived education as inevitably for the benefit of, organized by, and oriented towards white people. Horace Mann Bond was one of the early scholars to identify bias and privilege operating in white education systems. Bond critiqued suggestions
African Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
were not intelligent enough to participate in the same schools as
white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
and campaigned against calls for literacy tests for suffrage. He challenged the
Southern Manifesto The Declaration of Constitutional Principles (known informally as the Southern Manifesto) was a document written in February and March 1956, during the 84th United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places. The manif ...
and identified bias for funding white education, rather than universal funding, even within the reformist movement for desegregated schools. Whiteness and privilege have continued in US education after
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
versions of the
segregationist Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Interna ...
ideology have lost their legitimacy due to legal and political failures. Privacy and individualism discourses mask white fear and newer forms of exclusion in contemporary education according to scholar, Charles R. Lawrence III.


White identity

Analyzing whiteness to forge new understandings of white identity has been a field of exploration for academics since the publications which largely founded modern whiteness studies in the mid-1990s. In exploring Ruth Frankenberg's works, and her interchanging use of the two concepts, the separation has been examined by scholars attempting to intellectually "disengtangle each from the other". Sociologist
Howard Winant Howard Winant (born 1946) is an American sociologist and race theorist. Winant is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Winant is best known for developing the theory of ''racial formation'' along wi ...
, favoring a deconstructionist (rather than abolitionist) study of whiteness, suggests this methodology can help redefine and reorient understanding of white identity. In biological examination, whiteness studies has sought to expose how "white identity is neither pure nor unchanging – that its genealogy is mixed" in order to unearth biases within the white racial identity.


White privilege

In 1965, drawing from insights from Du Bois and inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, Theodore W. Allen began a 40-year analysis of "white skin privilege", "white race" privilege, and "white" privilege. In a piece he drafted for a "John Brown Commemoration Committee", he urged that "White Americans who want government of the people" and "by the people" to "begin by first repudiating their white skin privileges". From 1967 to 1969 various versions of the pamphlet, "White Blindspot", containing pieces by Allen and Noel Ignatin ( Noel Ignatiev), focused on the struggle against "white skin privilege" and significantly influenced
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
(SDS) and sectors of the
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...
. By June 15, 1969, ''The New York Times'' was reporting that the National Office of SDS was calling "for an all-out fight against 'white skin privileges'". In 1974–1975, Allen extended his analysis of "white privilege", racial oppression, and social control to the colonial period with his ground-breaking ''Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race.'' With an "Introduction" by Jeffrey B. Perry. With continued research, he developed his ideas as his seminal two-volume ''The Invention of the White Race'' published in 1994 and 1997. For almost forty years, Allen offered a detailed historical analysis of the origin, maintenance, and functioning of "white-skin privilege" and "white privilege" in such writings as: "White Supremacy in U.S. History" (1973); "Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race" (1975); "The Invention of the White Race," Vol. 1: "Racial Oppression and Social Control" (1994, 2012); "The Invention of the White Race," Vol. 2: "The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America" (1997, 2012); "Summary of the Argument of 'The Invention of the White Race'" Parts 1 and 2 (1998); "In Defense of Affirmative Action in Employment Policy" (1998); "'Race' and 'Ethnicity': History and the 2000 Census" (1999); and "On Roediger's Wages of Whiteness" (Revised Edition)"; In his historical work, Allen asserted that: *the "white race" was invented as a ruling class social control formation in the late 17th-/early-18th century Anglo-American
plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...
colonies (principally Virginia and Maryland); *central to this process was the ruling-class plantation bourgeoisie conferring "white race" privileges on European-American working people; *these privileges were not only against the interests of African Americans, they were also "poison", "ruinous", a baited hook, to the class interests of working people; *
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White ...
, reinforced by "white skin privilege", has been the main retardant of working-class consciousness in the US; and *struggle for radical social change should direct principal efforts at challenging white supremacy and "white skin privileges".Pdf.
/ref> Allen's work influenced Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and sectors of the "new left" and paved the way for "white privilege", "race as social construct", and "whiteness studies". He also raised important questions about developments in those areas, and he avoided using the term "whiteness", using quotation marks when he did. Laura Pulido writes about the relation of white privilege to racism.
"White privilege sa highly structural and spatial form of racism ... I suggest that historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are instances of white privilege and have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racism."
Pulido defines
environmental racism Environmental racism or ecological apartheid is a form of institutional racism leading to landfills, incinerators, and hazardous waste disposal being disproportionally placed in communities of colour. Internationally, it is also associated with ...
as "the idea that nonwhites are disproportionately exposed to pollution". Writers such as
Peggy McIntosh } Peggy McIntosh (born November 7, 1934) is an American feminist, anti-racism activist, scholar, speaker, and Senior Research Scientist of the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is the founder of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Se ...
say that social, political, and cultural advantages are accorded to whites in global society. She argues that these advantages seem invisible to white people, but obvious to non-whites. McIntosh argues that whites utilize their whiteness, consciously or unconsciously, as a framework to classify people and understand their social locations. In addition, even though many white people understand that whiteness is associated with privilege, they do not acknowledge their privilege because they view themselves as average and non-racist. Essentially, whiteness is invisible to white people. For instance,
"I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untouched way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious" (188).
McIntosh calls for Americans to acknowledge white privilege so that they can more effectively attain equality in American society. She argues,
"To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these
taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
subjects" (192).
White privilege is also related to
white guilt White guilt is a belief that white people bear a collective responsibility for the harm which has resulted from historical or current racist treatment of people belonging to other racial groups, as for example in the context of the Atlantic slave ...
. As Shannon Jackson writes in the article, "''White Noises: On Performing White, On Writing Performance''" (1998), "The rhetorics of white guilt are tiresome, cliche, disingenuous, and everywhere. And now that the stereotype of 'the guilty white' is almost entrenched in its negativity as 'the racist white', people actively try to dis-identify from both."


White shift

White racial shift or decline, which has been abbreviated to the phrase whiteshift, and its intersection or connectedness to whiteness, has been a source of study and academic research within the field of whiteness studies. In relation to demographic decline of white people, the phenomenon has been analyzed as producing "a formal re-articulation of whiteness as a social category" in relation to fear-based politics with the US. Academic
Vron Ware Vron Ware is a British academic and visiting professor at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was previously a Professor at Kingston University editor of ''Searchlight'' magazine from 1981 to 1983, a ...
has examined this fear-based element in the sociology of resentment, and its intersection with class and whiteness. Ware analyzed how white decline, and its portrayal in
British media There are several different types of mass media in the United Kingdom: television, radio, newspapers, magazines and websites. The United Kingdom is known for its large music industry, along with its new and upcoming artists. The country also has a ...
, facilitated a victim or grievance culture, particularly among
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White ...
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
communities. Political scientist Charles King has proposed that, in the context of the numerical decline of
white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...
, whiteness is progressively revealed to be driven by social power, rather than biology.


Schools of thought


Critical whiteness studies

An offshoot of
critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
, theorists of critical whiteness studies seek to examine the construction and moral implications of whiteness, in order to reveal and deconstruct its assumed links to
white privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With root ...
and
white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White ...
. Barbara Applebaum defines it as the "field of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege", and "presumes a certain conception of racism that is connected to white supremacy". Anoop Nayak describes it as underpinned by the belief that whiteness is "a modern invention
hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
has changed over time and place", "a social norm and has become chained to an index of unspoken privileges", and that "the bonds of whiteness can yet be broken/deconstructed for the betterment of humanity". There is a great deal of overlap between critical whiteness studies and critical race theory, as demonstrated by focus on the legal and historical construction of white identity, and the use of narratives (whether legal discourse, testimony or fiction) as a tool for exposing systems of racial power.


Whiteness and architecture

In the early 21st century, architectural historians have published studies related to the construction of whiteness in the built environment. Studies have grappled with the exclusionary nature of the architectural profession, which erected barriers for nonwhite practitioners, the ways in which architects and designers have employed motifs, art programs, and color schemes that reflected the aspirations of
European-Americans European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...
and, most recently, with the racialization of space.


Criticisms

Writers
David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Disco ...
and
Douglas Murray Douglas Murray may refer to: * Douglas Murray (author) (born 1979), British political journalist, author and commentator * Doug Murray (comics) (born 1947), American comic book writer * Douglas Murray (ice hockey) Douglas Thomas Lars Murray (bo ...
draw a distinction between whiteness studies and other analogous disciplines. Writes Horowitz, " Black studies celebrates blackness,
Chicano studies Chicana/o studies, also known as Chican@ studies, originates from the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, and is the study of the Chicana/o and Latina/o experience. Chican@ studies draws upon a variety of fields, including history, socio ...
celebrates Chicanos,
women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...
celebrates women, and white studies attacks white people as evil." Dagmar R. Myslinska, an adjunct associate professor of law at
Fordham University Fordham University () is a private Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its original campus is located, Fordham is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit un ...
, argues that whiteness studies overlooks the heterogeneity of whites' experience, be it due to class, immigrant status, or geographical location. Alastair Bonnett argues that whiteness studies treated "white" culture as a homogenous and stable "racial entity" - for example, Bonnett observes that whiteness researchers in Britain argued that white British people lived in a homogenous "white culture" (which Bonnett observed was never clearly described), with the researchers completely ignoring British culture's regional diversity, despite having ample opportunity to study it. Barbara Kay, a columnist for the ''
National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...
'', has sharply criticized whiteness studies, writing that it "points to a new low in moral vacuity and civilizational
self-loathing Self-hatred is personal self-loathing or hatred of oneself, or low self-esteem which may lead to self-harm. In psychology and psychiatry The term "self-hatred" is used infrequently by psychologists and psychiatrists, who would usually describe ...
" and is an example of "academic pusillanimity." According to Kay, whiteness studies "cuts to the chase: It is all, and only, about white self-hate." Kay noted the leanings of the field by quoting Jeff Hitchcock, co-founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC) who stated in a 1998 speech: In addition to such criticism in the mass media, whiteness studies has earned a mixed reception from academics in other fields. In 2001, historian Eric Arnesen wrote that "whiteness has become a blank screen onto which those who claim to analyze it can project their own meanings" and that the field "suffers from a number of potentially fatal methodological and conceptual flaws." First, Arnesen writes that the core theses of whiteness studies—that racial categories are arbitrary social constructs without definite biological basis, and that some white Americans benefit from racist discrimination of non-whites—have been common wisdom in academia for many decades and are hardly as novel or controversial as whiteness studies scholars seem to believe. Additionally, Arnesen accuses whiteness studies scholars of sloppy thinking; of making claims not supported by their sources; of overstating supporting evidence; and of
cherry picking Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
to neglect contrary information. He notes that a particular datum almost entirely ignored by whiteness studies scholars is religion, which has played a prominent role in conflicts among various American classes. He says that a type of "keyword literalism" persists in whiteness studies, where important words and phrases from primary sources are taken out of their historical context. Whiteness has so many different definitions that the word is "nothing less than a moving target." Arnesen notes that whiteness studies scholars are entirely on the far left of the
political spectrum A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more geometric axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions politi ...
, and suggests that their apparent vitriol towards white Americans is due in part to white workers not fulfilling the predictions of
Marxist theory Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew fro ...
that the
proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...
would overcome racial, national and class distinctions to unite and overthrow
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
. He cites, as an example, David Roediger’s afterword to the seminal ''Wages of Whiteness'', which asserts that the book was written as a reaction to "the appalling extent to which white male workers voted for
Reaganism Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989). A Republican and former actor and governor of California, he energized the conservative movement in the United States from 1964. His basic foreign policy was to equal and ...
in the 1980s." Arnesen argues that in the absence of supporting evidence, whiteness studies often rely on amateurish
Freudian Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
speculation about the motives of white people: "The
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
of whiteness here differs from the 'talking cure' of Freudianism partly in its neglect of the speech of those under study." Without more accurate scholarship, Arnesen writes that "it is time to retire whiteness for more precise historical categories and analytical tools." In 2002, historian
Peter Kolchin Peter Robert Kolchin (born June 3, 1943) is an American historian. He has specialized in slavery and labor in the American South before and after the Civil War, and in comparisons with Russian serfdom and other forms of labor. He won the Bancroft P ...
offered a more positive assessment and declared that, at its best, whiteness studies has "unfulfilled potential" and offers a novel and valuable means of studying history.Pdf.
/ref> Particularly, he praises scholarship into the development of the ''concept'' of whiteness in the United States, and notes that the definition and implications of a white racial identity have shifted over the decades. Yet Kolchin describes a "persistent sense of unease" with certain aspects of whiteness studies. There is no consensus definition of whiteness, and thus the word is used in vague and contradictory ways, with some scholars even leaving the term undefined in their articles or essays." Kolchin also objects to "a persistent dualism evident in the work of the best whiteness studies authors," who often claim that whiteness is a social construct while also arguing, paradoxically, that whiteness is an "omnipresent and unchanging" reality existing independent of socialization. Kolchin agrees that entering a post-racial paradigm might be beneficial for humanity, but he challenges the didactic tone of whiteness studies scholars who single out a white racial identification as negative, while praising a black or Asian self-identification. Scholars in whiteness studies sometimes seriously undermine their arguments by interpreting historical evidence independent of its broader context (e.g., Karen Brodkin's examination of American anti-semitism largely neglects its roots in European anti-semitism). Finally, Kolchin categorically rejects the argument—common amongst many whiteness scholars—that racism and whiteness are intrinsically and uniquely American, and he expresses concern at the "belief in the moral emptiness of whiteness ..there is a thin line between saying that whiteness is evil and saying that whites are evil." Theodore W. Allen, pioneering writer on "white skin privilege" and "white privilege" from the 1960s until his death in 2005, offered a critical review "On Roediger’s Wages of Whiteness" (Revised Edition). He personally put "whiteness" in quotes because he shied away from using the term. As Allen explained,
"it’s an abstract noun, it’s an abstraction, it’s an attribute of some people, it’s not the role they play. And the white race is an actual objective thing. It’s not anthropologic, it’s a historically developed identity of European Americans and Anglo-Americans and so it has to be dealt with. It functions... in this history of ours and it has to be recognized as such. . . .to slough it off under the heading of ‘whiteness,’ to me seems to get away from the basic white race identity trauma."
In a scholarly debate with whiteness studies pioneer David Roediger,
Eric Kaufmann Eric Peter Kaufmann is a Canadian professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London. He is a specialist on Orangeism in Northern Ireland, nationalism, and political and religious demography. He has authored, co-authored, and edited multipl ...
, a scholar of political demography and
identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
and the author of '' Whiteshift'' (which was criticised for defending
white identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
), criticizes the field as a whole, arguing :
"White Studies suffers from a number of serious flaws which should lead us to question whether this approach can continue to advance the frontiers of knowledge in the wider sphere of ethnic and racial studies".. These flaws include: 1) a constructivism which fails to recognise the cognitive and social processes that underpin social 'reality'; 2) an excessive emphasis on ethnic boundaries as opposed to ethnic narratives, thereby overstating the degree of malleability possible in ethnic identity; 3) a tacit belief in white
exceptionalism Exceptionalism is the perception or belief that a species, country, society, institution, movement, individual, or time period is " exceptional" (i.e., unusual or extraordinary). The term carries the implication, whether or not specified, that the ...
, which overemphasises the ideological character of whiteness and deifies whites; 4) an elision of dominant ethnicity and race; and 5) a threefold parochialism in terms of place, time horizon and the role of race in ethnic studies."
Kaufmann then proposes, as an alternative approach to the study of white identity, the emerging concept of "dominant ethnicity", using
Anthony D. Smith Anthony David Stephen Smith (23 September 1939 – 19 July 2016) was a British historical sociologist who, at the time of his death, was Professor Emeritus of Nationalism and Ethnicity at the London School of Economics. He is considered one o ...
's definition of "ethnic group" as a "named, imagined, human community, many of whose members believe in a myth of shared ancestry and place of origin."


List of courses

*''U.S. Race Theory & the Problem of Whiteness'',
Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
.


See also

* African-American studies *
Anti-bias curriculum The anti-bias curriculum is an activist approach to educational curricula which attempts to challenge prejudices such as racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, weightism, homophobia, classism, colorism, heightism, handism, religious discrimination ...
*
Anti-racism Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...
*
Blanqueamiento Blanqueamiento, branqueamento, or whitening, is a social, political, and economic practice used in many post-colonial countries in the Americas and Oceania to "improve the race" (''mejorar la raza'') towards a supposed ideal of whiteness. The ...
*
Casta () is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish Empire in the Americas it also refers to a now-discredited 20th-century theoretical f ...
*
Critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Goa ...
*
Historical definitions of race The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word ''race'' itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "nation, et ...
*
Postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...
*
Post-racial Post-racial United States is a theoretical environment in which the United States is free from racial preference, discrimination, and prejudice. Origins of the term One of the earliest uses of the term "post-racial" to describe the United State ...
* Race, for a discussion of the biological concept of race and its applicability to the human population * Racial-ethnic socialization *''
Raising Race Questions ''Raising Race Questions: Whiteness and Inquiry in Education: Raising Race Questions'' is a 2014 book about race and ethnicity in the United States by Ali Michael. Overview ''Raising Race Questions'' explores challenges and opportunities that ari ...
'' *
Social criticism Social criticism is a form of academic or journalistic criticism focusing on social issues in contemporary society, in particular with respect to perceived injustices and power relations in general. Social criticism of the Enlightenment The or ...
*
Social identity Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.Compare ''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', quoted in In sociology, emphasis is placed on collective identity, in which ...
*
White people White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as ...
*
White privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With root ...
*
White identity White identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a white person and as relating to being white. White identity has been researched in data and polling, historically and in social sciences. There are however polarized pos ...
*
White identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
* White Racial Identity Development * Whiteness theory


References


Further reading


Books

* * * * With an "Introduction" by Jeffrey B. Perry. * * * * * * (Introductio
here
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Book chapters

* * * * ::Reproduction of two pamphlets: ::* ::* * * * * CD Rom publication. * *


Journal articles

* * * * * * *
Pdf.
*
Pdf.
*


Other

* Allen, Theodore W
"White Supremacy in U.S. History"
Speech delivered at a Guardian Forum on the National Question, April 28, 1973, rpt. in "White Supremacy a Collection", Chicago: Sojourner Truth Organization, 1976. * * *


External links


Towards a Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies

Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association



''Frederick Douglass and the White Negro (2008)''
- documentary on the African-American / Irish relationship {{DEFAULTSORT:Whiteness Studies Definition of racism controversy Postmodernism Critical race theory Political theories Politics and race Post-structuralism Social constructionism Social justice White culture