Kenneth Fisher

6/21/2006

Trekking Through Whiteness Studies

            My hypothesis, created during this course’s readings, is that the dominant culture is an entity designed to sustain and protect itself by staying out of the attention of its populace while maintaining a position to distort their perception of things.  Do you believe this to be accurate?  Does the Dominant culture position itself in a manner that it can operate unseen, and alter our perceptions of other ‘worlds’?

            I began my search by locating the academic term relevant to my search.  After reading Peggy McIntosh’s article entitled White privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack, I went on a search armed with the term ‘whiteness’.  This opened up a broad and growing field of whiteness studies through which I could shift and find the answer to my question.

            Throughout rhetoric pertaining to the study of Multicultural Education, more precisely the study of whiteness, exists a model of the dominate race which depicts inequality and a lopsided distribution of opportunity throughout the population of the United States.  To the vast majority of the members of this majority race, from this point on referred to as whites, this model, from this point on referred to as the privileged white male, is a myth without visible, concrete evidence.  This blindness stands in the way of social reforms that seek only to equal the balance of respect and fair treatment between all individuals living within the United States regardless of their race, religion, or sex.  In order to bring this model from the realm of myth and make it a plausible reality we must make visible the unseen privileges of whiteness, be aware of self-maintaining philosophies rooted deep within whiteness ideology, and finally reconstruct whiteness itself.

            The preceding propaganda is common amongst the rationale and literature expelled from the minds of social critics and scholars of whiteness studies who seek to reform the social norms of Americans.  Whiteness, by their own admission, is not just the social or cultural identity of whites, but the norm for America itself. (Ingram, 2005)  These critics call for society to place whiteness under the microscope so they can guide us on a trip through a maze of superficial evidence that offer whiteness as one of a number of possible causes for the continued problem with racism in the United States by claiming that whites exploit, however unconsciously, a series of unseen privileges granted to them by a self-maintaining oppressive central culture (Applebaum, 2003) including our educational systems and religious beliefs  (Sciarra and Gushue, 2003; McDonald, 2005).   

            First, however, we must understand what we mean when we refer to whiteness, and why it has been targeted by many sociologists and educational professionals as an oppressive system that needs to be deconstructed, evaluated, and altered.  The most accredited and accepted definition of whiteness comes from Peggy McIntosh (1992) in her paper entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack: “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible knapsack of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious” (1992). 

            Clearly, McIntosh argues that the effects and privileges of whiteness are to be enjoyed by the majority without knowledge of their existence.  These privileges are cleverly designed to operate in the realm of the societal norm, an accepted and coveted position that allows most whites to be blind to them, thus causing most whites to be ignorant of any racist practices and ideologies they may employ in their daily lives.

            Barbara Applebaum (2003) offers that not only is whiteness an elusive system of privileges, but also that whiteness is a self maintaining system of oppression.  It is her theory that when one group is oppressed, another benefits.  We’ve already established that whiteness is explained to be an oppressive system of privileges designed to grant unequal opportunity and treatment to minority races at the benefit of the majority race.  Thus, Applebaum concludes that whiteness serves to sustain itself by granting opportunity to whites, thus strengthening their position and strengthening itself in the process.

            Learning and understanding how whiteness guides our thoughts and assumptions will help us in understanding that whiteness is not a biological fact but a sociological construct designed to mechanize white supremacy, an argument echoed by Gregory Jay (2005), Lois Weis and Susan Lyons Lombardo (2002), Mary McDonald (2005) and David Ingram (2005).  Sarah Pearce (2003) suggests that, as educators, we need to first realize how our status as ‘white’ has effected our assumptions by taking stock of our own exploitations of unseen white privilege.  The second, and perhaps most daunting task is to successfully engage white students in identifying and moving away from uses of unseen white privilege.  This is problematic due to the elusive nature of white privilege, and the lack of solid, specific evidence that race and skin pigmentation are the reasons for personal achievements. 

            My short trek into the realm of whiteness studies has left me ponderous.  I must concede that my skin color, which is white, does bestow upon me certain advantages that I do not ask for, nor am I aware of receiving.  I was left with the feeling that some of the facts stated in the whiteness rhetoric are based on circumstantial observations.  The answer to my question, therefore, is yes.  The dominant culture does act in a concealed manner, but I do not agree with the lengths to which the scholars have assigned its field of influence.

Bibliography

Altman, N. (2004). Whiteness uncovered. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 14(4), 439-446.

Applebaum, B. (2003). White privilege, complicity, and the social construction of race. Educational Foundations, 17(4), 5-20.

Ingram, D. (2005). Toward a cleaner white(ness): new racial identities. The Philosophical Forum, (3), 243-247.

Jay, G., & Jones, S. (2005). Whiteness studies and the multicultural literature classroom. Melus, 30(2), 99-112.

Leach, M., Behrens, J., & LaFleur K. (2002). White racial identity and white racial consciousness: similarities, differences, and recommendations. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 30, 66-78.

McDonald, M. (2005). Mapping whiteness and sport: an introduction. Sociology of Sport Journal, 22, 245-255.

McIntosh, P. (1990). White privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack. Independent School, 49(2), 31-36.

Pearce, S. (2003). Compiling the white inventory: the practice of whiteness in a british primary school. Cambridge Journal of Education, 33(2), 273-288.

Sciarra, D., & Gushue, G. (2003). White racial identity development and religious orientation. Journal of Counseling & Development, 81(4), 473-482.

Weis, L., & Lombardo, S. (2002). Producing whiteness: an exploration of working-class white men in two contexts. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 23(1), 5-25.