Making Meaning of Whiteness and

White Privilege

Presented by: Jacqueline Che, Roxanne Eisermann, Khalia Ii, Jasmine LeFever

What does it mean to be White?

What does it mean to be a Person of Color?

What is Whiteness?

“An ideology of white dominance that marginalizes and oppresses people of color, ensuring existing privileges for

white people in this country” (McIntyre, 1997)

Meaning lies solely on the hierarchical placement advantage

it conveys

Constructed as the standard or norm against which all other racial categories are measured.

(Dr. Derald Sue)

For people perceived as “White,” whiteness means…

Socialization Inheritance Benefit To have a stake

Denial

Unaware Right Privilege

Possession Human Being

Oppressor

More importantly, being a White American means living in a world of self-deception, “color blind” in the sense that you do not see that in this world your skin color is an asset while all other colors are a liability.

(Dr. Derald Sue)

“White Privilege”An institutional (rather than a personal) set of benefits

associated with being white.

Name for the unearned advantages and benefits that accrue to “white” (or lighter skinned) people by virtue of a system that establishes the experiences, values, and perceptions of their group as the norm and what is most desired or esteemed.

Operates within an invisible veil of unspoken and protected secrecy.

Means not having to think about race all the time--the privilege to enjoy the benefits of whiteness without acknowledging those advantages and while denying that “race matters”

(Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins, 2nd ed. Race, Class, and Gender, pp. 41-46.)

(Dr. Sue)

Peggy McIntosh (1989)

What is “Racelessness”?

A societal goal; a concept that symbolizes the effort to deconstruct the meaning of race by highlighting their absence.

Denies the existence of racial, ethnic, and cultural barriers in the larger society.

i.e. the seeking to systematically expunge from African-American students’ cultural repertoire those aspects of their group identity that might be associated with their African and African-American ancestry.

Whiteness in America: A review of the history

Whiteness in America: From “European” to “White” to “Human”

Whiteness = the real, normal

humanity…?

Whiteness in America: From “European” to “White” to “Human”

Whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law.

Following the period of slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege

Whites as Citizens…Blacks as Others

A review of history

Slave Codes, enacted from 1680 through 1705Bacon’s Rebellion U.S. Civil War (1861– 1865)Citizenship Naturalization Act of 1870 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, 1892 (renewed in

1892 and in 1902)Court petitioned citizenshipThe tyranny of the Jim Crow era in American life

(from Reconstruction through the 1960s)

No families for Chinese (1880's – 1914)The Dawes Land Allotment Act (1887) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of

Education (1954)“Three Strikes You’re Out” in California (1994)The passage of Proposition 209 (1996)

A review of history

Whiteness, just as blackness, is a social construction enforced by law, built on very unsteady ground.

“White” is a political term “White privilege” is a relational term “White” was originally a class term

A study of the historical origin of the term white suggests that:

The belief in race, becomes racelessness

Current Understanding

Helm’s Model of Racial Identity Development

Two Models:Status PEOPLE OF COLOR WHITE

1 Conformity Conformity

2 Dissonance Acceptance

3 Immersion Resistance

4 Emersion Retreat

5 Internalization Emergence

6 Integrative Awareness Integrative Awareness

Helms, J.E. (1990) (Ed.). Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research and Practice. CT: Greenwood Press

Mirrors of Privilege:Making Whiteness Visible

Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible

And some people think, “Well, why bother? All you’re going to get out of this experience is pain.”

I know it’s horrible. I feel bad about it. I wish it hadn’t happened. What else am I supposed to do?

What is the legitimate role of White folks in social justice, and race, and related to race issues and racism?

I want to help. How can I help? How can I help promote change and equality for African Americans and for all people of color? And he just turned to me and said,

“Educate your own people.”

I demonstrate my distance of Whiteness by rejecting my own group.

There is a theory that talks about racial context and that it needs to be between equals.

I wanted to teach these White kids that they’re racist... You want to blame your own group. In other words, the way I connect with some sense of purity in myself is by rejecting my own community, which is the White community.

Implications of Whiteness and White Privilege

Seeing White as “Normal” Using the experience of a white person as true

for everyone. “I’m not followed around in the store by a

guard, what makes you think you are?” Reinserting oneself into the conversation if it

is felt that it has drifted to focus on a person of color or on an issue of others’ race.

“I don’t really think the issue is race as much as it is class.”

Kendall, F.2. (2001). Understanding White Privilege

Defining the parameters of “appropriate” conversation and communication.

“I’d like a “safe” space before I’ll feel open to talk about race and racism.”

Seeing White as “Normal”

Discounting People of Color

“You always focus on race. I remember at two meetings last year…”

“I know we have a way to go, but things have gotten better.”

Kendall, F.2. (2001). Understanding White Privilege

Overauthorizing People of Color

Determine for yourself what issues may be at play without disempowering people of color for having a

different point of view.

Kendall, F.2. (2001). Understanding White Privilege Brazaitis, S.J. (2004). White women - Protectors of the Status quo, positioned to disrupt it. In S. Cytrynbaum and D. Noumair, (Eds.),

Group Relations Reader 3 (pp. 99-116). Washington, D.C.: A.K. Rice Institute.

Take Note of Your Reactions

Let’s examine the lens which we view interactions with.

What if Henry Louis Gates was white?

Segregated Proms in the 21st Century?

By acknowledging whiteness and renouncing white privilege…

Know that exposing whiteness and white privilege will threaten your power and

privilege too. But…

There is an opportunity for a shift to take place. People of color can be freed of the “diversity

expert” role.

Life Analysis

Activity:• Make a list of 10 things you usually do during

the week.

Duality Duel

Self Discovery

What is your social responsibility to understand whiteness and white privilege?

What role does leadership play in all of this?