Whiteness studies

From Freepedia

Whiteness studies is a controversial field of study which began appearing as early as 1983 (see the works of Marilyn Frye). As of 2004, according to The Washington Post, at least 30 institutions including Princeton University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and University of Massachusetts Amherst currently offer courses in whiteness studies.

The central tenet of whiteness studies is a reading of history in which the very concept of race is said to have been created by a white power structure in order to justify discrimination against nonwhites. Advocates of whiteness studies argue that whites do not see their own whiteness racially, but regard race as something that "others" have; by emphasizing "whiteness," they seek to change white Americans' view of their own racial identity. Major areas of research include the nature of white identity and of white privilege, the historical process by which a white racial identity was created, the relation of culture to white identity, and possible processes of social change in white identity.

Critics deride the field as a fad, as divisive and antithetical to the traditional left-wing emphasis on the working class (including the white working class), or as a façade for racism against whites.

1 History of Whiteness
2 White privilege
3 Schools of thought
- 3.1 Race Traitor
4 See also
5 External links

History of Whiteness

Whiteness studies draws on research over the last forty years into the definition of race in the American context. This research emphasizes the process of social construction of white, Native and Black identities in interaction with the creation of the institutions of slavery, colonial settlement, citizenship, and industrial labor. Scholars such as Winthrop Jordan (in his widely cited 'White Over Black') have traced the evolution of the legally defined line between blacks and whites, and (equivalently) between slaves and indentured servants to colonial government efforts to prevent cross-racial revolts among unpaid laborers. Also of interest is the slow and uncertain inclusion of various ethnic groups (especially Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, and European Jewish) in the white race. Contributors on this matter include David Roediger (Wages of Whitenes; Working Toward Whiteness), Noel Ignatiev (How the Irish Became White), and Matthew Frye Jacobson (Whiteness of a Different Color). More recent scholarship by Thomas Guglielmo in (White on Arrival) has further circumscribed this field, arguing that Italian immigrants in Chicago at the early twentieth century were marked as racially undesirable as Italian, but were consistently accepted as white nonetheless.

White privilege

Writers such as Peggy McIntosh have sought to enumerate the social, political and cultural advantages accorded to whites in American society. They argue that these advantages seem invisible to most whites, but obvious to others. They often call for whites to acknowledge, renounce or betray these privileges by using them against racism.

Schools of thought

Race Traitor

One group of people involved in these discussions advocate a strategy they call race treason, and are grouped around articles appearing in the journal Race Traitor. The adherents' main argument is that whiteness (as a marker of a social status within the United States) is conferred upon people in exchange for an expectation of loyalty to what they consider an oppressive social order. This loyalty has taken a variety of forms over time: suppression of slave rebellions, participation in patrols for runaways, maintainance of race exclusionary unions, participation in riots, support for racist violence, and participation in acts of violence during the conquest of the west. Like currency, the value of this privilege (for the powerful) depends on the reliability of white skin as a marker for social consent. With sufficient "counterfeit whites" resisting racism and capitalism, the writers in this tradition argue, the privilege will be withdrawn or will splinter, prompting an era of conflict and social redefinition. Without such a period, they argue, progress towards social justice is impossible, and thus "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity".

In 'Race Traitor', the editors cite as basis for their proposed actions a call by African American writers and activists--notably W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin--for whites to break solidarity with American racism. Some have even argued that no nonracist white identity is possible, as in Baldwin's declaration that, "As long as you think you are white, there's no hope for you."

Race Traitor advocates have sought examples of race treason by whites in American history. One historical figure consistently valorized by Race Traitor (a publication favorable to the tenets of whiteness studies) is John Brown, a Northern abolitionist of European descent who battled slavery in western territories of the United States and led a failed but dramatic raid to free slaves and create an armed anti-slavery force at Harpers Ferry. A similar, though less noticed example is the mostly Irish Saint Patrick's Battalion who deserted from the U.S. allied militia and joined the Mexican forces in opposition to the U.S. in the 1840s. However, this action could also be explained in terms of feelings of Catholic unity with the Mexicans.

Visions of praxis cited by Race Traitor writers range from anti-racist unionism (such as DRUM in Detroit), collaboration in urban uprisings, and documenting and interfering with police abuse of people of color. Joel Olson has written about a theoretical vision in his book The Abolition of White Democracy.