making meaning of whiteness and white privilege
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Presented by: Jacqueline Che , Roxanne Eisermann, Khalia Ii, Jasmine LeFever. Making Meaning of Whiteness and White Privilege. What does it mean to be White?. What does it mean to be a Person of Color?. “An ideology of white dominance that marginalizes and oppresses people - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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?