Whiteness

“Racism is based on the concept of whiteness—a powerful fiction enforced by power and violence. Whiteness is a constantly shifting boundary separating those who are entitled to have certain privileges from those whose exploitation and vulnerability to violence is justified by their not being white” (Kivel, 1996, p.19).

What is Whiteness?

In Alberta, the word “white” is sometimes used to refer specifically to skin colour or “race.” This may appear like the reinforcement of the old (and racist) categories of European imperialism, and in some cases, it may in fact be meant that way. But in our experience, we have found that when people refer to “white people” (either in self-identification or identifying individuals/groups), it is actually being used as a shorthand reference to whiteness; that is, to the social meaning that we have attached to this concept. It is used as a shorthand for the privileges and power that people who appear white receive because they are not subjected to the racism faced by people of colour and Indigenous people.

It is important to notice the difference between being “white” (a category of “race” with no biological/scientific foundation) and “whiteness” (a powerful social construct with very real, tangible, violent effects). We must recognize that race is scientifically insignificant . Race is a socially constructed category that powerfully attaches meaning to perceptions of skin colour; inequitable social/economic relations are structured and reproduced (including the meanings attached to skin colour) through notions of race, class, gender, and nation.

Ruth Frankenberg defines whiteness as “a dominant cultural space with enormous political significance, with the purpose to keep others on the margin. … [W]hite people are not required to explain to others how ‘white’ culture works, because ‘white’ culture is the dominant culture that sets the norms. Everybody else is then compared to that norm. … In times of perceived threat, the normative group may well attempt to reassert its normativity by asserting elements of its cultural practice more explicitly and exclusively (qtd. in Estable, 1997, 21).

An example of this normative whiteness was the furor concerning Baltej Singh Dhillon’s fight to wear a turban, for religious reasons, as part of his RCMP uniform. The argument that the Mountie uniform was a “tradition” that should not be changed belied white Canadians’ perceptions of Sikh people and communities of colour as “threatening” their position of privilege in Canada.

↳ Click here to learn more about the Baltej Singh Dhillon Case.

Key Features of Whiteness

Whiteness is multidimensional, complex, and systemic:

• It is socially and politically constructed, and therefore a learned behaviour.
• It does not simply refer to skin colour, but to its ideology based on beliefs, values behaviours, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin colour (Frye, 1983;  Kivel, 1996).
• It represents a position of power where the power holder defines the categories, which means that the power holder decides who is white and who is not (Frye, 1983).
• It is relational . “White” only exists in relation/opposition to other categories/locations in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness. In defining “others,” whiteness defines itself.
• It is fluid —who is considered white changes over time (Kivel, 1996).
• It is a state of unconsciousness: whiteness is often invisible to white people, and this perpetuates a lack of knowledge or understanding of difference which is a root cause of oppression (hooks, 1994).
• It shapes how white people view themselves and others, and places white people in a place of structural advantage where white cultural norms and practices go unnamed and unquestioned (Frankenberg, 1993). Cultural racism is founded in the belief that “whiteness is considered to be the universal … and allows one to think and speak as if whiteness described and defined the world” (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 327).
• Whiteness is a set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals and groups; it is normalized in its production/maintenance for those of that group such that its operations are “invisible” to those privileged by it (but not to those oppressed/disadvantaged by it). It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies.
• Whiteness is distinct but not separate from ideologies and material manifestations of ideologies of class, nation, gender, sexuality, and ability.
• The meaning of whiteness is historical and has shifted over time (i.e. Irish, Italian, Spanish, Greek and southern European peoples have at times been “raced” as non-white).

↳ Click here to explore our glossary definitions of White Fragility, Whiteness, White Privilege/White-Skin Privilege & White Supremacy

References:

• Estable, A., Meyer, M., & Pon, G. (1997). Teach me to thunder: A training manual for anti-racism trainers. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Labour Congress.
• Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Frye, M. (1983). On being White: Thinking toward a feminist understanding of race and race supremacy. In T. Burg (Ed.), Politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. New York, NY: Crossing Press.
• Henry, F., & Tator, C. (2006). The colour of democracy: Racism in Canadian society. 3rd Ed. Toronto, ON: Nelson.
• hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Kivel, P. (1996). Uprooting racism: How white people can work for racial justice. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Press.

Recommended Resources:

• “Deconstructing White Privilege with Dr. Robin DiAngelo.” General Commission on Religion and Race of The UMC. Youtube.
• “Talking About Race: Whiteness.” National Museum of African American History and Culture. (American Context)