Object lessons in whiteness: Antiracism and the study of white folks

Abstract

This paper examines the convergence of antiracist politics and theorizing with the emergent ethnographic attention to cultural constructions of whiteness. The methodological, conceptual, and political crossing points between antiracist scholarship and cultural anthropologists' burgeoning interest in the construction of white racial identity raise a host of provocative issues about the political stakes involved in studying whiteness. Drawing on my fieldwork on whites in Detroit, Michigan, I offer a critical reflection on the influence that antiracist projects have had on anthropologists' efforts to analyze whiteness. The core of this discussion involves an evaluation of the centrality of "racism" in the analytical judgments of antiracist and ethnographic studies. Though it is perhaps more politically useful and appealing to develop emphatic assessments of how whites reproduce and imbibe racism, I argue that it is also critical to consider the highly contradictory and ambiguous aspects of white racial identification. Through a critique of the way antiracists analyze the stories white people tell, I delineate the comparative advantages that an ethnographic attention to the ambiguities of racial matters brings to the tasks of understanding whiteness.For scholars concerned with the problems of racial inequality and searching for a means directly to affect a change in the way racism is

Stories of Transition in South Africa

“…Interestingly, while Odingo acknowledged racial segregation in his life (he lived in a village with blacks only, while "white people lived in towns"), he struggled to comply with supremacist ideas that consider white people superior to blacks. In line with Hartigan (2000), Odingo's resistance towards the position of internalized inferiority shows his unwillingness to succumb to racist judgments. Against Biko's claims, neither Alex nor Odingo claimed to feel 'lesser' than their white Other.…”

“…The struggle, which Alfred displays in this narrative, is significant, as it shows that his attitudes towards blacks were informed by the overwhelming racist discourse of the time. In line with Hartigan (2000), diagnosing Alfred's account as simply 'racist' does not do justice to the ambiguous perceptions that he has of black people. Instead, accounting for his struggle reveals the challenge in abiding by a racialized doxa, which is by nature ambiguous (Hall 1986).…”

“…Ambiguity in commonsense "I remember feeling like 'something is really wrong here'"-Lizzy, white Although most participants perceived the racialized society during apartheid as natural, their narratives were speckled with moments of resistance towards the dominant discourse. In his research on the racial identification of white people in Detroit, John Hartigan (2000) advocates a critical race approach towards understanding racial identities. Hartigan shows that by considering the contradictory and ambiguous aspects in white racial identification one is able to achieve a more nuanced understanding of whiteness.…”

Public Sociology or Partisan Sociology? The Curious Case of Whiteness Studies

“…Largely ignored are the complicated interactions between race, class, and sex, and the struggles of many whites to acquire privileges in a class-stratified society, especially economic security and some degree of self-autonomy (Bonnett 1997;Eichstedt 2001;Hartigan 1997Hartigan , 2000bHubbard 2005;Kolchin 2002;Lee 1999;Winders 2003). Reifying the concept of race fails to capture the processes through which it acquires meaning, confers status, or exerts a "structuring effect" (Bash 2006;Lewis 2004).…”

“…Brekhus 1998;Merton 1972) and perpetuate an "us-them" view of difference-the binary perspective that is at the core of racist discourses. The reification of racial categories endows them with causal potential and predictive ability, implying that all persons classified as white will exhibit the undesirable traits associated with whiteness, since being white is a condition with distinct, identifiable, but largely negative attributes that are in need of corrective attention (Alcoff 1998;Bash 2006;Hartigan 2000b;Keating 1995;Santas 2000;Scott 2000). In a reversal of the historical equation, "white" has become reprehensible whereas "nonwhite" has become virtuous (Gillborn 1996;Keating 1995).…”