THE GAP BETWEEN WHITES AND WHITENESS: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy

Abstract

How do White members of Black-White interracial families negotiate the meanings of race, and particularly Whiteness? Inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois's concept of double consciousness, this article argues that interracial intimacy is a microlevel political site where White people can acquire a critical analytical lens that we conceptualize as racial literacy. This article fills a gap in the empirical and theoretical literature on race and Whiteness by including gay, lesbian, and heterosexual families on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on two ethnographic research projects involving one hundred and twenty-one interracial families in the United Kingdom and the eastern United States, we provide an analysis of how White people learn to translate racial codes, decipher racial structures, and manage the racial climate in their communities. We draw on "racial consciousness" interviews conducted with one hundred and one heterosexual families and twenty gay and lesbian families to present seven portraits that illuminate three dimensions of racial literacy: double consciousness, negotiation of local racial meanings, and seeing routine forms of everyday racism.

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“…Rather, it is reasonable to assume that Swedish whiteness (and its inherent politics of belonging) will broaden and recruit new subjects in an attempt to maintain its hegemonic position in the ever increasing multiracial Sweden -in line with the development in the United States (Twine & Steinbugler 2006;Bonilla-Silva 2003). In response to the growing non-white population in Sweden, 'new' -previously non-white/non-Swedish -groups, such as Italians, Greeks, Poles, Bosnians and some mixed-race groups, will, in this scenario, be included in the expanding boundaries of Swedish whiteness after a few generations, just as different European ethnic groups in the United States became homogeneously white through the 1950s suburbanization (Lipsitz 2006).…”

Drawing Dissent: Postracialist Pedagogy, Racist Literacy, and Racial Plagiarism in Anti-Obama Political Cartoons

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