Whiteness, Anti-Blackness, and Trauma: A Grounded Theory of White Racial Meaning Making

Disrupting the Big Lie: Higher Education and Whitelash in a Post/Colorblind Era

“…Beyond institutional structures, some scholars have theorized whiteness through a lens that explores its ruptures to the humanity of and relationality to People of Color. For example, whiteness in education has been positioned as a discourse that stifles Black joy, renders Black suffering and dehumanization as sites for white consumption and enjoyment, marks Black bodies as out-of-place, enables an emotional and spiritual detachment from People of Color, and facilitates feelings of disgust towards People of Color (Cabrera & Corces-Zimmerman, 2017; Dancy et al, 2018; Joseph-Salisbury, 2019; Love, 2019; Matias and Zembylas, 2014; Whitehead, 2021) [34][35][36][37][38][39]. The material effects of these functions of whiteness on People of Color are their well-documented experiences with various forms of violence, pain, psychological distress, and sense of belonging in higher education Irwin & Foste, 2021;Matias, 2015) [13,40,41].…”

“…In our own work, we have attempted to make this turn and be explicit in naming the material and psychological consequences of whiteness in the lives of People of Color. For example, in an exploration of white college students' processes of racial meaningmaking, Whitehead (2021) [39] noted that the whiteness embedded in such processes frequently served to rupture connections to Black people's humanity and subsequently enable Black students' experiences with anti-blackness and racial marginalization on campus. Foste & Johnson (in press) [60] explored the ways in which white spaces of campus residence halls required particular forms of emotional labor on the part of Resident Assistants of Color.…”

Promoting Recreational Interests of Black Undergraduate Students Attending Historically White Institutions

“…Enrollment of Black students at HWCUs, however, has fallen short of anticipated goals, even as the ethnic and racial minority population across the U.S. continues to grow (Postsecondary National Policy Institute, 2021). Furthermore, statistics show that Black college students who attend HWCUs drop out at higher rates than other ethnic/racial groups (Ciocca Eller & DiPrete, 2018;Selingo, 2013) and that many Black students at HWCUs view the campus climate as alienating and culturally insensitive (Karkouti, 2016;Whitehead, 2021).…”

White Male Allyship in STEM Higher Education: An Autoethnographic Study

“…Lipsitz describes how whiteness functions: "…methodological individualism that portrays social relations as simply the sum total of acts by individuals, not the product of interactions within complex practices, processes, systems, and structures…" (p. 261) [29]. Whiteness is seen as the natural order, which often leads racism to be unrecognized or unchallenged [33], [34]. In a study with white college students, Whitehead noted that white students often remain silent witnesses to racism [34].…”

“…Whiteness is seen as the natural order, which often leads racism to be unrecognized or unchallenged [33], [34]. In a study with white college students, Whitehead noted that white students often remain silent witnesses to racism [34]. Whitehead also positions whiteness as being structured by anti-Blackness, meaning Black people are seen as non-human (2021).…”