Research Guides: Racial Justice Resources for Activists, Advocates &amp; Allies: Whiteness

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Whiteness definitions

Whiteness
Whiteness: a dominant cultural space with enormous political significance, with the purpose to keep others on the margin” (ACLRC)
Whiteness (National Museum of African American History and Culture)
Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. Whiteness is also at the core of understanding race in America. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout America's history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal.

This white-dominant culture also operates as a social mechanism that grants advantages to white people, since they can navigate society both by feeling normal and being viewed as normal. Persons who identify as white rarely have to think about their racial identity because they live within a culture where whiteness has been normalized.

Whiteness videos

Deconstructing White Privilege with Dr. Robin DiAngelo: Dr. Robin DiAngelo is the author of "What Does it Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy" and has been an anti-racist educator, and has heard justifications of racism by white men and women in her workshops for over two decades. This justification, which she calls “white fragility,” is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.

Advancing Well-Being by Transcending the Barriers of Whiteness This webinar featured leaders of PolicyLink and Well Being Trust, Michael McAfee and Tyler Norris, engaging in a deeply honest fireside chat moderated by co-author Victor Rubin of PolicyLink. These leaders share a commitment to the type of dialogue that highlights our interdependence and is a catalyst for much-needed policy change.

Whiteness: web resources

Advancing Well-Being by Transcending the Barriers of Whiteness
PolicyLink, in partnership with Well Being Trust, developed Advancing Well-Being by Transcending the Barriers of Whiteness to identify “centering whiteness” as a social and institutional framework that prevents meaningful movement toward racial equity, describe specific social and economic inequities that have been exacerbated by this framework, and make clear new narratives that will be necessary for systemic and policy change.
Critical Whiteness Studies (About Tools and Resources Subscribe Customer Services News Oxford Research Encyclopedias)
Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) is a growing field of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege. CWS presumes a certain conception of racism that is connected to white supremacy. In advancing the importance of vigilance among white people, CWS examines the meaning of white privilege and white privilege pedagogy, as well as how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism.
Curriculum for White Americans to Educate Themselves on Race and Racism–from Ferguson to Charleston
Everyone has a role in ending racism, but the analogy shows how little sense it makes for only those facing the heel-end of oppression to do all the work. It’s time for White America to take on a far bigger role in taking off the boot. There are no doubt complexities that come with White Americans working for racial justice. White privilege can lead to a chronic case of undiagnosed entitlement, creating poor listeners, impatient speakers who talk over others, and people unaccustomed to taking orders. Nevertheless, the movement for racial justice needs more White Americans to get involved. And it’s our responsibility to help each other get involved–and get involved productively.
On Being with Krista Tippet: Eula Biss Talking About Whiteness
This conversation was inspired by Eula Biss’s stunning New York Times essay “White Debt,” which had this metaphor at its core: ”The state of white life is that we’re living in a house we believe we own but that we’ve never paid off.”
On Whiteness and Privilege (CECH Libguide)
CECH Libguide
Unpacking Whiteness - Project READY
Many white Americans do not recognize white as a race. When asked about their race, they often focus on their ethnic heritage and respond with “I’m Irish” [or English or German].Because they don’t see white as a race, many white Americans have never thought about what it means to be white, about how being white advantages them, or about how whiteness negatively impacts the lives of BIPOC. These are the topics we will explore in this module as we unpack whiteness.
White Debt (Eula Biss)
Reckoning with what is owed -- and what can never be repaid -- for racial privilege.
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(E-resource, requires UC log-in)
Whiteness | Museum of African American History and Culture
Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. Whiteness is also at the core of understanding race in America. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout America's history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and Some Notes for Facilitators (SEED)
A1988 essay written by American feminist scholar Peggy McIntosh it covers 50 examples, or hidden benefits, from McIntosh's perspective, of the privilege white people experience in everyday life. "Since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage."
Why DEI And Anti-Racism Work Needs To Decenter Whiteness
What does it mean to center and prioritize whiteness in DEI and anti-racism work? DEI practitioners and anti-racism educators are often hired into toxic spaces where leaders claim they want to foster more equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging. More consideration must be given to how much of this work centers the feelings of white people with little focus on the feelings of oppressed and marginalized groups

Whiteness: books

Acting white? : rethinking race in "post-racial" America by Devon W. Carbado; Mitu Gulati
Call Number: OhioLINK
ISBN: 9780190229214
Publication Date: 2015-05-01
What does it mean to "act black" or "act white"? Is race merely a matter of phenotype, or does it come from the inflection of a person's speech, the clothes in her closet, how she chooses to spend her time and with whom she chooses to spend it? What does it mean to be "really" black, and whogets to make that judgment?In Acting White?, leading scholars of race and the law Devon Carbado and Mitu Gulati argue that, in spite of decades of racial progress and the pervasiveness of multicultural rhetoric, racial judgments are often based not just on skin color, but on how a person conforms to behavior stereotypicallyassociated with a certain race.
Being White, being good : White complicity, White moral responsibility, and social justice pedagogy by Barbara Applebaum
Call Number: OhioLINK
ISBN: 9780739144916
Publication Date: 2010-03-18
The book highlights how well intentioned white people who might even consider themselves as paragons of antiracism might be unwittingly sustaining an unjust system that they say the want to dismantle. What could it mean for white people to be good when they can reproduce and maintain a racist system even when and especially, when, they believe themselves to be good to answer this question. Barbara Applebaum advocates a shift in our understanding of the subject of language and of moral responsibility. Based on these shifts a new notion of moral responsibility can be articulated that is not focused on guilt and that can help white students understand and acknowledge their white complicity. Book jacket.
Beyond the Pale by Vron Ware; Mikki Kendall (Foreword by)
Call Number: OhioLINK
ISBN: 9781784780128
Publication Date: 2015-06-09
How have ideas about white women figured in the history of racism? Vron Ware argues that they have been central, and that feminism has, in many ways, developed as a political movement within racist societies. Dissecting the different meanings of femininity and womanhood, Beyond the Pale examines the political connections between black and white women, both within contemporary racism and feminism, as well as in historical examples like the anti-slavery movement and the British campaign against lynching in the United States. Beyond the Pale is a major contribution to anti-racist work, confronting the historical meanings of whiteness as a way of overcoming the moralism that so often infuses anti-racist movements.
Darkwater by W. E. B. Du Bois; Herbert Apthekar (Introduction by)
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E185.61 .D83 1975
ISBN: 9780527253004
Publication Date: 1975-01-01
These are the things of which men think who live: of their own selves and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death and War.
Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan M. Metzl
ISBN: 9781541644984
Publication Date: 2019-03-05
A physician reveals how right-wing backlash policies have mortal consequences -- even for the white voters they promise to help. In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death.
Feeling White by Cheryl E. Matias
Call Number: E-BOOK
ISBN: 9789463004480
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
Call Number: CLER Stacks E185.61 .B195 1993
ISBN: 9780679744726
Publication Date: 1992-12-01
At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism
The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E185 .A44 1994 v.1-2
ISBN: 086091660X
Publication Date: 1994-03-17
Compelling analogies are presented between the history of Anglo-Irish and British rule in Ireland and American White Supremacist oppression of Indians and African-Americans. But the relativity of race is shown in the sea change it entailed, whereby emigrating Irish haters of racial oppression were transformed into White Americans who defended it. The reasons for the differing outcomes of Catholic Emancipation and Negro Emancipation are considered and occasion is made to demonstrate Allen's distinction between racial and national oppression.
Nice racism : how progressive White people perpetuate racial harm by Robin DiAngelo
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks HT1521 .D485 2021
ISBN: 9780807074121
Publication Date: 2021-06-29
Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common white racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include: * rushing to prove that we are "not racist" * downplaying white advantage * romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of color (BIPOC) * pretending white segregation "just happens" * expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism * carefulness * and feeling immobilized by shame. DiAngelo explains how spiritual white progressives seeking community by co-opting Indigenous and other groups' rituals create separation, not connection. She challenges the ideology of individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and she demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment, and accountability.
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness by George Lipsitz
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E184.A1 L56 2006
ISBN: 9781592134946
Publication Date: 2006-03-10
In this unflinching look at white supremacy, George Lipsitz argues that racism is a matter of interests as well as attitudes, a problem of property as well as pigment. Above and beyond personal prejudice, whiteness is a structured advantage that produces unfair gains and unearned rewards for whites while imposing impediments to asset accumulation, employment, housing, and health care for minorities.Reaching beyond the black/white binary, Lipsitz shows how whiteness works in respect to Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.Lipsitz delineates the weaknesses embedded in civil rights laws, the racial dimensions of economic restructuring and deindustrialization, and the effects of environmental racism, job discrimination and school segregation. He also analyzes the centrality of whiteness to U.S. culture, and perhaps most importantly, he identifies the sustained and perceptive critique of white privilege embedded in the radical black tradition.
Understanding White Privilege by Frances Kendall
Call Number: E-BOOK
ISBN: 9780203114162
Publication Date: 2012-12-12
Knowingly and unknowingly we all grapple with race every day. Understanding White Privilege delves into the complex interplay between race, power, and privilege in both organizations and private life.
It offers an unflinching look at how ignorance can perpetuate privilege, and offers practical and thoughtful insights into how people of all races can work to break this cycle.
Uprooting Racism: how white people can work for racial justice- 4th Edition by Paul Kivel
Call Number: OhioLINK
ISBN: 9780865718654
Publication Date: 2017-08-28
provides practical tools and advice on how white people can work as allies for racial justice, engaging the reader through questions, exercises, and suggestions for action, and includes a wealth of information about specific cultural groups such as Muslims, people with mixed heritage, Native Americans, Jews, recent immigrants, Asian Americans, and Latino/as. Inequalities in education, housing, health care, and the job market continue to prevail, while increased insecurity and fear have led to an epidemic of scapegoating and harassment of people of color.
The Wages of Whiteness: race and the making of the American working class by David R. Roediger; Mike Davis (Contribution by); Michael Sprinker (Contribution by)
ISBN: 1859842402
Publication Date: 1999-01-17
This study the formative years of working-class racism in the United States discusses whiteness and the changing face of labour. The author surveys criticisms of his work, accepting many such criticisms while challenging others, especially the view that the study of working-class racism implies a rejection of Marxism and radical politics.
Waking up White by Debby Irving
Call Number: Request through OhioLINK
ISBN: 9780991331307
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
invites readers to think personally about how race -- theirs and others' -- frames experiences and relationships, focusing squarely on white privilege and its implications for building authentic relationships across race. This much-anticipated revised edition includes two full new chapters, one on white women and another extending the discussion on race. It continues the important work of the first, deepening our knowledge of the recurring history on which cross-race relationships issues exist. Kendall's book provides readers with a more meaningful understanding of white privilege and equips them with strategies for making personal and organizational changes.
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo; Michael Eric Dyson (Foreword by)
Call Number: E-BOOK
ISBN: 9780807047422
Publication Date: 2018-06-26
The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this "vital, necessary, and beautiful book" (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and "allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people' (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
White Like Me by Tim Wise
Call Number: OhioLINK
ISBN: 9781933368993
Publication Date: 2007-12-01
Racial privilege shapes the lives of white Americans in every facet of life, from employment and education to housing and criminal justice. Using stories from his own life, Tim Wise shows that racism not only burdens people of color, but also benefits those who are "white like him" -- whether or not they're actively racist. Using stories instead of stale statistics, Wise weaves a compelling narrative that assesses the magnitude of racial privilege and is at once readable and scholarly, analytical yet accessible.
White people and Black Lives Matter: ignorance, empathy, and justice / by Johanna C. Luttrell
ISBN: 9783030224899
Publication Date: 2019
This book interrogates white responses to black-led movements for racial justice. It is a philosophical self-reflection on the ways in which 'white' reactions to Black Lives Matter stand in the way of the movement's important work. It probes reactions which often prevent white people from according to black activists the full range of human emotion and expression, including joy, anger, mourning, and political action. Johanna C. Luttrell encourages different conceptions of empathy and impartiality specific to social movements for racial justice, and addresses objections to identity politics
White women, race matters : the social construction of whiteness by Ruth Frankenberg
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks HQ1154 .F683 1993
ISBN: 9780816622573
Publication Date: 1993-09-01
With extracts from in-depth life history interviews, this unique book examines the experiences of white women in a racially hierarchical society.
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum
ISBN: 9780465003969
Publication Date: 2003-01-17
Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides.
These topics have only become more urgent as the national conversation about race is increasingly acrimonious. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America.
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
ISBN: 9781408870570
Publication Date: 2017-06-01
'Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can't afford to stay silent. This book is an attempt to speak'The book that sparked a national conversation. Exploring everything from eradicated black history to the inextricable link between class and race,
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to understand race relations in Britain today.
Witnessing Whiteness by Shelly Tochluk
Call Number: LANGSAM Stacks E184.A1 T63 2008
ISBN: 9781607092575
Publication Date: 2010-01-16
Witnessing Whiteness invites readers to consider what it means to be white, describes and critiques strategies used to avoid race issues, and identifies the detrimental effect of avoiding race on cross-race collaborations. The author illustrates how racial discomfort leads white people toward poor relationships with people of color. Questioning the implications our history has for personal lives and social institutions, the book considers political, economic, socio-cultural, and legal histories that shaped the meanings associated with whiteness