{"id":17407,"date":"2020-11-01T15:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=17407"},"modified":"2020-11-13T14:39:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T18:39:49","slug":"whiteness-white-fragility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/whiteness-white-fragility\/","title":{"rendered":"Whiteness: What is White Identity in America?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is whiteness? How does your life more privileged in America if you’re white?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whiteness is the quality of being white. The laws and systems of the United States are set up to protect whiteness and confer advantages based on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read on to understand the whiteness definition and the impact of being white in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Whiteness<\/strong> Definition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After the founding of the United States, these ideas became further encoded into the nation\u2019s legal system, with an entire set of laws emerging to protect the institution of slavery. Even after the abolition of slavery, whiteness became an essential qualification for full participation in American life. So, what is whiteness? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When new immigrants came to America in the 19th and 20th centuries, the judicial system rendered judgments on which groups could and couldn\u2019t be classified as white. By conferring specific advantages and benefits upon whiteness, American society transformed race into more than an <\/strong>identity<\/em><\/strong>\u2014it became an <\/strong>interest<\/em><\/strong>, one that white people would jealously guard and protect.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, immigrant groups that once faced discrimination\u2014like Irish- or Italian-Americans\u2014were able to assimilate into white society by becoming more generically \u201cAmerican\u201d and shedding their unique cultural or national identities. Implicit in this ability to assimilate, of course, was the idea that whiteness <\/em>was the key component of American identity. Other forms of identity such as language or religion could be integrated. But this path was never open to black people, regardless of how long their ancestors may have been in the country, because, unlike the Irish and Italians, they couldn\u2019t \u201cpass\u201d as white. Race was an immutable characteristic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important to remember that the social construction<\/a> of race preceded <\/em>racism\u2014indeed, it was essential to it. Our notions of race are inextricably linked to centuries worth of ideas and practices about who should and should not wield power in society. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prejudice vs. Racism<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Understanding this link between race and power is crucial to understanding the true nature of racism. To illustrate this, it\u2019s useful to explore the differences between prejudice and racism. Prejudice is when you have an opinion about a large group of people based on some shared characteristic and then use that generalization to evaluate individual members of that group. And because none of us are objective and are all products of the larger forces that shape our society, we all <\/em>have prejudicial beliefs and ideas of one kind or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, you might harbor the (incorrect) belief that people of East Asian descent have a natural aptitude for mathematics. You then assume that individuals of East Asian descent whom you meet must be math whizzes, based solely on their membership in that group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discrimination is when you <\/strong>act <\/em><\/strong>on prejudiced beliefs.<\/strong> It can range from exclusion to verbal abuse to outright violence. If you believe that black men are somehow hardwired to commit violent crime, you might refuse to hire them or instinctively cross the street when you encounter them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Institutions<\/strong> Show Preference for Whiteness<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

But racism is a very different phenomenon, despite superficial similarities to simple prejudice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racism is defined by power and control of key institutions within a society. <\/strong>Thus (in the context of American history), slavery, Jim Crow<\/a>, and discriminatory housing policies are just some of the functions of racism. They were products of white control over the political, legal, and economic apparatus of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People of color can be prejudiced <\/em>toward white people and can even discriminate <\/em>against individual <\/em>white people; but because, as a group, they have historically been (and remain) locked out of dominant positions within the nation\u2019s power structure, by definition they cannot be racist<\/em>. In other words, a group needs power within a society to even be <\/strong>capable <\/em><\/strong>of racism. <\/strong>Thus, \u201creverse racism,\u201d the alleged oppression of whites at the hands of black people, is a contradiction of terms. Racism cannot be \u201creverse”\u2014it can only go in one direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A black real estate agent might act on her prejudice and discriminate against an individual <\/em>white person by refusing to help them buy a home; but black people have no ability to pass laws mandating which neighborhoods white people as a group<\/em> are and aren\u2019t allowed to live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pervasiveness of White Supremacy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Because white people have always been dominant in society, they have not had to confront the consequences or even the existence <\/em>of their enormous privileges. <\/strong>This is largely because white supremacy<\/a> encodes as the whiteness definition, being white as the norm or standard condition for society. This pervades everything from language to how we view our nation\u2019s history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cAmericanness\u201d of people of color, for example, is always qualified as \u201cAfrican-American,\u201d \u201cAsian-American,\u201d or \u201cLatin American.\u201d Rarely are white people called \u201cWhite-American\u201d or \u201cCaucasian-American.\u201d But, what is whiteness? It is assumed to be standard, normal, and synonymous with American identity itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, February is designated as Black History Month. Implicit in this labeling<\/a> is the idea that \u201cblack\u201d history stands somehow apart from American history in general. There does not need to be a corresponding White History Month, because the culture automatically assumes <\/em>that such a designation would be redundant\u2014in a white-dominated society, white history is simply the same as \u201chistory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This placement of white people atop the nation\u2019s hierarchy and the enshrinement of whiteness as the embodiment of national identity is what scholars of race mean by white supremacy. Many white people recoil at the term and refuse to consider the idea that they bear responsibility for it because they associate it with extremist groups like the KKK or neo-Nazis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even a cursory look at America\u2019s most powerful institutions shows just how embedded white supremacy is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n