Reflections on ‘whiteness’ as a
racial category
EVIE HUTT, EMMA BRYANT, JODIE BAKER
Reflections on the course so far
- ‘Afrika’ in the German language
- Black history in Germany - largely invisible
But ‘whiteness’ as a racial category is largely left unmarked and
unnoticed.
Terminology: Discussion
Discuss in groups…
What problems do the following terms throw up?
●
●
●
●
●
Non-white
Black
People of Colour
Whiteness
White
The problems...
● Generalise people into an all-encompassing term
● Excludes a vast range of people and racial categories ie. ‘black’
● Defines people by something they are not ie. ‘non-white’
Levine-Rasky (2002):
‘whiteness’ is a discursive construct which signifies the ‘processes through which
whites acquire and deploy social dominance’.
- ‘racialised other’ – groups who have been regarded as racially distinct from
whites.
Important to be aware that all these terms are unsatisfactory.
Clips to discuss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s
Discuss….
- Your thoughts on the clips, what questions or issues spring to mind?
-
What does this clip demonstrate about society’s perception of whiteness?
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=453206971494020
-
Can you think of any other examples in which whiteness is simply unmarked and
invisible ?
Radio examples
The unmarked white person
-
Where did this idea of the unmarked white person stem
from?
Slavery
Taboo surrounding white supremacists
-
Where can we identify the unmarked white person in
today’s society?
- Habits of speech
- Academic world
Confronting the concept of whiteness
“White’s consciousness of whiteness is predominantly unconsciousness of
whiteness” Flagg ( 1997, p.85)
Issues that may arise:
- Green light problem
- Me-too-ism
- Guilt
- What terms we should use
- Dominance is not overcome if we use the non-white as the moral check to ‘keep
us honest’
‘In rendering whiteness as a meaningful area of enquiry, we run the risk of
legitimating its material and symbolic purchase’ (Levine-Rasky 2002)
Why do we need to confront the issue of whiteness?
White people:
- Systematically privileged in society
- Don’t see their white privilege, invisibleness, white culture & identity have no content
- White power reproduces itself regardless of intention, power differences, goodwill, overwhelmingly
because it’s not seen as whiteness, but as normal
- Whiteness needs to be ‘made strange’
In challenging the unmarkedness and normalcy of whiteness, we challenge hierarchical discursive structures
which allows for the dominance of the white person.
‘As long as race is something only applied to non-whites, as long as white people are not racially seen and
named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are just raced, we are just people.’ (Dyer, 1997)
It is necessary to occupy ourselves with ‘whiteness’, not to reproduce the same social hierarchies, but to end
them.
‘Weiss-sein’ - Roots in German history
Specific historical processes led to a discourse of belonging based upon the category of whiteness
Blutverwandschaft is embedded in the national consciousness
Colonial Germany - ‘blood community’ served colonial purposes.
- children of white German men and black indigenous women - ‘mischling’ could not inherit
German citizenship. Belonging became defined by skin colour.
Difficulty with borders - biological origins became important. Ius Sanguinis favoured ever since concept of birthplace citizenship only introduced in 2000 (‘Jus Soli’ -Geburtsortprinzip)
National socialism - whiteness central to the Nazi vision.
Whiteness in Germany
- Embedded idea that a true German is a white person
- Biodeutsch: http://www.kanaktv.de/popup/weisses_ghetto.html
3mins35secs
- Self-reflection - what is a real German?
- Issues stemming from Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung
Issues with ‘whiteness’ in Germany
-
The Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, BDSG, 20 December
1990, last amended on the 21 August 2002)
-
Das Volkszählungsurteil (1983)
-
Academic structure
-
Training opportunities to enter certain professional realms
-
Practices which hinder non whites in the process of job applications.
Micro-Agression
Racist violence often reduced to citizenship/xenophobia
– ‘fremdfeindlichtkeit’. But this racist violence is actually about skin colour (author here).
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/studie-zu-integration-jeder-fuenfte-deutsche-ist-fremdenfeindlich-a-694325.html
“Jede fuenfte Deutsche ist fremdenfeindlich”
“eine repraesentative Studie die Ansichten und Wertvorstellungen von Deutschen und in
Deutschland lebenden Migranten”
“Polnische Migranten am besten integriert”
“Die am schlechtesten integrierte Migrantengruppe seien tuerkische Muslime”
Whiteness defined through non-whiteness
- Critical discourse analysis - the duality of discourse.
- The portrayal of non-white people automatically implicitly defines white people
White unmarkedness results in the:
‘privilege of normalcy and unexaminedness and to reserve for markedness the
characterstics of derivedness, deviation, secondariness and examinability, which
function as indices of disempowerment’ (Chambers, 1997).
-
Non-white people also have their identity defined by the dominant white. They
come to view themselves through the white lens.
White Charity
- Representation of non-white subjects:
natural, krank, infantile, ungebildet, kollektiv, schweigend
-
What does this implicitly say about the unmarked white
people?
What to do?
-
‘Working through whiteness’ (Levinne-Rasky 2002)
-
Whiteness studies? Chambers (1997) - use of linguistics to uncover power
relations.
-
Critical of ourselves? Police our speech practices?
-
Germany - develop more of an open public discourse similar to that of UK?
Show kanak TV clip - weisses ghetto, 1 minute
Discussion
Critically examine the campaign posters…
- How do they create an unmarked whiteness?
- How does the poster content/style etc reflect on the concept
of whiteness?
- What does the poster implicitly say about the white person?
References
CHAMBERS, R. (1997) The Unexamined. In: HILL, M. ed. Whiteness: A Critical Reader. New York: New York University Press.
DYER, R. (1997) The matter of whiteness. London: Routledge 1-40.
Flagg, B. J. (197) “Transparently white subjective decision making”, Critical White Studies- Looking Behind the Mirror, Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, p.85-88
Kanak TV. 2001. Ein Projekt von Kanak Attak. [Online]. [Accessed on 2/3/15]. Available at: < http://www.kanak-tv.de/volume_1.shtml >
KILOMBA, G. (2005) No Mask IN: EGGERS, M.M. et al (Hrsg.) Mythen, Masken und Subjekte. Kritische Weissseinsforschung
LEVINE-RASKY, C. (2002) Working through Whiteness. Albany: State University of New York Press
WALGENBACH, K. (2005) ‚Weiss-sein und deutsch-sein – historische Interdependenzen‘, In M.M. Eggers et al (Hrsg.) Mythen, Masken und Subjekte.
Kritische Weissseinsforschung in Deutschland, S.377-393.in Deutschland. Muenster: Unrast, 80-88.
Rickey2B4. 2009. Morgan Freeman on Black History Month. [Online]. [Accessed on 2/3/15] available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s
Solanke, I. (2005) ‘Where are the Black Lawyers in Germany?’ ,Mythen, Masken und Subjekte. Kritische Weissseinsforschung in Deutschland, Muenster:
Unrast, 179-188.
Young Paris. 2015. She was asked why she “talks white”. [Online]. [Accessed on 29/2//15]. Available at:
<https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=453206971494020 >