Dehumanization and Whiteness
Paulo Freire (1970) describes dehumanization as when people are considered
less-than-human and that their status as humans is different than what it should be.
Being humanized means they should have the ability to pursue their hopes and dreams,
some of the very things that make them so human (p. 44). Humanization is when we
actively see the humanity in others and therefore treat people like they are worthy
beings and therefore that their lives matter. One of the biggest reasons that Ethnic
Studies became a field of study is because historically the European settlers that
colonized the Americas and developed the structures of this nation by dehumanizing
Native Americans, Africans, and other non-Europeans. Not only do many of these
structures still exist today but in what ultimately became white supremacy were
systems, beliefs, languages, laws, practices, and more that continually work to maintain
a dominance of an elite class. In this chapter, whiteness is the construction of identity
that enables privilege and power based on skin color and white supremacy is the
system in which whiteness is perpetuated and maintained even through things like
policies.
White supremacy has been maintained by continual adaptation to localized and
generational contexts but the underlying basis is white, middle class (and beyond) male,
Christian heteropatriarchy. Whiteness is not a “natural” category of identity, it is created
and is maintained by a belief in its superiority. When whiteness is used to uphold power,
it is white supremacy. The power of whiteness lies in its ability to be largely invisible and
therefore functions as the standard of humanity. When teaching Ethnic Studies
students, I make it a priority to help them process some of their racialized experiences
especially in relation to their positionality, meaning where they are socially located for
example in terms of race, class, gender, etc. In one class, I had a white female student
say that she couldn’t think of instances where race was a salient feature in situations. I
hear this a lot from white students and my response is typically, “OK. So then, that is
where you start! Why is it that you haven’t had to think about your race? Can you think
of situations where others have experienced something where someone made an issue
of their race but not of yours? Or where someone made an issue of their race, and it
made you think something about being white?” This type of interaction between my
students and I help to prove the point about whiteness as invisible, normalized, and the
standard but it also helps them see that they were also taught to perpetuate whiteness
in these ways.
This page titled 7.1: Introduction is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was
authored, remixed, and/or curated by Teresa Hodges
Whiteness vs. the Other
Whiteness is something that was created by juxtaposing Europeans with Native peoples
and other non-Europeans. Michael Omi and Howard Winant (2014) define racial
formation as the process in which racial identity is created and experienced (p. 109).
Non-Europeans were "othered" in order to maintain a superiority of whiteness. Since
encountering Native peoples in the 15th and 16th centuries in what is now the United
States, white settlers used to judge Native peoples’ appearances as backwards with
"dark devil skin," even as sexually loose and therefore immoral. Relatedly, white settlers
would see Africans as dark and therefore opposite of them, having protruding lips and
often created caricatures with images of dark people with huge lips. In both instances,
white settlers saw these peoples as “heathen” and “uncivilized” and therefore used this
to justify why they needed to conquer Native lands and enslave Black people, as both
were seen as unfit to take care of themselves. This idea of "unfit to take care of
themselves" was promoted through an infantilization of nonwhites meaning they were
described as childlike and therefore unable to take care of themselves (see Takaki,
2008 or Zinn, 2009, or others for more information about these initial racializations). The
sidebar below shows an example of infantilization that was extended to relate to other
people and serve as justification for conquest and rule, just like it had been used against
Native Americans and Black Americans. Something identified as racial, whether having
direct association to a racial group, whether true or not or even something like having a
motive to designate something racially, is what Omi and Winant call racial projects. In
defining racism, they state that racial projects can be defined as racist if “it creates or
reproduces structures of domination based on racial signification and identities” (Omi
and Winant, 2014, p. 128). In this way, the combination of racial association or label
with “structures of domination” can mean that racism requires a notion of superiority tied
to a particular group.
Figure
7.2.1
7.2.1: School begins / Dalrymple, 1899. (Public Domain; Louis Dalrymple via Library of
Congress)
Sidebar: "School Begins"
In Figure
7.2.1
7.2.1 from the Library Congress, school children are deemed savages and Uncle Sam
is teaching the class. It portrays different places such as Cuba, Philippines, Guam,
Puerto Rico, etc. as childlike and unruly. This picture is used to show how these places
need the care and guidance of the United States through direct policy and governance.
Specifically, these places became a part of U.S. territory in 1898 after the
Spanish-American War, and as the U.S. exercised dominance through narratives of
saviorism, or the idea that these places need the U.S. to “save” them from their
uncivilized and unfit-to-rule selves. The authors of The Forbidden Book: The
Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons (2014) gathered some of these images as
a look at U.S. imperialism, or rule that extends over an empire and dictates matters of
economic, political, social, cultural rules of another country. Hawai'i is included in this
and actually became a state but many are unaware that the U.S. imprisoned Queen
Liliʻuokalani of Hawaiʻi in her home and forcefully took over Hawaiʻi so that’s how it
became a state. Many sovereignty activists are legally battling the mainstream depiction
of Hawaiʻi annexation narratives that exclude the violent takeover of their lands and are
imprisoned. Scholar Noenoe Silva discusses how the Queen of Hawaiʻi was compared
to Black Americans and deemed unfit the rule. The U.S. created caricatures of her that
likened her to racist Black caricatures. These images of imperialism gathered in The
Forbidden Book shows the long history of "othering" and conquest that links Black,
Indigenous, and people of color histories and realities and help to unmask hidden truths
about race, U.S. imperialism, and white supremacy.
Scholar, activist, Chicana feminist Elizabeth Martinez explicitly defines white
supremacy as a system that promotes privilege and power of whiteness for white
people through institutional entities (see: What is White Supremacy by Elizabeth ‘Betita’
Martinez). White supremacy is rooted in African enslavement, Native American removal
and genocide, imperialism and war in Asia, and land dispossession of Mexico. These
linkages to various non-European groups in these historical ways is not uncommon
knowledge amongst Ethnic Studies scholars. Martinez distinguishes white supremacy
from the term "racism," because white supremacy points out how racism is systemic
and not only "as a problem of personal prejudices and individual acts of discrimination."
White supremacy, therefore, points out a power relationship rooted in exploitation and
maintaining the wealth, power and privilege of a few.
Omi and Winant bring up the idea that non-whites can also be racist, and Lipsitz points
out that non-whites can invest in whiteness as well. However, it is important to point out
that a lot of scholarship in Ethnic Studies doesn’t always use the words white
supremacy. For example, they might talk about white elitism, white as dominant, etc.
Even if scholarship does not explicitly name white supremacy as that, everything that
helps to perpetuate the maintenance of white dominance is a part of the system of white
supremacy. Part of this stems from how the concept of whiteness was created in order
to distinguish European colonists from Native Americans and people of color, in
particular to distinguish itself as superior. Therefore, talking about whiteness has been a
way to explain that the construction of whiteness is constantly created and re-created in
order to try to maintain superiority. Further, whiteness operates within a system and also
works representationally.
This page titled 7.2: Defining Whiteness and White Supremacy is shared under a CC
BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Teresa Hodges
Color Matters
Because of inferiorization, students of color (non-white students), indigenous students,
low-income students (who may be white or non-white), women, and other marginalized
groups have disproportionately experienced discrimination and oppression. For
example, Winant (2002) recalls,
Pick any relevant sociological indicator—life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy,
access to health care, income level—and apply it in virtually any setting, global,
regional, or local, and the results will be the same: the worldwide correlation of
wealth and well-being with white skin and European descent, and of poverty and
immiseration with dark skin and "otherness." Sure, there are exceptions: there are
plenty of exploited white workers, plenty of white welfare mothers both urban and
rural, plenty of poor whites throughout the world’s North; and there are a
smattering of wealth-holders "of color" around the world too. But these are outliers
in the planetary correlation of darkness and poverty (p. 305).
Possessive Investment in Whiteness
Part of the idea here is to recognize proportionality. While there are low-income white
people, for example, the majority of white people aren’t poor and those that are typically
aren’t poor due to racism. Additionally, while we understand racism as racial
discrimination, many scholars in Ethnic Studies specifically emphasize the structural
connection within the definition. In the 1990s, Ethnic Studies scholar George Lipsitz
coined the term Possessive Investment in Whiteness, or PIW. PIW is a way to
explain how white people are encouraged to “buy” into whiteness, promote it, maintain
it, uplift it, and exclude access from others. Possessive Investment in Whiteness is to
embrace the category of whiteness as a community that embraces white skinned
hierarchy in order to obtain advantages that go deeper than everyday privilege. These
advantages range from creating laws/policies/procedures that benefit white as a
privileged class, that maintains generational wealth by excluding non-whites and
profiting from structured discrimination. Part of the maintenance of PIW requires a
normalization of whiteness (such as white as the standard of beauty), and adherence to
the status quo. Because PIW is embedded in societal structures, it is also
self-maintaining and replicating. One example of this is redlining which is explained
further in the sidebar below (for more information about related structural racism please
see the Chapter 9 on the Racial Wealth Gap).
Sidebar: Redlining
Redlining is the labeling of certain communities predominantly occupied by people of
color to be red and as distinct and inferior to white communities. This creates
inequitable housing opportunities and maintains wealth for white people by rejecting
people of color from obtaining home loans to purchase homes in white communities and
also financially devaluing homes in communities of color that make it nearly impossible
to accumulate wealth. In home ownership deeds in white communities, there would be
explicit directions that prohibited people of color to buy homes in white communities.
Policies like this help to perpetuate the accumulation of wealth within white families that
already have legacies of generational wealth compared to Blacks because of slavery
and the wealth from profiting off Black bodies.
Teaching in Ethnic Studies often points to structural/institutional racism such as
described in this sidebar as what creates the biggest racial inequities in our society.
Whereas equality is equal, same, “fair,” having the same exact access to resources,
equity recognizes that people do not occupy the same positions that grant them the
same access as others so there needs to be differentiated treatment such as particular
resources and services that can help give access that people were left out of initially.
When naysayers argue that there shouldn’t be “hand-outs,” what they fail to
acknowledge is deep history that creates such inequities in the first place. In terms of
racism as racial inequity, this is vastly due to structural/institutional racism. Slavery, for
example, was an economic, political, cultural, and social system which was the law.
Because it was sanctioned by the government, there was no avoiding it and it seeped
into every fabric of society for centuries, creating a devastating impact of how Black
people are seen even today. This includes the lack of access to the levels of
generational wealth that whites have, and being denied privileges associated with
freedom, safety and security, which are typically afforded to whites.
Figure
7.3.1
7.3.1: "Don't you just love the suburbs?" (CC By-NC-ND 4.0; Jan Buchholtz via Flickr)
PIW is not just something that white people can profit from. People of color can profit
from Possessive Investment in Whiteness also. However, PIW predominantly and most
generously enables white people to dismiss race and promote colorblindedness. It is
in the best interest of whiteness to mask historical oppression as this exposes the
wrongdoing that comes from whiteness as superior. Colorblind racism therefore uses
the notion of colorblindedness to uphold white supremacy especially through policies
and laws that normalize the absence of color which then promotes whiteness as
standard instead of inclusion of others.
Because of the power of whiteness and specifically white supremacy, there have been
times in U.S. history when people of color sought to be classified as white. This often
occurs when there are some loose boundaries around what is defined as white. In the
1923 Supreme Court case of Bhagat Singh Thind, Thind, born in Punjab, India,
attempted to claim that he was Aryan due to language and being high-caste without
racial mixing and therefore eligible for U.S. citizenship. Due to the Naturalization Act of
1790, only free white persons were eligible for citizenship at that time. Prior to Thind,
Takao Ozawa (1922) also tried to argue that Japanese people had the same skin color
as white people and should therefore be of the “Caucasian race.” This is why Thind
made the case that some Indians were Caucasian. The infamous one-drop rule was
created to classify who was white. During slavery, Black enslaved women were
sometimes raped by their white masters. Their children were called mulattos and there
were concerns that their racial mixtures would taint white blood. Thus, the one-drop
rule, known as an anti-miscegenation law, was created in the 1600s. This rule declared
any person with a single drop of Black blood to be Black. Not only were mixed race
children of Black enslaved women and white masters deemed Black, but this rule also
ensured that a child of a Black enslaved women was also considered enslaved,
reinforcing the next generation of free enslaved labor. Designating a drop of Black blood
to a mixed child also applied to white women who had children with Black men.
However, when a white woman gave birth to a child that was mixed with Black and
white, she was also punished for it. White men were not punished for having mixed race
Black and white children. California struck down anti-miscegenation laws in 1948. The
last of the anti-miscegenation laws were struck down in 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia
case.
The Three I’s of Oppression
The three I’s of oppression describes multi-dimensional domination. Institutional
oppression is oppression within organizations, societal institutions such as
government, health, media, schooling, and more. According to Omi and Winant,
institutional oppression is one that is largely seen through laws, policies, and protocols.
In this way, institutions function largely without needing constant surveillance that
guides every movement because when rules are created, people for the most part will
follow them. Institutions also operate seemingly invisibly in this way by standardizing
functions and symbols so that they are universally known. Institutional oppression within
laws can exclude people from immigrating to the United States and it can also decide
who is criminalized or otherwise different. The Immigration Act of 1924, for example,
placed quotas on immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and completely denied
immigrants from Asia.
Interpersonal oppression is when someone is being oppressed by another person,
thus inter + personal. Violently attacking someone on the street is a form of
interpersonal oppression. Attacking someone specifically due to race is interpersonal
racism. Name-calling, microaggressions, verbal insults, and verbal or physical assaults,
are some examples which demonstrate interactive exchange within interpersonal
oppression. Microaggressions have increasingly been researched amongst people of
color communities as a way to explain oppression that isn’t always considered a
“macro” oppression like institutional racism but something usually more interpersonal
and “less severe” like a verbal insult or slights. Filipino American psychologist Kevin
Nadal is one who has lead research on microaggressions against Filipinx Americans
specifically, and Asian Americans generally. With Asian Americans, one thing that some
expressed was treating Asian Americans as foreigners as if many hadn’t been born
here. Many say that even though they are called “micro”aggressions, they can still
cause deep psychological impact especially when experienced constantly and that they
can often feel larger than “micro” in impact. While seemingly disconnected,
interpersonal oppression or racism can largely be in relationship to the Institutional.
Because of the policies that frame how to operate with people, individuals can treat one
another according to certain laws and procedures.
Internalized oppression is when a person internalizes negative messages,
stereotypes, etc. that are associated with some aspect of them. For example, if they are
a person of color and hate their skin color or hair texture, this could represent
internalized racism that they somehow learned in their lifetime. Colonial mentality is
when one believes in the inferiority of colonized peoples or the inferiority of some aspect
within being a colonized or formerly colonized people. One example of this is if an
English-speaking country colonized another country and colonizers teach them that
English is superior, then believing that English is better than their language(s) in part
shows that this colonial mentality accepts the superiority of the colonizer. Even though
institutional and interpersonal oppression seem to be the most damaging and harmful of
the oppressions, decolonial scholars importantly point out the extreme dangers of
internalized oppression. When a person believes themselves to be inferior, this
contributes to their continual subjugation and oppression as not believing they have
power and agency. When people absorb ideas and beliefs of a group, they will
perpetuate or challenge these ideas in regard to themselves, their family, and others.
This helps to complete the cycle between the I’s.
In the 1970s, education scholar Caroline Persell named the three I’s of oppression and
included societal oppression to be in a system called the “structures of dominance” that
worked together to uphold oppressive ideologies in a cycle. Societal oppression are the
societal values and beliefs, or ideologies, that can serve to uphold dominance for some
and subordination for others. In her model of structures of dominance, institutions shape
the way that people interact with one another, and therefore impacts how one sees
themselves. This then translates into group values and beliefs. She specifically uses
this model for education in the way that educational policy and rules impact
teacher-to-student behavior and student-to-teacher behavior, and counselor-to-student
behavior, etc. Then this influences the way the students see themselves, the way
teachers see themselves, etc. and gets absorbed into existing and new pathways for
societal beliefs. There are more ways that oppression operates within the dimensions
according to Persell’s structures of dominance, but one of the most significant of her
ideas within this model reflect how structures of dominance don’t just self-maintain
oppression, but in particular it upholds the domination of the ruling class within
education and throughout society.
Ideology and Hegemony
Ideology is a set of beliefs such as within a group. Ideologies are a part of all societies
and contribute to how they define and distinguish who they are. Ideologies are often
used to delineate who belongs and who does not, by sometimes attempting to require
members of society and groups to practice and embrace such beliefs. In Ethnic Studies,
it is recognized how sometimes ideologies spouted by elitist members in society can be
harmful to the rest of the population, especially when they disregard the humanity of
others, devalue their labor and cultures, and attempt to erase other cultures and way of
life.
Sidebar: ideology
One example of ideology is whiteness as the standard for beauty.
Figure
7.3.2
7.3.2: "Then and Now® Bathing Suit Barbie® - Made in China". (CC by NC-ND 4.0;
Dolls N' Stuff via Flickr)
Related to ideology, hegemony is the dominance of one groups’ beliefs over others.
When dominating beliefs are the standard or norm within organizations and institutions,
it then establishes power for the dominant group and therefore helps to solidify
dominant practices and beliefs within laws and policies that then are applied to
everyone. Antonio Gramsci first introduced the concept of hegemony as cultural
hegemony to explain the structured domination/subordination relationship. For example,
Bates (1975) remarked how Gramsciʻs hegemony could “eliminate class struggle” by
squashing it with such dominant norms and beliefs (p. 351). These laws and policies
that uphold dominant beliefs as the norm often oppress marginalized populations.
This page titled 7.3: Racism as Structural/Institutional is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0
license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Teresa Hodges
Schooling and other Institutions
James D. Anderson discusses how whites kept Blacks from high quality education in
the late 1800s/early 1900s because they deemed it to be a “subversive” way to gain
equality (1988, p. 95). Part of the fear resided in how reading might inspire Blacks to
want to vote (p. 98). Keeping Blacks from getting an education thus attempted to keep
Blacks in an underclass. Although voting was not allowed for Blacks yet, the fear of
schooling encouraging voting also idealized who was considered a citizen and thus who
was humanized. It was further propagated that “industrial schooling” was ideal
compared to other schooling so that the status quo would remain intact (p. 86). Again,
this exemplifies the desire for white political and economic leaders to deny
humanization for Blacks and thus equity in school and life, let alone excellence.
Lisa Delpit (1988) is often cited for her work that describes how there is a “culture of
power” in schools that socialize students to perpetuate White middle-class norms. She
calls for educators to teach students about the culture of power: that it exists and that
sometimes you must play by those rules (of White middle-class norms in schools) but
that doesn’t mean your home culture isn’t valued. Delpit says that we must not just
teach children tools like code-switching, or knowing how to speak, say, their native
African American Vernacular English or other language but then also know when,
where, and why to use the “culture of power” in order to gain access to spaces and
operate within places where they are unable to resist or draw from their home cultures.
Cultivating identity and multiple epistemologies in schools, even classrooms, can work
to counter the misrecognition and dehumanization of students’ identities and cultures.
Delgado Bernal (2013) pointedly states, “Although students of color are holders and
creators of knowledge, they often feel as if their histories, experiences, cultures, and
languages are devalued, misinterpreted, or omitted within formal educational settings”
(p. 390). In order to counter this, she says that these aspects must be “recognized and
valued in schools” (p. 403). In these ways, Delgado Bernal points to epistemology, “how
we know what we know” as the popular definition says. Student of color epistemologies
are not valued in schools often not beyond superficial celebrating of differences that
also do not delve deeper into issues of discrimination due to the differences and other
issues of inequities. Such epistemologies are exemplified by Delgado Bernal when she
writes,
What are often perceived as deficits for Chicana/Chicano students within a
Eurocentric epistemological framework—limited English proficiency, Chicano
and/or Mexicano cultural practices, or too many nonuniversity-related
responsibilities—can be understood within a Chicana feminist perspective as
cultural assets or resources that Chicana/Chicano students bring to formal
educational environments (2013, p. 397).
Studies suggest that when a student has a positive racial identity and positive student
identity, they tend to do better in school (Akom 2003). As discussed in Chapter 2 on the
struggle for Mexican American Studies in Tucson, not only does Ethnic Studies help
students achieve academically in other courses, but it helped to build and cultivate
positive identities that had been otherwise devalued in a white supremacist society.
Louis Althusser further identifies an Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) where
interrelated institutions together perpetuate the status quo (Feinberg and Soltis, 1985, p.
57). Feinberg and Soltis name these institutions such as “communications, such as
newspapers, radio and television; the cultural institutions; the family; political parties and
trade unions” and more (1985, p. 57). Feinberg and Soltis cite Althusser’s naming of the
“function” of ISAs as a way to socialize people and direct their decisions and thus
“maintaining the current system of production relations and power” especially “of the
ruling class” (p. 57). Figure
7.4.1
7.4.1 shows an image representing the news media, an institution that can be
considered an ISA and that can often perpetuate stereotypes. These societal institutions
work hand-in-hand with schools and Althusser even includes schools as an ISA.
Figure
7.4.1
7.4.1: "Local News: Mountain Lion Attack". (CC By SA 2.0); Lars Ploughmann via Flickr)
Caroline Persell (1977) in her work on “structures of dominance” agree that society
impacts institutions especially through ideologies, or group beliefs, especially dominant
ideologies that shut down others in a cycle of institutional, interpersonal, internalized,
and societal oppression. Put this way, it seems difficult to escape the influence of
societies on schooling. Is there a way that schools can intervene? ISAs perpetuate, for
example, the misrecognition and dehumanization of American Indians by various means
that led to the creation of boarding schools in order to alter their cultural institutions,
family, etc, as will be discussed more later. But such negative associations sought to
justify the inequities that limited the type of schooling the American Indian boarding
students would receive. Thus schools, as an ISA, embrace societal ideologies and
continue to perpetuate what is already accepted about groups: their misrecognition and
dehumanization. For American Indians, their misrecognition and dehumanization,
expressed for example through the U.S. government believing American Indians to be
"backwards and savage," prevented the youth from obtaining any education besides
that which would prepare them for industrial schooling and jobs in the service sector.
The belief of inferiority of a group is then used to justify why such groups should not
have access to higher quality of education: society deems that it should be invested in
those who can actually understand “complex” thinking (Feinberg and Soltis, 1985, p.
94). An additional impact is that when people of color are devalued in society, students
of color experience the perpetuation of the devaluation in schooling, which affects their
educational experiences. For example, Darling-Hammond (2010) writes,
… dozens of studies have found that teachers typically hold more negative
attitudes about Black children’s personality traits, ability, language, behavior, and
potential than they do about White children, and that most Black students have
fewer favorable interactions with their teachers than White students (Footnote:
Irvine, 1990). Studies have also found that children of color are more likely to be
treated differently in the classroom—neither pushed academically nor praised as
much as White students—and more often punished for offenses that White
students commit without consequence; they are also more likely to be suspended
from school than Whites who commit the same infractions. (Footnote: Fine, 1991;
Nieto, 1992; Carter & Goodwin, 1994) (Darling-Hammond, p. 65).
Here there is a direct link between societal beliefs, with teacher-student interactions,
and student-institution relations: disregard for Black people leads to disconnection with
and mistreatment of Black students.
Althusser’s identification of ISAs can be viewed through a lens of conflict theory
because some would say the role of schools is to perpetuate the functioning of society,
while others might argue that that is true but it is done for the “ruling class.” For
example, in one study, Entman (1990) analyzed a “single week of local news
programming in Chicago” and looked at “one hour per day of local news from each of
the three network affiliates” (p. 335). He found that “76% of all local TV stories about
blacks fell into the categories of crime or politics” (p. 332). The portrayal of blacks and
crime were different than whites and crime: “the accused black criminals were usually
illustrated by glowering mug shots or by footage of them being led around in
handcuffs…none of the accused violent white criminals during the week studied were
shown in mug shots or physical custody” (p. 337). This criminalizes blacks and as an
ISA, media is a huge source of mainstream news for many. But while this study was
from 1990, a study published in 2007 that showed the outcome of such criminalization
through the media looked at about 70 responses from White communications students
who viewed videos and read news stories about Black Americans and Asian Indians
and “hostile prejudicial feelings were more strongly expressed toward
African-Americans” (Ramamsubramanian and Oliver, 1990, p. 639). Further,
“counter-stereotypical news stories” reported “less prejudicial responses than” those
“who read stereotypical news stories” about Asian Indians, but “counter-stereotypical”
news stories “did not bring about any noticeable changes in prejudicial attitudes” about
Black Americans (p. 640). Thus ISAs reflect inequities that reflect attitudes, which
makes higher quality of education difficult for students of color to access when society
embraces such measures of inequities. It is this co-functioning of media as an ISA that
helps cultivate a devaluation of Blacks in society, which as discussed by
Darling-Hammond’s quotation about the negative attitudes towards Black children is
reflected in schools.
Medicine/Health/STEM
Research shows that medical doctors have actual biases against Black and Brown
patients (Ventura, Denton, Asack, 2022). One of the issues is doctors and medical
workers believing that patients of color have a higher tolerance for pain or don’t need to
be prescribed medications as quickly or as much as others and having implicit bias
against them (see more about the impacts of "Systemic Racism and Health" in Chapter
3: Africana/African American/Black Studies). Medical racism such as research done on
Black patients without their knowledge and consent like in the Tuskegee Experiment
and forced sterilization against patients of color (see Chapter 8: Intersectionality, section
titled "Eugenicists and Forced Mass Sterilization" for more information) are all examples
of bias and racism that does occur against minoritized patients.
Studies and even popular news and technology sources recognize that self-driving cars
can be racist. Self-driving cars weren’t created to recognize people of color that are in
front of the car and are therefore more likely to hit people of color. Stanford Fellow Dr.
Lance Eliot in Forbes Magazine (Jan. 4, 2020) discussed that white engineers created
and tested the algorithms that recognizes white people as people that the car should be
cautious of and avoid hitting. Thus, the predominance of white male engineers created
a crisis of diversity where the lack of people of color as engineers that would test these
features then create a lack of recognition of people of color whenever the self-driving
cars encountered them. Because these tests involved only white engineers, self-driving
cars didn’t see people of color as people. This shows not only the importance of
diversity in STEM fields but also that people of color need to be included in initiatives
that affect us all. It shows that representation in science and tech matters.
In a study of engineering departments in universities, studies overwhelmingly show that
programs that have more engineering professors that are Black and Asian women are
more likely to have students who are also Black and Asian women. This also shows the
importance of diversity and representation amongst faculty in STEM departments.
Figure
7.4.2
7.4.2: "High School Students Discover STEM Careers at College of DuPage 2017 23".
(CC By 2.0; COD Newsroom via Flickr)
Studies show that when there is diversity amongst educators, students feel more seen,
acknowledged and heard, and experience less discrimination than with white educators
(Darling-Hammond, 2020). Studies in elementary schools show how white educators
often not only view Black and Latinx students differently but then also treat them
differently compared to white students (Darling-Hammond, 2020). For example, white
educators may view white students as more intellectually superior to Black students and
will therefore view them as more academically capable. This results in white educators
giving white students more advantages, assistance, guidance, and accolades. This also
results in Black students receiving more punishment and harsher discipline than white
students. Studies show in particular that Black and Latinx children are criminalized in
schooling. Relatedly, Portillos, Gonzalez, and Peguero (2011) show the criminalization
of Latinx students also in terms of immigration status. This trend of preferential
treatment is not only with white educators but also with white administrators. Especially
in fields like STEM, this type of representation is also important to help show these
students that they too can succeed in STEM when they see professors who look like
them.
Sidebar: Texas
Texas has been a state that has attempted or completed alterations to their curriculum
that aims to revamp efforts that expose racism and critical discussions of race. One
example of this is a recent initiative to change any mentioning of slavery to be called
“Involuntary relocation.” Recently, Texas passed a bill that largely limits the teaching of
recent events, and even teaching about the history of the Alamo as part of a target bill
to limit the teaching of critical race theory. These efforts aim to maintain white history as
heroic and mask any racist and harmful struggles committed against people of color.
Sidebar: Florida
In July 2022, a law in Florida took into affect to ban the teaching of "racism and
privilege" (Sullivan, 2022). This law is called the Individual Freedom Act and used to be
called Stop W.O.K.E. Act or Stop Wrongs to our Kids and Employees Act (Sullivan,
2022).
The forced displacement of people of color communities have been largely due to the
influx of white professionals into communities that have been traditionally cultural art
hubs, affordable housing especially for marginalized populations, and shielded from
mass consumerist business due to the prevalence of small business such as mom and
pop shops that have been community fixtures for a long time. In these communities, the
tech industries and others who cater towards later generations of workers then attract
other businesses that cater to these demographics. In gentrified communities goods
and services tend to cost more.
Finally, the National Center for Education Statistics show that white female professors
made up the highest percentages at lecturer, instructor, and assistant professor
rankings. "Fast Facts" from the National Center for Educational Statistics displays a
chart that show these rankings (NCES, 2020). White male professors made up the
highest percentages at associate professor (40%) and full professor (53%) rankings.
Even if you combine the percentage of Black male, female, Hispanic male, female,
Asian male, female, American Indian male, female, and 2 or more races, that still
doesn’t make up the smallest percentage of any of the white professors.
This page titled 7.4: Structural/Institutional Legacies of Whiteness is shared under a CC
BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Teresa Hodges
Race and Children
Figure
7.5.1
7.5.1: Vintage Children, Little Girl with Doll. (CC BY-NC 2.0; chicks57 via Filckr)
Scholar Robin Bernstein wrote a book on race and childhood where she demonstrates
how white children are seen as more racially innocent than Black children. This is
evident in children’s toys and especially dolls where white dolls have had angelic
appearances with rosy cheeks, delicate curly blond tendrils, and blue eyes. Bernstein
illustrates how this innocence is not just one that displays so-called innocent
appearances, but also defines the way that we understand whiteness and blackness
especially in this age. This is especially significant because there is often a regard for
treating race and racism as “very political” and “inappropriate” for younger ages. The
idea of racial innocence as non-political attempts to lay personal blame on people of
color for any discrimination or oppression instead and deflects from structural causes.
De-politicizing race and feigning a non-connection to innocence reinforces attempts to
deny discussing race with children. A common sentiment is the desire to not want to
teach children about race because they are perceived as young and impressionable.
This misconception actually obscures the fact that children can experience racism at a
really young age and as discussed about the doll test below, they can distinguish at an
early age as well.
Sidebar: Doll Test
A now historic doll test was conducted with white children and Black children in the
1950s. Children were shown dolls that were Black and white and were asked various
questions about the dolls. The questions included “what doll was the bad doll?” or “what
doll is the pretty doll?” while being shown the Black and white doll. Many times the
children associated being bad, inferior, and ugly with the Black doll and being good,
beautiful, and smart with the white doll. For many, it can be astonishing to witness the
choices being made especially when the skin color of the dolls being seen as negative
is often the same skin color as the child.
NPR cites that the majority of mass shootings have been committed by males. Of these,
the vast majority have been white males. When these mass shootings committed by
white males would occur, many would try to fault mental health and how people who
have a history of mental health issues should not have access to firearms. Some point
out that faulting mental health of white men deflects from the violence of white male
heteropatriarchy. One significant point is that when these men commit mass shootings
and they are captured by law enforcement, they are incarcerated. This is a vast
departure from the killing of Black people who don’t even pose a threat to law
enforcement.
In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a football coach that led a prayer with his
team on the football team. Many on social media called for the separation of church and
state and others also pointed out the hypocrisy that allows for Christian prayers, but not
of other religions. What does this say about whose religions are valued? What does this
mean in terms of race and regligion, of whose religions are valued?
Racialization
Racialization is assigning a racial category to someone especially that has not had a
designation before (Omi and Winant, 2014). This typically refers to the way that people
were categorized historically such as laws that dictated who can identify as white. In a
general sense, racialization is designating a race to someone even if it is a different
designation from what they actually identify themselves as or a different designation
from what someone else has told them. For example, people might racialize mixed race
people differently if they are deemed racially ambiguous. People may also racialize
people based on their own contexts. For example, if someone has dark skin and curly
hair and they’re walking around New York City, one might automatically think the person
is Dominican due to the presence of Dominican people in New York City that might have
dark skin and curly hair. This means that their context, or the conditions around them,
influence how they racialize others. Even when someone or a group is racialized by
others, not only does it mean that a lot of times such signification is not accepted by the
individual or group, but that such characterization of a racial group is often forced onto
minoritized groups.
Since colonization, U.S. nationality has been marked as one who is white. In Ronald
Takaki’s opening chapter of A Different Mirror (2008), he recalls how his midwestern taxi
driver sees his Asianness as foreign despite Takaki being born in the U.S. The taxi
driver reveled at his remarkable English skills. This is one example of how white is seen
as “American.” Takaki discusses this phenomenon as a master narrative that says
nonwhite is foreign and does not belong. The prevalent belief in this master narrative or
metanarrative also contributes to promoting the U.S. flag as super patriotic and
representing traditional ideals and values that counter multiculturalism and other
progress such as within gender, sexuality, and class struggles. When there is a
metanarrative that “American” is limited to white, it creates a standard for legislation that
uphold rights for those who promote these values.
Sidebar: "Perpetual foreigners"
The idea of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners” is a common stereotype about
Asian Americans. No matter how long Asians have been in the U.S. collectively, many
are seen as foreign as if they have just arrived in the United States. This reflects the
racist perception that it isn’t possible that Asians too can be from the U.S. - either born
or living here a long time. Takaki’s experience in the taxi shows how “American” is often
seen as white and non-white is seen as “other.” The perception of “perpetual foreigners”
means that Asians are told to "go back to where they came from," especially in the time
of the pandemic. The U.S. flag in figure
7.5.2
7.5.2 captures a symbol of the U.S. that is sometimes used to display patriotism and
signify who is "American" and sometimes stands to mean the U.S. as white, especially
when referring to the founding of this nation and Eurocentric values.
Figure
7.5.2
7.5.2: American Flag. (CC BY 2.0; Mike Mozart via Flickr)
Normalization of whiteness/standardization of
whiteness
The normalization of whiteness helps to create a standardization of whiteness. As
discussed earlier, #oscarssowhite was used to point out how the Academy Awards
showcases white actors and actresses way more than nonwhites. The normalization of
whiteness helps the standardization of whiteness because when whiteness is
normalized, it is held with greater esteem and therefore becomes the “standard” in
which all must strive toward.
Before Western dominance through colonization, scholars recognize that the world was
on par with one another in societal, technological, and agricultural development.
Although different places, various civilizations grew and progressed and even traded
with one another. Great Britain enacted colonization as a way to exert dominance and
extract resources as way to have power and exploit others for their benefit. This
understanding counters perspective that we “needed” colonization in order to grow as
countries in this world. We did not need the domination of Britain to encourage trade
and the sharing of ideas as this was already occurring.
Eugenics is the attempt at racism through science. Various mentions of eugenics aim to
show a superiority of white/European people compared to nonwhite people based on
measurements and other size/appearance indicators that were supposedly related to
corresponding ability and quality. Eugenics was especially used as a part of movements
or periods when rulers tried to justify war, oppression, inhumane treatment, and more,
as a part of hegemonic normalization of white supremacy. Omi and Winant point to how
eugenics is one example where the normalization of whiteness through science is an
exemplary example of structural/institutional and societal white supremacy. To learn
more about how eugenics applied to attempts at controlling reproduction, see Chap 8,
section 8.4 on "Eugenicists and Forced Mass Sterilization."
This page titled 7.5: Normalization of Whiteness is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0
license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Teresa Hodges
Conclusion
The normalization, invisibility, and institutionalization of whiteness have given it an
enduring power. While some are quick to name non-whiteness when talking about
people (Black man, Asian worker, Chicana girl, etc.) the lack of designation for
whiteness goes unmarked (man, worker, girl). The perpetual and devastating history
that embraced genocide through settler colonialism, scientific racism and eugenics, and
structural oppression has roots in racism that sought to distinguish a white supremacy
and still impacts us today. The ongoing inequalities that create long-lasting disparities
between whites and non-whites sustains over generations and the forgotten histories
surrounding it ensures its continuity. From history to the present day, from
understanding how people create race and racial categories and ideas constantly
changing, from connecting the institutional to the interpersonal, internal, and cultural, we
see the power of whiteness. We see how the power lies in the Eurocentrism that
marginalizes nonwhite lives and shapes our understanding of reality.
Key Terms
●​ Racial formation: As defined by Michael Omi and Howard Winant (2014) this is
the process in which racial identity is created and experienced. Omi and Winant
argue that race is never static - instead racial categories are defined, redefined,
transformed, destroyed, and contested throughout society and history. Racial
formation is the process by which social, economic, and political forces shape the
meaning and importance of racial categories which are also influenced by racial
meanings.
●​ Racial projects: Something identified as racial, whether having direct
association to a racial group, whether true or not or even something like having a
motive to designate something racially. Racial projects are the effort to organize
and distribute resources along racial lines. Racial projects can be defined as
racist if “it creates or reproduces structures of domination based on racial
signification and identities” (Omi and Winant, 2014, p. 128).
●​ Scholar, activist, Chicana feminist Elizabeth Martinez explicitly defines white
supremacy as a system that promotes privilege and power of whiteness for
white people through institutional entities
●​ In the 1990s, Ethnic Studies scholar George Lipsitz coined the term Possessive
Investment in Whiteness, or PIW. PIW is a way to explain how white people are
encouraged to “buy” into whiteness, promote it, maintain it, uplift it, and exclude
access from others. Possessive Investment in Whiteness is to embrace the
category of whiteness as a community that embraces white skinned hierarchy in
order to obtain advantages that go deeper than everyday privilege. These
advantages range from creating laws /policies/procedures that benefit white as a
privileged class, that maintains generational wealth by excluding non-whites and
profiting from structured discrimination
●​ Redlining is the labeling of certain communities predominantly occupied by
people of color to be red and as distinct and inferior to white communities. This
creates inequitable housing opportunities and maintains wealth for white people
by rejecting people of color from obtaining home loans to purchase homes in
white communities and also financially devaluing homes in communities of color
that make it nearly impossible to accumulate wealth. In home ownership deeds in
white communities, there would be explicit directions that prohibited people of
color to buy homes in white communities.
●​ PIW predominantly and most generously enables white people to dismiss race
and promote colorblindedness. It is in the best interest of whiteness to mask
historical oppression as this exposes the wrongdoing that comes from whiteness
as superior. Colorblind racism therefore uses the notion of colorblindedness to
uphold white supremacy especially through policies and laws that normalize the
absence of color which then promotes whiteness as standard instead of inclusion
of others.
●​ Institutional oppression is oppression within organizations, societal institutions
such as government, health, media, schooling, and more. According to Omi and
Winant, institutional oppression is one that is largely seen through laws, policies,
and protocols.
●​ Interpersonal oppression is when someone is being oppressed by another
person, thus inter + personal.
●​ Internalized oppression is when a person internalizes negative messages,
stereotypes, etc. that are associated with some aspect of them.
●​ Ideology is a set of beliefs such as within a group
●​ Hegemony is the dominance of one groups’ beliefs over others. When
dominating beliefs are the standard or norm within organizations and institutions,
it then establishes power for the dominant group and therefore helps to solidify
dominant practices and beliefs within laws and policies that then are applied to
everyone.
●​ "Culture of power" in schools that socialize students to perpetuate White
middle-class norms.
●​ Cultivating identity and multiple epistemologies in schools, even classrooms,
can work to counter the misrecognition and dehumanization of students’
identities and cultures. Delgado Bernal (2013) pointedly states, “Although
students of color are holders and creators of knowledge, they often feel as if their
histories, experiences, cultures, and languages are devalued, misinterpreted, or
omitted within formal educational settings” (p. 390). In order to counter this, she
says that these aspects must be “recognized and valued in schools” (Delgado
Bernal, 2013, p. 403).
●​ Louis Althusser further identifies an Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs)
where interrelated institutions together perpetuate the status quo (Feinberg and
Soltis, 1985, p. 57). Feinberg and Soltis name these institutions such as
“communications, such as newspapers, radio and television; the cultural
institutions; the family; political parties and trade unions” and more (Feinberg and
Soltis, 1985, p. 57). Feinberg and Soltis cite Althusser’s naming of the “function”
of ISAs as a way to socialize people and direct their decisions and thus
“maintaining the current system of production relations and power” especially “of
the ruling class” (Feinberg and Soltis, 1985, p. 57)
●​ "Structures of dominance" agree that society impacts institutions especially
through ideologies, or group beliefs, especially dominant ideologies that shut
down others in a cycle of institutional, interpersonal, internalized, and societal
oppression
●​ Racial innocence is how white children are seen as more racially innocent
than Black children. This contributes to how people think we should let children
be exposed to topics surrounding race and racism. Studies show children are
exposed to these things in the world whether or not we talk about it with them.
●​ A now historic doll test was conducted with white children and Black children in
the 1950s. Children were shown dolls that were Black and white and were asked
various questions about the dolls. The questions included “what doll was the bad
doll”? or “what doll is the pretty doll?” while being shown the Black and white doll.
Many times the children associated being bad, inferior, and ugly with the Black
doll and being good, beautiful, and smart with the white doll.
●​ Racialization is assigning a racial category to someone especially that has not
had a designation before (Omi and Winant, 2014)
●​ Metanarrative is a dominant narrative that is often based on stories told about
people, and in this case that serve to determine who is an “insider” and who is an
“outsider” as an “American” national.
●​ “Perpetual foreigners” is a common stereotype about Asian Americans. No
matter how long Asians have been in the U.S. collectively, many are seen as
foreign as if they have just arrived in the United States. This reflects the racist
perception that is isn’t possible that Asians too can be from the U.S. either born
or living here a long time.
●​ The normalization of whiteness helps the standardization of whiteness
because when whiteness is normalized, it is held with greater esteem and
therefore becomes the “standard” in which all must strive to.
Discussion Questions
1.​ How has whiteness changed over time?
2.​ Give examples of how whiteness is institutionalized.
3.​ What is Possessive Investment in Whiteness and what are examples of this in
this chapter?
4.​ How does white supremacy compare/relate to people of color histories and
inequalities?
Journal Prompts
1.​ Re-visit the section on epistemologies or the key term. What epistemologies do
you have that you feel are valued? What epistemologies do you have that you
feel are not valued? Who values/devalues them? If more of your epistemologies
were valued, how do you think that would impact you and/or others? What
epistemologies of groups of color, that you know of, are not valued? What do you
think would be the impact if their epistemologies were valued?
2.​ Review some laws and policies in this text. How might they reflect a Possessive
Investment in Whiteness? Who benefits from these policies/laws and how?
Reflect on how this makes you feel.
Class Activities
The Normalization of Whiteness
(Online or in-person)
Put students into groups. Have them fill out this chart where they identify how whiteness
can be invisible or normalized. They may add more categories.
Person
Place
Thing
Themselves
Home
Media including music,
movies, television, books,
commercials
Family
School
Policies/procedures/laws
Friends/peers
Work/extracurriculars/spo
rts
Social media/internet
Workers
Government,
hospital/doctor’s, stores,
restaurants, etc.
Flags, emblems, etc
Identifying Types of Oppression
(online or in-person):
A. For Part A: Put students in groups and have them answer which type of oppression is
each scenario and why? Have them discuss what would make each scenario a different
type of oppression (i.e. for the interpersonal oppression scenario, what would make that
institutional?). Part B. Now have students consider liberation. What would liberation for
our communities look like? Have them respond to Figure 2's prompt.
●​ Oppression Type: A mixed race Black and Asian person feeling like they aren't
"Black" enough or "Asian" enough.
●​ Oppression Type: "...dozens of studies have found that teachers typically hold
more negative attitudes about Black children's personality traits, ability, langauge,
behavior, and potential than they do about White children, and that most Black
students have fewer favorable interactions with their teachers than White
students (Footnote: Irvine, 1990)." (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 65)
●​ Oppression Type: In the 1930s and 40s, Filipinxs were prohibited from renting
from certain areas or even go to restaurants that had signs that said "No Filipinos
or dogs allowed."
B. Can you think of different types of liberation in your life?
●​ Institutional
●​ Interpersonal
●​ Internalized
This page titled 7.6: Summary/Review is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was
authored, remixed, and/or curated by Teresa Hodges