Brooke Reynolds
Midterm Exam
10/13/09
To a racial insult directed at a person of color, the white person says: “It may have been rude,
but I wasn’t going to say anything. I’m not Black—it’s not my place.” Believing that racism is the issue of
the person of color, whites sit back, having psychologically relieved themselves of any personal
implications. In a series of diversions, white people conceptualize racism in terms of a universal human
tendency to discriminate, and with a focus on the victims rather than the perpetrators. Our
understandings of racism go something like this: it is when people discriminate against other people on
the basis of their skin color; it is harmful to those whom it targets.
Rarely do we recognize that the lifeblood of racism is whiteness. Racism, particularly as it exists
today, is not simply a matter of making a prejudgement of people based on their skin color. According to
Tatum, “racism…is not only a personal ideology based on racial prejudice, but a system involving cultural
messages and institutional policies and practices as well as the beliefs and actions of individuals”
(Tatum, 7). Put more bluntly, it is a codified system by which white people oppress people of color in
order to maintain structural advantages and privileges. An exploration of racism’s historical roots reveals
that racial oppression is “historically rooted in white supremacy and economic hegemony over Black and
Native American peoples” (Harris, 1714).
There is no way around this reality. We fear placing whiteness at the centerfold of modern-day
racial oppression, and our intentionally vague definitions of racism demonstrate this. Understandably, to
implicate oneself in the maintenance of racial oppression is a painful endeavor for those of us who have
built our existence on the foundation of egalitarian myths. But it is imperative that whites come to
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understand racism as the self-invested construction of white people, with the purpose of establishing
and protecting white privilege (I direct this imperative to white people in particular because we seem to
be the only ones actively denying or ignoring this reality). Racism is a white person’s problem whose
fruits the person of color is made to bear. And whiteness, at the core of all its varying meanings,
“evolved for the very purpose of racial exclusion” (Harris, 1737).
As noted by Taylor, “All too often, the tendency is to disregard the historic context in which
racial conflict was spawned” (Taylor, 541). The very concept of race as we know it today was
constructed in order to provide ideological justification for the conquest and decimation of Black and
Native American populations. White settlers in America, seeking to colonize the land and dominate
indigenous populations, constructed an understanding of race in which people of color were inherently
inferior and therefore justifiably subject to oppression and death. In essence, “the racialization of
identity and racial subordination provided the ideological basis for slavery and conquest” (Harris, 1715).
Thus, our very concept of “race” today has at its origin the White motivation to legitimate
dehumanization and conquest.
Through this racialization and dehumanization of people of color arose the White identity.
People of color could be justifiably oppressed because they were inferior when held up against White
people. Thus, in the midst of constructing a racially inferior person-of-color identity, the white identity
was simultaneously constructing itself as the superior race. By setting itself up in direct opposition to
Black and indigenous races, whiteness attributed to itself the social power it actively denied to others.
The more whites dehumanized people of color, the more weight the white identity came to hold: it was
that which oppressed, and therefore was somehow existentially above all others. Through battering
others into powerlessness, whites established themselves as conversely powerful.
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Thus, whiteness, and the power and privilege which became deeply inscribed into its contours,
emerged both from and for the purpose of racial domination. To borrow from Frantz Fanon’s language
in Wretched of the Earth, whiteness as an identity and a reality “has been founded on slavery, it has
been nourished with the blood of slaves and it comes directly from the soil and from the subsoil of that
underdeveloped world…[it has] been build up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs,
Indians, and the yellow races…” (Fanon, 96).
Racial identities quickly transformed from social constructions based on skin color to identities
with very real economic, political, social, and personal implications. Often, these implications were quite
literally a matter of life or death. Black and Brownness, as identities, were constructed in order to
oppress and kill; to be a person of color in the New American sense meant being vulnerable to any vast
array of subjugations and cruelties, including death. Conversely, by constructing whiteness as racially
superior, whites claimed entitlement to a vast array of privileges and protections. Whiteness meant that
if you were not the killer yourself, you would at least certainly not be the killed. As stated poignantly by
George Lipsitz, “White settlers institutionalized a possessive investment in whiteness by making
blackness synonymous with slavery and whiteness synonymous with freedom…” (Lipsitz, 3).
For whites, their white identity served as the shield and sword that kept whites from having to
endure the same horrific fate as their Black and Native subjects. With stakes this high, people had an
investment in claiming whiteness as their own—not only as their color, but now as their race, their
status, their right. Whiteness became synonymous with advantages available only to an exclusive group;
in order to protect this, it was in need of effective guarding. Thus it became a group interest for whites
to cooperate in defending whiteness and collectively ensuring the protection of white privilege. Lipsitz
points out that it was and continues to be “disciplined, systemic, and collective group activity that has
structured white identities in U.S. history…” (Lipsitz, 21).
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The collective defense of white privilege became a structural phenomenon when it came to be
affirmed and protected by law. Written into our legal system were provisions maintaining the relative
structural elevation of whites and ensuring the subjugation of people of color. Many of these laws
openly discriminated against people of color, considering them less than human and therefore entitled
to fewer rights and denied legal protection. Much like whiteness, the US legal system has codified in its
very foundation the ratified subjugation of people of color in order to ensure the health of
institutionalized white privilege.
It may seem as if our legal system has made great steps in addressing racial inequality.
However, upon close examination it is apparent that US institutions still are refusing to take the steps
necessary to truly allow for racial equalization, and the white privilege historically protected by the law
continues to go radically unchallenged.. Be it through laws which bear down disproportionately on
people of color, higher arrest and imprisonment rates for Blacks and Latinos, or merit-based
standardized testing which ensures advantage to whites, the US legal system still covertly works to
maintain structural advantages to whites—it just does so more quietly now. Cheryl Harris notes the
“Court’s chronic refusal to dismantle the structure of white supremacy, which is maintained through the
institutional protection of relative benefits for whites at the expense of Blacks…” Thanks to the law’s
commitment to maintaining structural white privilege, the borders built around whiteness which
“protected [it] from intrusion” are to this day carefully kept intact (Harris, 1750).
Structural white privilege manifests itself in disproportionately higher income for whites,
increased job opportunities, the prevalence of white-collar crime that goes unpunished, and
multicultural “museum exhibits” that make us feel cultured. Today, the possessive investment in
whiteness is maintained because “…all white people, intentionally or unintentionally, do benefit from
racism” (Tatum, 11). This can be seen in the widespread white resistance to the equalizing efforts of
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Affirmative Action; as soon as the quiet privileges whites enjoy are challenged in the name of racial
equality, we begin to truly see how much whites desire to protect racial inequality. Though, this should
come as no surprise to us, for “why should whites who are so advantaged by racism want to end that
system of advantage?” (Tatum, 13).
A person does not have to be overtly bigoted against people of color in order to perpetuate
their oppression and dehumanization, though “the recent formation of Aryan supremacist and skinhead
groups stands as a constant reminder of how easy it is for quiet satisfaction in being white to deteriorate
into extremism” (Delgado and Stefancic, 78). Rather, he or she simply has to quietly acquiesce to a
system of privilege in his or her favor, silently complicit in the knowledge that this privilege necessarily
comes at the cost of the well-being of people of color. Today, “because racism is so ingrained in the
fabric of American institutions, it is easily self-perpetuating. All that is required to maintain it is business
as usual” (Tatum, 11).
This is the reason racism persists today: white people benefit from it, and they hold the power
necessary to retain these benefits. Racial inequality continues to be protected by the US legal system
because of the white reluctance and refusal to radically disinvest from a system of privilege which
benefits them: “…few [whites] are willing to recognize that racial segregation is much more than a series
of quaint customs that can be remedied effectively without altering the status of whites” (Bell, 522).
With the knowledge that “true equality for blacks will require the surrender of racism-granted privileges
for whites” (Bell, 522-523), whites instead advocate for nominal equality which makes oppressions
harder to identify but in reality does nothing to challenge their own hegemony. With the adoption of an
egalitarian rhetoric steeped in morality, whites obscure the fundamental fact that they need racial
inequality in order to maintain the power they feel entitled to.
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Recently, the favorite method by which to maintain structural white advantages is to pretend
that there are none. Claiming innocence, whites fervently deny any participation in perpetuating racism,
and seek to ignore racism’s realities every step of the way. This can be seen in the widespread adoption
of colorblindness, the claim that race is so insignificant that we don’t even notice it. Rather than
equalize populations, it in fact ignores, silences, and negates the particular experiences of people of
color. This is something that “makes no sense in a society in which people, on the basis of group
membership alone, have historically been, and continue to be treated differently. “ (Taylor, 542). When
we refuse to recognize race as a crucial consideration, we allow ourselves to ignore the historical and
pervasive role of whiteness in racial oppression, and therefore relieve ourselves of the responsibility of
addressing it. “Even worse, by insisting on a rhetoric that disallows reference to race, blacks can no
longer name their reality or point out racism” (Taylor, 542). Ignoring a long history of slavery, conquest,
extralegal oppressions and killings, legal oppressions and killings, and economic poverty, whites claim
that we are better now, and that race is no longer worthy of consideration. Thus, what purports to be a
step toward equality among races is in fact another white concoction to maintain and obscure structural
privileges.
It is particularly disturbing that racism has become so deeply embedded in American institutions
and collective consciousness that we no longer recognize it as such. The normalization of racial
inequality is the bedfellow of its obfuscation, and we often can not tell whether racism is an
unsurprising fact of life or nonexistent. Both arguments are made. Whites have been extraordinarily
innovative in establishing techniques which veil, negate, silence, and delegitimize voices which expose
our racist underbellies. Once we no longer have a legitimate basis upon which to explore the prevalence
of racism today, it can continue unnoticed and unchallenged.
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How we define and conceptualize racism reflects how we have come to understand the term,
what we deem important enough to verbally acknowledge, and gives insight into our unstated
assumptions, ideologies, and understandings. However, the ways in which we define racism also play
another role: they construct. Through defining racism, we verbally and psychologically create our own
version of what racism actually is and then allow this definition to become codified as objective fact.
This said, the definitions of racism that we choose to ascribe to both reflect what we believe, and what
we have an investment in believing. The act of defining is an act of constructing the realities we need.
The ways we—white people in particular—allow ourselves to define racism are often obscure,
universal, and devoid of specifics. Our half-hearted definitions allude to skin color, allude to oppression,
and allude to pain. But they do not often call it out as such. We very carefully tiptoe around terms such
as “whiteness,” “people of color,” “systemic,” “oppression,” and “death.” In fact, if a person who was
completely unaware of the cruel realities of racism today read many of our definitions, she would
probably walk away believing that racism is a universal human phenomenon, existing because we all
instinctively discriminate against people of races other than our own. Thus, in defining and
conceptualizing racism, whites lean heavily on abstract and universal terms and very carefully shy away
from specifics.
By identifying racism as nothing more than a human tendency to discriminate, we abrogate
ourselves from taking personal responsibility and engaging in actions that can create change. As noted
by Tatum, “it is more comfortable simply to think of racism as a particular form of prejudice. Notions of
power or privilege do not have to be addressed when our understanding of racism is constructed in that
way” (Tatum, 9). From our broad and universal conceptions of racism, which often don’t acknowledge
the face of modern day racial oppression, we find comfort and peace of mind. Further, by constructing
our conception of racism as such, we quite literally create for ourselves a reality in which historical and
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institutionalized conquest and oppression of people of color at the hands of white people is irrelevant, if
existent at all.
In order to truly challenge the continuation of racism today, we need a radically grounded
definition of it. This definition must hold whiteness accountable for the vested construction of racial
hierarchies that are still largely in place today, for the development and maintenance of white privilege
at the expense of people of color, for the institutionalization of systems of advantage and disadvantage,
and for the consistent attempts to obscure and negate these realities. Racism is not the problem of
humanity in general. It is the problem of white people, and has been enacted against people of color,
and our definitions of it must reflect this.
Before something can be challenged, it must first be identified; it is only through being critical
and honest about the centrality of whiteness to racism that we can engage in an honest effort to uproot
it. As noted by Tatum, “…reserving the term racist only for behavior committed by Whites in the context
of a white-dominated society is a way of acknowledging the ever-present power differential afforded
Whites by the culture and institutions that make up the system of advantage and continue to reinforce
notions of white superiority” (Tatum, 10). Lipsitz argues, “…those of us who are “white” can only
become part of the solution if we recognize the degree to which we are already part of the problem—
not because of our race, but because of our possessive investment in it” (Lipsitz, 22). By affirming that
white people, historically and today, have an investment in the maintenance of racist structures, and
then by denouncing that investment, a genuine blow can be dealt to the contours of a society which is
foundationally racist.
It is not easy for white people to engage with these ideas, for they are threatening and painful.
But pain can also be healing, and sometimes wounds need to be opened, raw and bleeding, in order to
heal. If we are speaking in terms of financial, political, and social success, or the maintenance of
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hegemonic power, white people need racism. But if we shift our values, devaluing power and re-valuing
humanity, community, and integrity, we all need the end of racism regardless of our race. Every person
suffers under racism: “White people are paying a significant price for the system of advantage. The cost
is not as high for Whites as it is for people of color, but a price is being paid” (Tatum, 14). The pain of
racism, as it pertains to white people, has been strategically silenced and denied—but it is there. As
stated by Wendell Berry in The Hidden Wound, “…the more painful it has grown, the more deeply he has
hidden it within himself” (Berry, Tatum, 14).
It is imperative that white people begin to critically interrogate their own role in perpetuating
racism, and actively disinvest from it. Racism exists because white people have the desire and the power
to maintain it. We also have the power, and—buried deep within ourselves, I believe—the desire to
uproot it. Given that we have cloaked ourselves, at the expense of countless racial exclusions, cruelties,
and deaths, in institutional hegemony, it is our responsibility to turn away from white privilege and walk
with determination in the other direction. “…the fact of White privilege means that Whites have greater
access to the societal institutions in need of transformation. To whom much is given, much is required”
(Tatum, 12). Now, “…the only further disinvestment we need is from the ruinous pathology of
whiteness, which has always undermined our own best instincts and interests” (Lipsitz, 23).
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