Working Through Whiteness: International Perspectives (Interruptions-Border Testimonies and Critical Discourse S)

Working through Whiteness

SUNY series, INTERRUPTIONS: Border Testimony(ies) and Critical Discourse/s Henry A. Giroux, editor

Working through Whiteness International Perspectives

Edited by

Cynthia Levine-Rasky

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2002 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing by the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data Working through whiteness : international perspectives / edited by Cynthia Levine-Rasky. p. cm.—(SUNY series, interruptions—border testimony(ies) and critical discourse/s) Includes index. ISBN 0–7914–5339–1 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0–7914–5340–5 (pbk. :alk. paper) 1. Whites—Race identity. 2. Whites—Attitudes. 3. Whites—Psychology. 4. White woman—Race identity. 5. White women—Attitudes. I. Levine-Rasky, Cynthia. II. Series. HT1575 .W67 2002 305.8'034—dc21 2001042010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

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Cynthia Levine-Rasky I. Contexts of Whiteness 1.

Whiteness and The Great Law of Peace

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David Bedford and W. Thom Workman 2.

“The Iniquitous Practice of Women”: Prostitution and the Making of White Spaces in British Columbia, 1898–1905

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Renisa Mawani 3.

A White World? Whiteness and the Meaning of Modernity in Latin America and Japan

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Alastair Bonnett 4.

White Noise: Australia’s Struggle with Multiculturalism

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Andrew Jakubowicz II. Studies in Whiteness 5.

A Room without a View: Social Distance and the Structuring of Privileged Identity

129

Michael Alan Sacks and Marika Lindholm 6.

Looking at the Invisible: A Q-Methodological Investigation of Young White Women’s Constructions of Whiteness 153 Stephanie Kellington

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Contents

Building a Home on a Border: How Single White Women Raising Multiracial Children Construct Racial Meaning

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Jennifer A. Reich 8.

The Impact of Whiteness on the Culture of Law: From Theory to Practice

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L. A. Visano III. Pedagogies for Whiteness 9.

“In Whitest England”: New Subject Positions for White Youth in the Post-Imperial Moment

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Anoop Nayak 10.

When the Big Snow Melts: White Women Teaching in Canada’s North

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Helen Harper 11.

Developing Feminist Pedagogical Practices to Complicate Whiteness and Work with Defensiveness

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Jessica Ringrose 12.

Critical/Relational/Contextual: Toward a Model for Studying Whiteness

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Cynthia Levine-Rasky List of Contributors

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Index

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Acknowledgments Acknowledgments admittedly serve a dual purpose. For writers, they allow a public announcement of the various supporters of a book. For readers, they provide a glimpse behind the scenes of a book’s production and reveal an informal network of colleagues connected to a particular project. A kind of human interest story, acknowledgments often conclude with the mention of family members. Emerging from the writer’s invisible private domain, these figures stand in the background, strong yet distant from the main event. To convey the importance of their support, I reorder convention here by highlighting the role played by family. I wish to thank just three people—my partner Tom, and my children Adam and Elia, who grew alongside this book since its inception several years ago. My family’s support of the project goes well beyond the usual emotional and financial forms, although they were my main providers of these resources as well. To a remarkable degree, they shared the ups and downs I experienced in the preparation of this book and in all my other activities affected by that process. They are a singularly resilient crew. The rest is relatively brief. I thank Prentice Hall for permission to print a revision to a section from Alastair Bonnett’s book White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives (Harlow, U.K., Prentice Hall, 2000). I am very grateful to the following people who contributed their time and thoughts to the book: Leslie Roman, Jim Walker, Franca Iacovetta, Mariana Valverde, Paul Carr, Ghassan Hage, Tim Whiten, Ioulia Pletneva, and anonymous reviewers. Musical rehearsals by Frank and Robert Botos and by Michelle Rasky and her band were much appreciated. Special mention goes to my friend Valerie Zawilski. She and Jessica Ringrose continue to contribute to dialogues around issues of whiteness and social domination. Also, thanks to the participants and listeners at the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association sessions on whiteness that I organized in St. Catherine’s, Ontario, in 1996 and in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1998. Kelly Train was instrumental at these meetings. Plans for a session in Toronto in 2002 are underway as I write this. Priscilla Ross, Director at State University of New York Press, provided essential advice. Her willingness to take on this first project by a junior, nontenured academic warrants much

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gratitude. Finally, I must acknowledge the patience and encouragement of the contributors of Working through Whiteness. Their unwavering belief in the work buoyed it up through some tense moments in its rather long journey. I wish them every success.

Introduction Cynthia Levine-Rasky

I don’t think it’s up to black people to change white sensibilities. I think it is up to white people to do that. I think that racism is not our problem. I think it’s a white problem. I think we can fight against it. I think it’s our job to fight for good laws, to fight for equality, but in terms of doing things like changing white attitudes, white people have to do that work. —Dionne Brand, Interview with Dagmar Novak in Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fictions

The injunction for whites to “do their own work” heard here from Dionne Brand, the Toronto novelist, poet, and political activist, is echoed in the work of numerous contemporary writers “of color.”1 Among them are Hazel Carby, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Stuart Hall, Toni Morrison, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, bell hooks, Barbara Smith, and Cherrié Moraga. The relationship between this book, this project, and their indebtedness to those scholars who are not white2 is one that conveys a persistent tension. For how can the work be our own if it is impossible to construct whiteness in the absence of social difference? Moreover, “our own” work implies exclusion and thus perpetuates the dominant-subordinate relationship between whites and racialized groups such work is intended to undo. This relationship is sustained if our own work positions the racialized other as a moral check to keep us honest or to guide whites’ forays into a critical interrogation of their own racialization and their racism. These are among the undeniable tensions associated with embarking upon such work and effecting change through it. While the problem of forms and conditions for inclusion/exclusion in “doing our own work” needs to be taken up more formally, I would argue that there is a larger problem encompassing the question, namely, how are whites to do this work while inviting such 1

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tensions as integral to the process? As this introduction and the essays that follow elaborate these tensions, it will become apparent that the work is best conceptualized as organized in tension. “Working through whiteness” communicates this entanglement. We may try to work through whiteness with the intention of studying, interrogating, and defeating the basis of its authority. But we will be working through whiteness that defines and regulates that intentionality.3 Power and dilemma color the crucial questions to be raised. What are the guiding principles for such work? What are whites’ vested interests? Their conscious and unconscious motives? Towards what vision of society are whites to work and for whom? By framing this introduction in tension, I am suggesting that the endeavor to work through whiteness must actively embrace the complexity, the contradictions, the doubt, the errors, the risks, the fear immanent in such questions. A willingness to do so bears upon the entire project of working through whiteness and, henceforth, this book. To proceed with these qualifications in the foreground, what is involved in working through whiteness? I suggest that the project initiates a critical, relational, and contextual problematization of whiteness as active participant in systems of domination rather than of racialized difference as effect of domination. It refers to a commitment to the critical examination of whiteness (white “racefulness”) in order to bring about profound change to a society “structured in dominance,” to use Stuart Hall’s (1980) powerful phrase. By “critical examination of whiteness” I mean a systematic interrogation of such things as its social and historical dimensions; the denial and legitimation of white hegemony; the texts in which whiteness is read; how whiteness is constructed and practiced; how it structures social relations; how it produces power and is produced by power; the problem and contradictions of white pluralism; how it converges with other social categories that modify and fortify white privilege; and the diffuse tensions attending the question of how to prompt whites to challenge the social order from which they benefit. A critical examination of whiteness asks that whites initiate the dismantling of inequitable and racist social relations, or divest themselves from the power they embody in social institutions, and help reformulate and replace our inequitable society with a truly democratic social order.

The Trouble with Language In this introduction, I use the term “whites” to refer to the conglomerate of the racially dominant group of people of European descent, and “whiteness” to the processes through which whites acquire and deploy social dominance. That is, I use “whiteness” to signify a constellation

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of social effects and processes, not their repository in a white body. The intention is to evoke the material and symbolic power of whiteness while identifying its relationality and contextuality. I use the terms “racialized other/s,” and “racialized groups” (all without quotation marks to produce a more readable text), deliberately displacing the more commonly used vocabulary such as “people of color,” “visible minority,” “black,” “Asian,” and other language geared to distinctions of geography, nation, skin color, language, or religion. The meanings of these terms are anything but settled. My language choice is problematic (as any denoting race would be) and requires explanation even though, as will become clear, there is no absolute explanation that can settle a ground disturbed by fault lines of racialization. With respect to groups referred to as “racialized others,” I reject the alternative “nonwhite” even though it may be the logical choice to indicate the racialization process produced by white domination.4 With “racialized others” I refer to those groups who have been regarded as racially distinct from white. My usage engages a tension between an epistemological and ethical rejection of racialization divorced from the racism that produces it and a desire to flag that process as it is enunciated. With “racialized other” I am deliberately drawing attention to the very process of reifying what should be regarded as a social difference, as in Omi and Winant’s (1994) now classic argument. Thus writing whiteness constitutes a contradiction. As a universalizing, normalized signifier, this activity is the antithesis of the kind of relationality and contextuality I advocate in this introduction. Many writers convincingly argue that race is entirely expressive of a metaphor (Gates 1985), a fiction (Said 1985), and a social construct (Omi and Winant 1994). The categories that constitute references to “race” have economic and political expedience, but no empirical basis. The human race is, of course, a biological singularity. Race is thus a “variable, contested, and changing social category” (Gillborn 1990, 4). Such factors as social and economic exploitation, political disenfranchisement, and cultural and ideological repression (JanMohamed and Lloyd 1987) have produced different racial categories and definitions as well as different meanings of “race” that vary significantly over time and between different societies (McCarthy 1990; see also Banton 1977, and Stepan 1982). The notion of fundamental and constitutive difference, of otherness, is a result of will (Gates 1985, 5). For this reason, I reject the terms “racial group” or “racial minority,” because they imply an unqualified and a priori meaning of difference divorced from the political process that constructs categories of difference. The language of “racialized other” (or “racialized group”), “white,” and “whiteness” are intended to evoke a sociopolitical significance rather than a corporeal one. More politically correct terms are problematic because they obscure the

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inequitable conditions that unfortunately still pervade our society. My choice of language does not avoid this problem completely, as it still risks the generalization that social inequality can be attributed solely to race. “Racialized other” does highlight the kinds of social processes and relationships of domination and subordination that are central to this text. But it forces the internal complexities of groups to one or the other side of a color dichotomy and it reduces to a singularity an overwhelming majority of the world’s diverse peoples. “Whiteness” is not intended to evoke a static ethnic conglomerate to which membership is claimed on the basis of social dominance ipso facto. To this effect, Roman warns of the “fictive homogeneous community of whites” (1993, 274). Yet writing whiteness homogenizes intergroup differences and collective agency that, in its critical mode, such writing would otherwise extend to all racialized groups including whites. Enunciating whiteness could suggest a white essentialism (see Bonnett 1996; and Keating 1995) in which all whites are assumed to share the same knowledge of their racefulness simply by virtue of their personal experience with whiteness. A main argument propelling Working through Whiteness is to make the classification of white and whiteness and their relationship to domination more complex. White is thoroughly mitigated by other loci of social identity and group membership such as social class, gender, sexuality, politics, ethnicity, religion, and more. Several of the autobiographical essays in Thompson and Tyagi’s 1996 book on racial identity testify to how white is fragmented along these lines.5 Not all whites are white in the same way. To put this another way, white is an inconsistent index to whiteness. Therefore, while whites are the inescapable social group upon which we gaze, this volume stresses the more abstract and, I believe, the more productive question of whiteness. Some authors assert or imply that whiteness should not be conceptualized as a static identity marker. Whiteness is, rather, a social construction emergent from particular sets of contexts taken up by inequitably empowered groups negotiating their way through the world in social relation to each other. Elizabeth Ellsworth, for example, asks, “What is gained and/or lost in attempts to ‘end racism’ when whiteness is defined not as an identity, but as a practice; a form of property; a performance; a constantly shifting location upon complex maps of social, economic, and political power; a form of consciousness; a form of ignorance; a privilege; something those of us who ‘are’ white must unlearn; something we whites fear, something that gives us pleasure, something we desire; something we must name and describe and understand; something we must change; an invisible something that we must make visible, finally, at this moment in history, to our white selves?” (1997, 264).

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The task for whites is to redefine themselves as racialized social actors in a shared and ambitious quest to build a common social domain reticulated with and beyond identity. One beginning would entail redefining whiteness not as an attribute of identity adhering to a white body, but as a process, a performance, or “a constantly shifting location upon complex maps of social, economic, and political power” (Ellsworth, 1997, 264). Ruth Frankenberg states that whiteness is best regarded as “a practice rather than object, in relation to racial formation and historical process rather than as isolable or static” (1997, 20). This approach may remove whites from a reductive individualism in which personal culpability for racism is inescapable. The hope is that social analyses of the processes that produce whiteness, racialization, and the systemic injustice of racism could phase out unproductive diversions into psycho-individualistic culpability.6 In any case, multiple factors must be involved in any comprehensive portrait of whiteness— politics, morality, consciousness, and the ability of people to act against a normative apparatus (even as that desire itself is constituted through a political economy), as well as competing and contradictory identifications with gender and social class, sexuality, and more. All of these elements affect how white people define themselves and how they participate in social life. It would be misleading to suggest that whiteness is tantamount to racism, just as it would be to equate groups who experience racism with passive victimization. All groups enjoy a full range of cultural practices, complex identities and politics, and pluralistic communities. My choice of terms fails, however, to offer a durable resolution of this problem. As Alastair Bonnett (1993) argues “white” is devoid of history or geography; it connotes homogeneity and stasis, transcendence and normativeness. It is monolithic. It is typically used to signify reactionary political identities in the form of white supremacy, the polar opposite of what working through whiteness is intended to be. While I do want to problematize how whiteness dominates, there is a contradiction in my desire to racialize white just as others have been racialized. Whiteness is founded upon the manufacture of race, but as an independently meaningful category that abrogates reticulation with racial oppression—with the very processes, that is, that have produced it. White does not become linguistically modified by difference; that distinction is still reserved for those racialized groups who remain as nonwhite. Bonnett captures this particular tension when he writes that “the traditional racist construction of ‘whiteness’ as the ‘norm,’ the standard of humanity, is made even more apparent, and pernicious, as its blank, silent presence is inserted next to the ‘colourful,’ ‘eccentric’ categories of ethnicity” (1993, 176). Writing whiteness can imply racial

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domination by centering itself in relation to racialized others. Intimating a moral superiority, this position is a wielding of power serving to further contain and manage difference in the interest of whiteness. It suggests that others can only be known in relation to white, that their identities and lives can only be broached in terms confluent to white frames of reference. Others are seen in deficit to the qualities and values ascribed to whiteness. After the 1988 publication of his first, highly reputed discussion on whiteness, Richard Dyer provides a genealogy of whiteness using American and British film iconography as his resource. White frames a wide range of qualities such as a definitive “normalcy” that dismisses others’ particularity, an “illusion of its own infinite variety” (1997, 12), and an entitlement to claim difference on its own terms. If white people are just people, then people of other colors are something else (2). We can turn to Ross Chambers’ use of linguistics to illuminate whiteness as an unmarked category: In linguistics, from which social semiotics borrowed the concept of markedness, there is no sense that the unmarked/marked pair lines up with concepts like normalcy and deviation or unexaminedness and unexaminability . . . In the social sphere, however, things work otherwise. The differential structures that mediate social relations are themselves mediated by the phenomena we call power and desire. One of the effects of such phenomena is to distribute to unmarkedness the privileges of normalcy and unexaminedness and to reserve for markedness the characteristics of derivedness, deviation, secondariness, and examinability, which function as indices of disempowerment (although, oddly, not always of undesirability). (1997, 188–89)

Dyer’s thesis on whiteness communicates a dynamic tension. As a color yet not a color, white merges with images of nothingness, emptiness, and ultimately death, Dyer argues. White joins images of water, air, and light as some colorless entity, all implying “not so much a quality as an absence of quality, of any thing in particular” (1997, 75). It is thus an identity permeated with uncertainty and contradiction. White may be idealized but as a social category it is unstable. White is both normalized and yet impossible; both something and nothing; both desired and imaginary; the epitome of good form yet amorphous.7 Representing both a kind of race and the human race in toto, white is both an individual and a universal subject, “a need always to be everything and nothing, literally overwhelmingly present and yet apparently absent . . . ” (39). For Dyer, whiteness galvanizes power by virtue of its paradoxes.

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This is the point at which Dyer connects the symbolic to the political. The resolutely diffuse meaning of “white” in terms of geographical or racial markers has proved to be a “breathtakingly effective means of maintaining our non-particular, particular power” (1997, 70). If whiteness occupies a primordial but void space, there is no basis upon which it may account for the privilege and power it exercises. Individuality is the only rationale for understanding why whiteness is associated with good jobs, nice homes, upwardly mobile careers, and rewarding interactions in public institutions like schools and hospitals, Dyer argues. It is intolerable to realize that these social rewards are the result of skin colour rather than our individual qualities (9). The dualism of white invisibility and hegemony is an ontological contradiction, but this is precisely what accounts for its symbolic and political power (see also McLaren 1994; Ferguson 1990; Mercer 1995). Chambers explains that “the in(di)visibility of whiteness ensures that white people doing what is in effect their own brand of special-interest politics look like so many individual agents getting on with the business of expressing, exploring, negotiating, and even settling their legitimate differences—differences that define them not as white people (a classificatory identity) but as ‘people’” (1997, 197). Dyer proclaims that the ultimate “point of seeing the racing of whites is to dislodge them/us from the position of power, with all the inequities, oppression, privileges and sufferings in its train, dislodging them/us by undercutting the authority with which they/we speak and act in and on the world” (1997, 2). I believe that Dyer is referring to whites doing their own work or what I prefer to express as “working through whiteness.”

Situating Knowledge in Examining Whiteness Leading feminist theorists such as Sandra Harding, Nancy Hartsock, Adrienne Rich and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak have prevailed upon writers to situate themselves in terms of their gender, race, class, culture, sexuality, and other tethers of social identity. Appeals for writers to disclose their values, their purposes, and their ideological and social assumptions are equally pressing (Roman 1992). Such assumptions authorize the power commanded by knowledge. Potential dialogue among presumably equal contributors to knowledge may evolve into the will to interpret and control experience on behalf of others who are then relegated to the role of witness at best. In contemplating my biography in the spirit of this appeal to disclosure, I find no ready predictability between my personal sphere of identification and my interest in examining social injustice. Indeed, what emerges are the

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contradictions evident in where I grew up, where I now live and among whom, my social class, and how I express my political beliefs. I never felt a victim of anti-Semitism nor did I, until graduate school, know of anyone who told me about the racism they knew. I am a subject in the social processes that play upon the contradictions inherent in a presumably antiracist whiteness. In fact, there is a great deal about my white, middle-class life that could serve as reason for resenting a critical examination of the systems of inequality and privilege from which I benefit.8 The way that racism affects me most, therefore, and the dimension that best animates this inquiry is indicated in the contradictions embedded in my life. An essay by Roxana Ng (1993) drew my attention to this excerpt from Himani Bannerji that I think captures my dilemma and my challenge: Racism becomes an everyday life and “normal” way of seeing. Its banality and invisibility is such that it is quite likely that there may be entirely politically correct white individuals who have a deeply racist perception of the world. It is entirely possible to be critical of racism at the level of ideology, politics and institutions . . . yet possess a great quantity of common sense racism. This may coexist, for example, with a passively racist aesthetic. Outside the area which is considered to be “political” or workplace . . . this same white activist (feminist or solidarity worker) probably associates mainly or solely with white middle-class people. That fine line which divides pleasure and comfort from politics is constituted with the desire of being with “people like us.” (1987, 11)

Marilyn Frye has written about these contradictions from the point of view of a white woman: “White women’s efforts to gain self-knowledge are easily undermined by the desire not to live out the consequences of getting it; their/our projects of consciousness-raising and self-analysis are very susceptible to the slide from ‘working on yourself’ to ‘playing with yourself.’ Apparently the white woman herself is ill-situated for telling which is which . . . ” (1992, 148). To a large extent I am complicit with these contradictions. If it is possible to mount a conscientious defense, I might say that racism is supported by a network of elements beyond my individuality that inhibit my movement within it just as it rewards my silence about that inhibition. My interests in social justice and a vision of a better society stem from my identification with the revolutionary spirit enervated by youth in the 1960s and 1970s. In secondary school, I took part in an educational experiment known then as a “free school” where I learned about student empowerment and the possibility of social change. In graduate school many years later, I focused on social difference, particularly race

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and ethnicity, as the axis upon which problems of inequality were concentrated in a critically informed sociology of education. I refer to an incipient interest in “questions about white racialization as an alternative, more ethical approach to problems of race relations” in an appendix to my 1997 doctoral dissertation on teacher candidacy and social difference. As I review my old papers and presentations prepared for courses and conference sessions, I realize that the interest in emphasizing whiteness in a reframed race relations has held my attention since 1992. I had read Peggy McIntosh’s paper (1992) as it circulated widely among York University’s Faculty of Education where I had many ties. Christine Sleeter’s writings and growing interest in white privilege among teachers led me to works by Lois Stalvey, David Wellman, John Stanfield, Joyce King, Toni Morrison, Ruth Frankenberg, and eventually to the periodical Race Traitor. I discovered writings from the 1960s and 1970s on whiteness and white racism including Robert Terry’s (1975) For Whites Only, Katz’s (1978) book on white awareness as part of a psychotherapeutic process, a 1966 collection from Ebony magazine entitled The White Problem in America, and essays by feminists like Marilyn Frye, Minnie Bruce Pratt and colleagues, and Ann Russo. I can’t recall where I first encountered the directive that whites “do their own work.” But with contemplation and reinforcement provided in these and other readings, the injunction soon took on something of a “eureka” quality, if that word may be used to describe what must have been a protracted realization. It became increasingly apparent to me that all of the conventional strategies designed to respond to racism and racial inequities had proved unsatisfactory. Strategies have usually taken the form of alternating extensions and retractions of social services, assimilation concealed as multiculturalism, “color-blindness,” political correctness, and the adoption of the compassionate yet patronizing role of facilitator (or liaison or strategist or therapist or teacher). Ensconced in conventional social programs such as equity education, public housing, or changes to unemployment insurance schemes is the identification of social problems like school failure, poverty, and unemployment with racialized groups. Social agencies and institutions are mandated to intervene in the activities of racialized groups in order to bring about equity. These strategies encompass practices that focus dialogue about racism on “them.” When the efficacy of such programs is questioned, the contradictions between rhetoric of equity and assimilationist expectations are revealed. Discourse about “them” may be thus transformed into programs animated by a liberal optimism in healing the divisions between whites and racialized groups. Paul Gilroy observes that when appeals are geared towards a white audience, the concerns typically are “not

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directly with the enhancement of the power of the oppressed or disadvantaged groups but with the development of racially harmonious social and political relations” (1987, 117). This version of race relations engages a dialogue about racism occupying the space between “us” and “them.” Groups of all identities have expressed frustration with politically liberal approaches to the alleviation of racism and discrimination of marginalized groups even as these approaches face obliteration from the irruptive Right. Conventional race relations strategies are problematic for several reasons: (1) They lack reflection on fundamental assumptions about the meaning of social difference, race, gender, and equality; (2) They fail to name the problem of racism and the power relationship between subordinate and dominant groups; (3) They express no concern for the contradiction between the rhetoric of equality and persistent patterns of inequality for groups of citizens nor for how policies designed to rectify social inequities paradoxically serve to reinforce divisions between groups; (4) They exercise the symbolic violence of maintaining borders between “us” and “them” that fluctuate with the needs of the dominant speakers and their selective divestment of their control over social equity; and (5) There is no vision about how social relations could be materially and substantively restructured for a viable shared future. Liberal approaches to improve racial discrimination are limited to expressions of antipathy to overt exploitation and domination rather than directed to the “encompassing and profound reality of white supremacy” (hooks 1988, 117). Traditional race relations is complicit in maintaining ideological and structural hegemony over racialized others by overlooking the exclusionary functions that lie at its core. Race relations work provides answers to the wrong questions and asks questions derived from wrong premises. Focused on “their” problems, race relations denies racialized groups the legitimacy of full participation in institutions and policies developed and controlled by whites. Racism is not only a complex network of strategies that marginalize racialized groups. It is coextensive with economic, political, psychological, and social advantages for whites at the expense of racialized groups. Ideological defenses of the interests vested in whiteness serve as justifications for the silence on this problem. The hegemony of whiteness resists knowledge that social problems associated with racialized difference such as school failure, poverty, crime, and unemployment are not the cause but the effects of a problem that has historically been situated outside of its proper locus. Henry Giroux explains that inequitable social relations reinforce “the liberal assumption that racism is something that gives rise to black oppression but has little or nothing

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to do with promoting power, racial privilege, and a sense of moral agency in the lives of whites” (1997, 296). Critical whiteness reflects the beginnings of a possible reframing of race relations work. Writings from various practices are emerging that refocus dialogues on racism from around “others” or in the space between “us” and “them” to whiteness itself. The project initiates a rigorous, critical problematization of whiteness as active participant in processes of domination rather than of racialized difference as the effect of such processes. Toni Morrison advocates the approach in these words: “My project is an effort to avert the critical gaze from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served” (1992, 90). The directive for whites to do their own work aroused in me a sense of urgency to begin a dialogue on what ethical role white people could effectively play in eradicating racism. I was not alone in this desire. In 1997 alone, four anthologies on whiteness were published in the United States.9 Articles and books on the topic were appearing in cultural studies, film studies, education, law, linguistics, women’s studies, gay and lesbian studies, counseling and psychology, social history and geography, journalism, urban studies, labor studies, and literary criticism. Publications that position whiteness at their analytic fulcrum have appeared in both the academic and popular press. “White studies” is appearing as a programmatic option in some American universities and there is now an annual American conference on the topic jointly presented by several American organizations. Michael Omi and Howard Winant correctly describe the new orientation in inquiry as emerging from “increasingly globalized dimensions of race . . . Whiteness becomes a matter of anxiety and concern” (1993, 8). We witness this development as another tension coalesces: Is the study of whiteness a bandwagon? Like a new gospel in race relations, is its appeal based on alleviating white guilt just as it may legitimize psychic distancing between whites and racialized others? Does it adequately engage ethical issues and commit itself to the kind of social change that necessitates relinquishment of white entitlement and conferred dominance (McIntosh 1992)? Does it encourage the disturbance of its own foundations? There are multiple tensions in advancing an examination of whiteness. I list several here in the form of disconnected questions. (1) Can whiteness be its own authority? That is, can a speaker addressing issues of power authorize the meaning of that power, particularly if the material conditions of his or her life attest to benefiting from that power? Can whites be both subject and object of critique? And in proceeding as

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though they can, as some may charge I am doing here, is that not itself an act of domination? How can whites name, yet sidestep, our claim to power and knowledge in such a project? How can they avoid reinstalling white centeredness yet develop ethically compelling arguments that remain interdependent on the knowledge and power of racialized others? (2) How can whiteness be examined if doing so threatens the very conditions of privilege that are essential to whiteness? How is it possible to advocate for “a complete transformation of the ideologies, structures and everyday practices which re/produce that very privilege” (Chater 1994, 100)? (3) Does examining whiteness detract from the agency of racialized others or silence their presence altogether?10 Does it imply that racialized groups should not participate in eradicating racism or does it deny the gains they have made in their struggles against racism? The dilemmas raised in working through whiteness are sufficient in number and significance to tempt abandonment of the whole project. They continuously threaten to destabilize what might be accomplished through a critical engagement of whiteness that does not muffle its own internal conflicts. The tension precipitated by questions such as those above can, however, be exploited for its potential to generate energy. Contradiction can be employed as a stimulus to further critique. Alice McIntyre expresses the dilemma—and its positive dynamic—very effectively: How do we engage white people in the conversation about racism long enough so that they/we can honestly critique it? My response to that dilemma is that there is no comfortable way. There is no comfort zone for white people when it comes to discussing white racism. There may be safety zones and we may be able to create non-threatening environments to discuss white racism, but my own experience suggests that there will always be moments of discomfort that accompany the process. “Being uncomfortable” is the price I, and other whites, must pay (and a small price it is) if we are serious about the business of honestly confronting— and “doing something about”—white racism. (1997, 43)

Carol Schick also encourages an embrace of uncertainty, albeit in a different theoretical language, when she asks “what the desire for wholeness might look like after meeting oneself as an ambiguous and always-in-formation subject identity” (2000, 99). What is required is an acceptance that certainty, control, and predictability are residues of a Western philosophical and political paradigm now commonly deconstructed as an extant system of domination (Harding 1986; Hekman 1990). It is more appropriate to advocate an epistemological framework

Introduction

13

that instills (again, in tension) a commitment to complexity, self-reflexivity, moral dilemma, and struggle with foundational perspectives.

This Collection This book presents work from scholars who explore many of the issues raised in this introduction. The chapters reflect the broad array of academic inquiry into whiteness. Contributors discuss whiteness in the context of social relations, history, gender, social class, pedagogy, social structures, and culture. They “read” whiteness through the discourses of law, ethics, education, feminism, politics, psychology, criminology, and social geography. While diverse in their scope of inquiry and theoretical outlook, all contributors share a critical, relational, and contextual framework that circumscribes their individual research interests. Sympathetic to the struggles of marginalized racial and ethnic groups, contributors also share a value in interrogating whiteness as a problematic and complex category that has too long avoided naming itself as powerful participant in an inequitable social order. The presentation of these international perspectives provides a useful counterpoint to the strong American perspective evident in the current literature on whiteness. Much of the writing on whiteness in the United States has been compelling and stands in close theoretical correspondence to the Canadian, British, and Australian work in this volume. However, the predominance of American writing on the issue tempts conflation with other national contexts in areas where the difference may be crucial. From a British perspective, Bonnett (1996) argues that in the United Kingdom, processes of racial formation as well as the very language of social difference vary from those in the United States. The birth of “White studies” in the United States has displaced these geographical distinctions. Bonnett calls for more international input into the incipient research agenda on whiteness. It is our hope that Working through Whiteness will contribute to that agenda. The first of three sections concerns various contexts in which whiteness may be understood. In comparing the Iroquoian Great Law of Peace to Western philosophy and ethics, David Bedford and W. Thom Workman produce an effective counterpoint to whiteness. The disparities between the two in terms of their approach to the natural environment, to peace, and to the encounter with non-members demonstrate what whiteness is and what it has done. Attributing white hegemony to a lack of “reasoned moderation,” the authors show how whiteness even engulfs recognition of itself. Paradoxically, its margins are where its workings are best observed. Bedford and Workman thus

14 Cynthia Levine-Rasky

provide us not only with a useful framework with which we may study whiteness, but a method with which to do so. In Renisa Mawani’s chapter, whiteness is placed in an historical context involving the social relations between native groups and colonial authorities in British Columbia at the turn of the twentieth century. Mawani describes the junctures between the stiffening control over Native women and the province’s growing concern in maintaining its position in Canada as a white settler colony. British Columbian officials regarded interracial unions as a threat to European settlers’ prerogative in participating in the formative society. Mawani shows how colonial officials constructed “the prostitute” as a new identity for Native women, resolving the dilemma posed by prevalent interracial relationships within what was intended to be an essentially and morally superior white society. The production of the category of “prostitute” sustained the legal and moral (and racial) distinctions between Native women and white men. It also justified the administrative regulation of a range of Native practices including marriage and gender relations, potlatch, trade, travel, and the integrity of Native settlements. Alastair Bonnett elaborates a context for analyzing whiteness in terms of modernity and the spread of Western cultural markers around the world. In some South American regions, whiteness occupies a historical position of the highest prestige and serves as the touchstone against which social groups are racialized. Colonialism and whiteness were coproductive at these sites as “modernity” compelled the social and economic development of Latin American society in the nineteenth century. This process proceeds today through forms of racialization that are particular to countries such as Brazil and Venezuela. Latin American versions of whiteness may be contrasted with those in Japan. Representations of whiteness fluctuate in relation to historical and economic realities shaped by transitions in the Japanese national identity. Bonnett investigates the tension and reciprocity between Japan’s emulation of Western modernity/whiteness and its dedication to a uniquely Japanese culture. He concludes that whiteness and modernity involve more than domination through macro systems of colonialism, global capitalism, or military intervention. They must be understood in the context of a nation’s animation of dominant forms, its “deployment and adaptation” of whiteness into a particular sphere of meaningfulness. The history of Australia as told by Andrew Jakubowicz unfolds as a conflict over the terms of multiculturalism. Since the turn of the twentieth century, dominant racial groups have struggled with subordinate racialized groups over the evolving meaning of “White Australia.” In the shifting political climate, the control of white domination over

Introduction

15

social policy and legislation has been challenged from outside and within electoral politics. Still, a resurgence of white supremacy seems imminent. Spearheaded by a succession of political leaders, white domination reached its apex in the campaign of the racist One Nation party in 1997 under the populist leadership of Pauline Hanson. Public sentiment in support of Hanson’s platform seemed to reflect a formerly latent racism that seemed primed to erupt. While in the end Hanson’s performance was played largely for the benefit of the media, it gave whiteness new meaning and racism new legitimacy. In current times, its effects appear in Australia’s oppressive policies against refugees. In the second section,“Studies in Whiteness,” readers are introduced to a wide range of research on critical whiteness. In studying young white men, Michael Alan Sacks and Marika Lindholm’s work contributes to the growing research on white privilege. Drawing on theory and original fieldwork, the authors find that multiple layers of privilege generate a social distance between their sample of men and the experiences of others. More specifically, they outline three processes that limit the ability of the privileged to recognize their complicity in maintaining social inequality. The privileged believe, for example, that their experiences are universal even as they defend their presumably normative experience against any criticism of the status quo. Sacks and Lindholm show how the men’s social distance from the realities of inequity depends upon the contradictions in their own racism. The authors conclude by making recommendations for reducing the social distance that makes privilege self-perpetuating. In “Looking at the Invisible,” author Stephanie Kellington reports on her research on young white women’s conceptions of whiteness. The study emerges from new inquiry in psychology in which whiteness is no longer defined as biological reality nor as attitudinal style but as a socially constructed category in dynamic and often contradictory relation to class and gender, and ultimately to the social world. Kellington identifies three discourses the women employ to “represent contemporary ways of thinking and talking” about racism and whiteness. Substantiating elements of work carried out by others in critical whiteness, issues such as the normalization of whiteness, contradictory consciousness, defensiveness and denial, and the conflation of Canadian national identity with whiteness all appear in Kellington’s analysis. Her chapter informs researchers not only about what whiteness means for these women, but how such findings mobilize possibilities in theory and methodology. In “Building a Home on a Border,” Jennifer Reich explores how racism and racial identity are negotiated by white mothers of racialized children. Drawing from literature on interracial relationships,

16 Cynthia Levine-Rasky

transracial adoption, black parenting, and white privilege, Reich traces three strategies exercised by the mothers in their socialization of children: color-blindness, liberal-humanism, and race traitor. These strategies shape the women’s approaches to socializing their children to survive as racialized persons in a racist world. Reich discovers that the question of social advantages conferred by whiteness is more evocative for these women than they are for most whites. Parenting a racialized child demands confrontation with whiteness and with the dilemmas implied in working through whiteness. These ‘color’ a mother’s relationship with her child but not in any way that reduces the process to simplistic racial categories. In his chapter, L. A. (Livy) Visano investigates a paragon of white liberalism—the legal system. The relationship between whiteness and law is complicated by the vocabulary of freedom, truth, and justice, effectively submerging the effects of racial domination. Yet, inscribed in the dominant culture, the law is engaged in the management of crime rather than in correcting the effects of an unjust social order, or dismantling the political economy of racism. In numerous examples, Visano illustrates the preferential treatment of whites in the criminal justice system and the construction of racialized groups as criminal. The phenomenon is not conspiratorial but rather “the project of legal, political and economic rationalizations which maintain the status quo.” Visano goes beyond critique, however, and identifies ways we may collectively “work through whiteness.” In the final section, contributors address how whiteness is taken up in pedagogy and how a more critical, contextual and relational approach could refine present practices. In his chapter “In Whitest England,” Anoop Nayak discusses his study of two schools with predominantly white student populations. At these sites, Nayak explores the meaning of white ethnicity as it is experienced and articulated by the students especially in response to the “white backlash” against antiracism educational policies and practices. In an environment where white identity is restricted to negative stereotypes, white students struggle with the implications of an antiracism policy that gives little credibility to their fears and their experience of disempowerment as working class. Students try to find a legitimate stance within their white defensiveness even as, in their view, the discourse of antiracism confers unfair advantages upon racialized groups. Nayak traces current debates in the overlapping meanings of racism and power as they parallel his findings. He concludes that there is a need in antiracism work to address whiteness as a complex and relational category particularly as it is deployed by students as an uncertain response to an uncertain victimhood.

Introduction

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In “When the Big Snow Melts,” Helen Harper writes of her interviews with and observations of two novice teachers, young white women working in Native community schools in Canada’s Far North. She explores how Robin and Nell negotiate a sense of themselves and their work in terms of the variegated axes of whiteness, femininity, social difference, and racism. In her quest to situate the white woman teacher in a First Nations setting, Harper draws upon two historical female icons: “Lady Bountiful” and “Janey Canuck.” Their roles as either teacher/caretaker of British norms (in the former case) or tourist/recorder of exotic ways of life (in the latter case) are still employed in current narratives of white women teachers in First Nations schools. New teachers face the problem of resolving the contradictions between these oppressive narratives and their desire to abandon assimilationist pedagogy. In this study, problems of identity and membership, and role and responsibility may never achieve resolution. In salvaging the lessons of the teacher candidates’ stories, Harper identifies areas where faculties may improve their delivery of education for social justice. Jessica Ringrose raises similar questions of appropriate roles for antiracist white women in her chapter, but in relation to women’s studies classrooms. Referring to ongoing debates in feminism and to personal experience, Ringrose explores the problem of how white students may speak about racism and the challenges they face in doing so. These include the continued reliance on white second-wave feminist texts, white defensiveness, essentialized notions of identity, and interpersonal conflicts reflective of the broader dilemma of naming racial oppression within a feminist framework. In her analysis of power relations in a women’s studies program, Ringrose reveals “new silences and new binaries between authentic/inauthentic knowers in the classroom.” She encourages members to broach the difficulties they face in discussions about racism, stimulating efforts to articulate whiteness, privilege, power, and the connections between whiteness and racism—both internal to the women’s studies classroom and in the broader social sphere. In my own chapter, which concludes the collection, I return to a theme foreshadowed in this introduction, that of the tensions permeating efforts to work through whiteness. Literature on whiteness has concentrated on three approaches to this set of problems: the critical, the relational, and the contextual. Critical perspectives emphasize a normative position on issues of social injustice, and in its commitment to change inequitable social relations. Relational analyses convey the symbolic and material interdependence of white and other. Contextual approaches situate whiteness historically or in reticulation

18 Cynthia Levine-Rasky

with intersecting sites of identity. These three categories form the organizational apparatus for the chapter as I identify examples of work that interrogates whiteness critically, relationally, and contextually and the problems in some work that does not. As a final word of introduction to the chapters that follow, I leave readers with a deliberate irresolution. Working through whiteness requires a paradoxical and simultaneous commitment to knowledge and to ambiguity. Tensions circulate around and through the project of interrogating whiteness. Their exploration is among the serious aims of this collection. In rendering whiteness as a meaningful area of inquiry, we run the risk of legitimating its material and symbolic purchase. Working through whiteness infers a desire to struggle against the inequities that whiteness arranges. It also communicates the impossibility of that task since commitments to work are always conducted through the epistemological frame of whiteness. Desire and constraint collide on planes roughened by injustice. Their harsh convergence absorbs even the meaning of working “through” whiteness. It is unreasonable to hope that questions of whiteness and what it is to work through it will be easily (or ever) resolved. It is safe, however, to express a hope that the ideas presented here will persuade readers of the kind of work that is involved in working through whiteness. Ultimately a willingness to forego the control and stability that are adjuncts to whiteness reflects our necessary acceptance of the real possibility that we’ve only just begun the work.

Notes 1. The quotations around this phrase correspond to the social constructivist approach to race and racialization taken in this collection. The meaning of “color” stands relative to the meaning of “whiteness” while whiteness—as the normative category—is rarely classified. This invisible and unjust interdependence is a product of groups’ inequitable power relations established through processes of politics and history. The purpose of this collection is to elaborate these and other processes that confer the meaning of whiteness and what it has done. 2. Whites have also identified the need to do their own work. Among them are Robert Blauner, Robert Terry, and David Wellman. Blauner and Wellman, for example, stated in 1973 that “the white sociologist might well eschew focusing on black and other Third World communities. We recommend instead investigating the ways that racist practices are embedded in particular institutions, and the permeation of assumptions of white superiority in American culture and personality as well as the special situation and problems of white ethnic groups and working-class people. Scholars from the dominant group

Introduction

19

have a special obligation to confront these issues” (329). Liberal theologian Sharon Welch describes the role of dominant groups in social transformation like this: “We in the First World are not responsible for others; we are responsible for ourselves—for seeing the limits of our own vision and for rectifying the damages caused by the arrogant violation of those limits” (1990, 139). The social movement known as Race Traitor (discussed in chapter 12) is addressed to whites eager to do their own work. 3. I do not mean to imply here that whiteness defines the identity of all contributors to this volume. I mean that the hegemony of whiteness commands cultural, discursive, political, and even psychic structures that influence possibilities for social actors in general. One of those possibilities is working through whiteness in the first sense I mention. 4. This is Richard Dyer’s explanation for his choice of that term (1997, 11). 5. See especially the essays by Wellman, Thompson, Kaye/Kantrowitz, Mitchell, and Jackson. 6. See Levine-Rasky (2000) for some discussion of these points. 7. Compare this representation to that of Artaud: “[A]nywhere but in Europe it is we whites who ‘smell bad.’ And I would even say that we give off an odour as white as the gathering of pus in an infected wound. As iron can be heated until it turns white so it can be said that everything excessive is white . . . . [W]hite has become the mark of extreme decomposition” (1958, 9). I acknowledge O’Donnell (1997) for this reference. 8. Privilege must also be problematized as a social category in terms of its discursive contingencies and structural antecedents. In contextualizing the meaning of privilege, Nancy Chater (1994) argues that fulfilment of basic human needs on the basis of a claim to a common humanity has become privilege in our inequitable and unjust world. Entitlement to food, housing, health care, education, respect, and self-determination are problems of inequitable distribution of material needs, not of competing claims to privileges. While it is true that power and privilege have “historically sedimented” along lines of racialized, gendered, and classed difference, “many, if not most people have a complex and contradictory relationship to power and powerlessness, to privilege and oppression” (Chater 1994, 102). The more meaningful question for Chater concerns how to change the inequitable distribution of resources that create privilege. For a complementary yet more general critique of white privilege, see Zack (1999). Contextualization of privilege may be a key to penetrating the challenges in examining a whiteness intersected by the tensions produced by class, gender, and other forms of intergroup difference. 9. They are Delgado and Stefancic (1997), Fine, Weis, Powell, and Wong (1997), Frankenberg (1997), and Hill (1997). The following year, works Nakayama and Martin (1998), and Kincheloe, Steinberg, Rodriguez, and Chennault (1998) appeared and additional collections are emerging as I write.

20 Cynthia Levine-Rasky Other publications on whiteness are too numerous to mention. See the Center for the Study of White American Culture Inc. web site (www.euroamerican.org) for a list of books and dissertations on whiteness. 10. I acknowledge an anonymous reviewer for articulating this last point. S/he warned that critical whiteness studies recenters whiteness while making “the bodies of the other disappear.”

References Artaud, A. 1958. The theatre and its double. Trans. by M. Richards. New York: Grove Press Inc. Bannerji, H. 1987. Introducing racism: Notes toward an anti-racist feminism. Resources for Feminist Research 16(1), 10–12. Banton, M. 1977. The idea of race. London: Tavistock. Blauner, R. and D. Wellman. 1973. Toward the decolonization of social research. In The death of white sociology, ed. J. A. Ladner. New York: Vintage Books. Bonnett, A. 1993. Forever ‘white’? Challenges and alternatives to a ‘racial’ monolith. New Community 20: 173–180. ———. 1996. ‘White studies’: The problems and projects of a new research agenda. Theory, Culture and Society 13: 145–155. Brand, D. 1990. Interview with Dagmar Novak. In Other solitudes: Canadian multicultural fictions, ed. L. Hutcheon and M. Richmond. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Chambers, R. 1997. The unexamined. In Whiteness: A critical reader, ed. M. Hill. New York: New York University Press. Chater, N. 1994. Biting the hand that feeds me: Notes on privilege from a white anti-racist feminist. Canadian Woman Studies 14: 100–104. Delgado, R., and J. Stefancic, eds. 1997. Critical white studies: Looking behind the mirror. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Dyer, R. 1997. White. London: Routledge. Ellsworth, E. 1997. Double binds of whiteness. In Off white: Readings on race, power, and society, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, L. C. Powell, and L. M. Wong. New York: Routledge. Ferguson, R. Introduction: Invisible center. In Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures, ed. R. Ferguson, M. Gever, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and C. West. Cambridge and New York: The MIT Press and The New Museum of Contemporary Art. Fine, M., L. Weis, L. C. Powell, and L. M. Wong, eds. 1997. Off white: Readings on race, power, and society. New York: Routledge. Frankenberg, R., ed. 1997. Displacing whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Frye, M. 1992. Willful virgin: Essays in feminism, 1976–1992. Freedom, Calif.: The Crossing Press.

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Gates, H. L. 1985. Editor’s introduction: Writing “race” and the difference it makes. Critical Inquiry 12: 1–20. Gillborn, D. 1990. ‘Race,’ ethnicity and education. London: Unwin Hyman. Gilroy, P. 1987. ‘There ain’t no black in the union jack’: The cultural politics of race and nation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Giroux, H. 1997. Racial politics and the pedagogy of whiteness. In Whiteness: A critical reader, ed. M. Hill. New York: New York University Press. Hall, S. 1980. Race, articulation and societies structured in dominance. In Sociological theories: Race and colonialism, ed. C. Guillaumin, 355–345. Paris. UNESCO. Harding, S. 1986. The science question in feminism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hekman, S. J. 1990. Gender and knowledge: Elements of a postmodern feminism. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Hill, M., ed. 1997. Whiteness: A critical reader. New York: New York University Press. hooks, b. 1988. Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking black. Toronto: Between the Lines. JanMohamed, A. R., and D. Lloyd. 1987. Introduction: Minority discourse— what is to be done? Cultural Critique 7: 5–17. Katz, J. H. 1978. White awareness: Handbook for anti-racism training. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press. Keating, A. 1995. Interrogating “whiteness,” (de)constructing “race.” College English 57: 901–918. Kincheloe, J., S. Steinberg, N. Rodriguez, and R. Chennault, eds. 1998. White reign: Deploying whiteness in America. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Levine-Rasky, C. 2000. Framing whiteness: Working through the tensions in introducing whiteness to educators. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 3 (3): 273–294. McCarthy, C. 1990. Race and curriculum: Social inequality and the theories and politics of difference in contemporary research on schooling. London: Falmer Press. McIntosh, P. 1992. White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In Race, class, and gender: An anthology, ed. M. L. Andersen and P. Hill Collins. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co. McIntyre, A. 1997. Making meaning of whiteness: Exploring racial identity with white teachers. New York: State University of New York Press. McLaren, P. 1994. White terror and oppositional agency: Towards a critical multiculturalism. In Multiculturalism: A critical reader, ed. D. T. Goldberg. Oxford, U.K: Blackwell. Morrison, T. 1992. Playing in the dark: Whiteness and the literary imagination. New York: Vintage Books.

22 Cynthia Levine-Rasky Nakayama, T. K., and J. N. Martin, eds. 1998. Whiteness: The communication of social identity. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Ng, R. 1993. Racism, sexism, and nation building in Canada. In Race, identity, and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. New York: Routledge. O’Donnell, Darren. 1997. Whitemice. Play presented by Mammalian Diving Reflex, Toronto. Omi, M., and H. Winant. 1993. On the theoretical status of the concept of race. In Race, identity and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. New York: Routledge. ———. 1994. Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd ed., New York: Routledge. Roman, L. G. 1992. The political significance of other ways of narrating ethnography: A feminist materialist approach. In The handbook of qualitative research in education, ed. M. D. LeCompte, W. L. Millroy, and J. Preissle. San Diego: Academic Press, Inc. ———. 1993. White is a color! White defensiveness, postmodernism, and antiracist pedagogy. In Race, identity, and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. New York: Routledge. Said, E. 1985. An ideology of difference. Critical Inquiry 12: 38–58. Schick, C. A. 2000. ‘By virtue of being white’: Resistance in anti-racist pedagogy. Race, Ethnicity, and Education 3 (1): 85–102. Stepan, N. 1982. The idea of race in science: Great Britain (1800–1960). London: Macmillan Press. Terry, R. W. 1975. For whites only. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans. Thompson, B., and S. Tyagi, eds. 1996. Names we call home: Autobiography on racial identity. New York: Routledge. Welch, S. 1990. A feminist ethic of risk. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press. Zack, N. 1999. White ideas. In Whiteness: Feminist philosophical reflections, ed. C. J. Cuomo and K. Q. Hall. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Part I Contexts of Whiteness

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1 Whiteness and The Great Law of Peace David Bedford and W. Thom Workman

Introduction Compare the following understandings of the proper reception to be accorded to peoples with whom one has contact. In 1526 Pizarro first came to the lands of the Inca. He read the Requirement which was intended to inform the peoples of the New World that they were subject to the king of Spain and the Roman Catholic church. The Incas were required “to recognize the Church as your mistress and as Governess of the World and Universe, and the High Priest, called the Pope, in Her name, and His Majesty (king of Spain) in Her place, as Ruler and Lord King.” If the Incas did not submit, “with the help of God I shall come mightily against you, and I shall make war on you everywhere and in every way that I can, and I shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and His Majesty, and I shall seize your women and children, and I shall make them slaves, to sell and dispose of as His Majesty commands, and I shall do all the evil and damage to you that I am able. And I insist that the deaths and destruction that result from this will be your fault” (Wright 1993, 65–66). Pizarro was required to read this proclamation so that the death and destruction about to be inflicted upon the Incas would be their responsibility if they failed to submit themselves to the sovereignty of Rome and Spain. The Great Law of Peace also has requirements that spell out how other peoples are to be treated (1973). The Great Law of Peace is the constitutional document which founded the Iroquoian Confederacy. Although its origins are not known conclusively, it is reliably estimated to be 650 years old. The Great Law, which established peaceful, cooperative relations between five Iroquoian nations—Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga—detailed what Aristotle called “practical wisdom,” that is, how to live well individually and collectively. Relations within the nation and with other peoples were placed in a context of proper living. 25

26 David Bedford and W. Thom Workman

Wampum 751 states that “when the member of an alien nation comes to the territory of the League, and seeks refuge and permanent residence, the statesmen of the Nation to which he comes shall extend hospitality and make him a member of the nation. Then he shall be accorded equal rights and privileges in all matters except as mentioned here.” Other Wampum spell out the obligation to establish peaceful relations with other peoples, to respect their language and territory, and to include them under the tree of peace. Wampum 2, for example, proclaims the hope that the Great Peace will extend out in all directions. Using the metaphor of the radiating roots of the pine tree,2 it states that Roots have spread out from the Tree of Great Peace, one to the north, one to the east, one to the south and one to the west. These are the Great White Roots and their nature is Peace and Strength.

The contrast between the two attitudes to otherness, that is, the understanding of how peoples should relate found in the Spanish proclamation and the understanding in the Great Law of Peace could not be more profound. Following the path of the former has led European culture (and its branches in what can metaphorically be called the “white” world) to an age of unprecedented excess. The vanity, immoderation, and disrespect for other ways of life have produced almost limitless behavior, instances of which abound. The overwhelming destruction of the Iraqi people, the immense degradation of the environment on a global scale, the relentless depletion of natural resources, enormous wealth and terrible poverty standing side by side, and the transformation of work from a creative to a purely routinized activity are only a few examples.3 Our argument is that the crucial difference between aboriginal practice and understanding and that of the West is that aboriginal culture, as expressed in the Great Law of Peace, recognized that proper human living is founded upon a reasoned moderation.4 Reasoned moderation as the basis for living is the guiding ideal of the Great Law. It is not unique to the Iroquois, however. The ancients as well thought of proper human life as bounded. Plato argued that the critical virtue was sophrosyne (moderation). In addition, he argued that moderation could only be achieved through reason. If we live reasonably we will be moderate. This was the message of the Republic just as it is the message of the Great Law of Peace. Peculiar to modern Western culture is the perversion of reason into an instrument for immoderation. Modern white life is seemingly without any sense that appropriate behavior takes place within limits. Different cultures have their own notions of what constitutes the reasonable limits of human action.

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Mosaic Law is one expression; the Great Law is another. The latter document articulates modes of conduct that are bounded by natural and spiritual constraints. As such, it is the model for the Iroquois of proper living. The white world of the last few centuries is startling for the absence of the sense of reasoned moderation as the guide to conduct. For example, property rights do not obligate the possessor to act with any sense of limits or obligations towards communities or nature. As we will argue, the notion of the place of human being in the ontological order, its instrumental attitude to the environment, and its hostile posture to others emanate from an absence of limits or constraints upon human action.5 If we are to pull back from the unbounded, limitless immersion in immoderation which characterizes modern white society, we must be able to uncover its essential elements. It is critical that we identify the features of European civilization, of whiteness, so that what is not white is preserved. One feature of the white world view that is not masked is its universalizing tendency. While many of the essential elements that constitute the white outlook and form of life lie behind the outer husk of appearance, this aspect is on the surface. The postwar period, in particular, marks the era of great expansion of Western, white forms of life to regions of the world that had previously been exempt—areas of the globe that we call “remote” because of their nonintegration into white modernity. The culture, taste, economy, politics, technology and so forth of the modern white world, which has been obliterating everything aboriginal in its path since 1492, is close to completing its dissolutionist task.6 Ironically, this one, phenomenologically transparent feature helps to mask all the remaining essential properties. The engulfing presence of whiteness includes the loss of a sense of its historical constitution, the loss of the ability to recognize its historical contingency and the loss of the capacity to imagine alternative ways of living. As whiteness liquidates all others its hegemonic discursive frames—such as civilization, modernization, progress, or development—fail to move beyond their immuring universalist claims to recognize their own uniqueness and specificity. Its very totality obscures its partiality, its thorough extension hides its selectivity and, in the end, one species of culture pretentiously stands in for the genus humanity. Expressed in terms of the ability to generate critical discourse, the potential of whiteness to develop critical insight into itself fades as countervailing reference points wither. The very ubiquity of whiteness paradoxically shrouds its essential properties. The Great Law of Peace, perhaps the most systematic and complete extant expression of the aboriginal world view, is an invaluable source for the analysis of the defining features of whiteness. As a standpoint

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outside that of the modern, bourgeois, liberal European culture, analysis of the Great Law acts like a stain, drawing out key features of modernity and highlighting them. It is an articulated expression of a way of life that includes 1) an understanding of human being and its place in the order of being; 2) a sense of the natural order of life and our place in the environment; and 3) an understanding of appropriate, respectful relations between different peoples. By examining each of these three instantiations of reasoned moderation found in the Great Law of Peace, a contrast can be established between a traditional, aboriginal world view and that of modern white culture revealing the latter’s essential features. Our task is not to explain the causes of modernity’s peculiar ontological arrogation. Rather, we wish simply to draw out its features more clearly—to display, as it were, the immensity of its release from traditionally bounding conditions—by juxtaposing it to a form of life that self-consciously held out reasoned moderation and respect for the natural and social orders as the key to proper living. We are identifying a frame of consciousness that has gutted the notion of reasonableness, reduced it to purely instrumental or tactical procedures, to use Horkheimer’s language. The frame of consciousness is the defining element of whiteness.

Human Being and Its Ontological Place The modern Western notion of human being and of our place in the ontological order has a number of aspects. Perhaps most critical is the notion that we are individuals, existing as self-subsisting atoms. From J. S. Mill’s methodological individualism to the cult of the rugged individual in American popular culture, from the isolated Hobbesian individual who can “find no pleasure in Company” to the rights-bearing person who figures so prominently in the various Charters of Rights, Western thought ultimately sees the existing entity as the individual person. It is the solitary, autonomous person who is the alpha and omega. To be a person is to be free, and as Hegel argued, European culture sees freedom as the right of atomized individuals to act alone, solely determined by their own conscience and will (1976, 503). Secondly, Western thought conceptualizes the human being in instrumental terms. Best expressed by the economic notion of the individual as a rational interest-maximizing calculator, the modern vision of human being reduces reason to a mere instrument or means, and similarly conflates the ends of human life with the satisfaction of capricious, free floating impulses.7 The person is reduced to nothing more than a mere consumer or accumulator—a possessive individual, to borrow C. B. MacPherson’s terminology. The good life is widely assumed to be one into which the maximum consumption is crammed.

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Finally, modern Western thought sees the individual human being as an autonomous entity existing in a lifeless and disinterested cosmos. Hegel announced the end of history in 1806 with Napoleon’s victory at the battle of Jena and the almost simultaneous publication of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. For Hegel humankind had achieved its historical goal—the full self-consciousness of our own consciousness as the ground of our being. The divine ground of being had been overcome as we now came to recognize that freedom and autonomy are the very essence of our being. The divine and the natural, as the positive and negative poles that had bound our existence, have themselves been transcended. The limitlessness of modern human being produces both the excesses of vanity and hopelessness as we revel in our mastery of all things and despair of its essential meaninglessness. Moderation not only has ceased to be the guiding virtue of a well-lived life, but the ungroundedness of our ontological place means that we can no longer even tell when we have lived moderately. What is important for us is not, of course, the truth of Hegel’s claim but the fact that it could be made at all, and be taken seriously. What are we to make of these prevailing conceptions of human being? Each of these three aspects of the white notion of human being differ markedly from the parallel understandings found in the Great Law of Peace. Indeed, the full significance of what it means to be white can only be appreciated when contrasted with a richly developed alternative. Instead of seeing the individual person as autonomous, the Great Law of Peace expressed a vision of human life as interconnected, as existing within a network of relationships. Central to this embedding of the individual within a social context was the clan. Each person was by birth a member of the mother’s clan (Wampum 44). Although membership in a nation—Mohawk for example—was important, clan membership was one’s primary identity (Morgan 1962, 60). The clans as units owned all property, especially rights to the land (Wampum 42). Furthermore, even across nations, clan identity was critical. The Great Law stated that “People of the Five Nations who are members of a certain clan shall recognize every member of the Clan, no matter what Nation, as relatives. Men and Women, therefore, who are members of the same clan are forbidden to marry” (Wampum 43). Clans were the vehicle through which the individual participated in the economic and political life of their nation. All property was controlled by the clan and within the clan all resources were shared. Travelers, for example, would never go hungry. Being related to all other members of the same clan, they were treated as family wherever they went. The political arrangements established by the Great Law were also clan based. Chiefs, or Sachem, were chosen as representatives

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of clans. They articulated the views of their clan at discussions at both the national and Confederation levels. The clan thus constituted the politically important unit. Clan members would discuss issues and problems amongst themselves and come to a decision with which all could live. The chief representing the clan then communicated this decision to the national and Confederation Councils. At these levels action would only be taken if it was unanimously supported (Wampum 12). To insure that all voices were heard and respected the Great Law instituted a system of radical democracy. Not only, as we have just stated, did national and Confederation decisions have to be affirmed by chiefs representing all the clans of each nation, but to guarantee that the chiefs were representing properly the view of the clan, the clans retained the power to dismiss chiefs. Wampum 18, 19, 20, 52 and 59 all affirm the right of the clan mothers to remove chiefs they have appointed.8 This right even extended to the point where chiefs who did not follow the decisions taken by the clan would be killed (Wampum 59). In addition to denying primary ontological status to the individual, the Great Law of Peace also articulates a notion of human being far removed from the modern conception of the self-interest calculating economic “man.”9 The Great Law expresses a tension between reason and passion as the matrix of human life, and presents an ideal of life as guided by reasoned moderation, especially through its descriptions of the proper mode of conduct of chiefs. They were expected to act as models of moderation and reason. Wampum 28, which deals with the installation of a new chief, details the proper conduct of those who are to lead. These words are spoken at his installation: With endless patience you shall carry out your duty and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodging in your mind. All your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation. In all your deliberations in the Council of the League, in your efforts at law-making, in all your official acts, selfinterest shall be cast away. Do not cast over your shoulder behind you the warnings of your nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law which is right and just. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people, and have always in view not only the present, but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground—the unborn of the future Nation.

The last sentence of this pronouncement is especially instructive. Leaders, in fact everyone, is obliged to act not with self-interest in view but the interests of the next seven generations. The aboriginal view,

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expressed here and elsewhere, is that all of our actions must be guided by the effects they will have on the coming generations. Our highest obligation is to those yet unborn—to so act that they will be able to live when their time comes. Finally, the Great Law presents, in metaphorical form, the Iroquoian notion that human being is bounded by the natural world and by the transcendent order. It contains the requirement that the ontological continuity of human being with the natural, as well as its boundedness, be ritualistically recognized and celebrated. Wampum 99–103 spell out the obligation to give thanks to the natural order that sustains our life. There are nine prescribed festivals of thanksgiving. Wampum 100 spells out the responsibility for the festivals: It shall be the duty of the chiefs of each brotherhood to confer at the approach of the time of the Midwinter Thanksgiving and to notify the people of the approaching festival. They shall hold a council over the matter, and arrange its details and begin the Thanksgiving five days after the moon of Tiskomah is new. The people shall assemble at the appointed place and the nephews shall notify the people of the time and place. From the beginning to the end, the chiefs shall preside over the Thanksgiving and address the people from time to time.

Human life is also seen as embedded in a transcendent order. One of the most striking aspects of this text, which in many ways is a constitutional document like the Canadian and American constitutions, is the attention devoted to burial rites. The last ten Wampum, 108–117, deal with the burials of chiefs, clan mothers, men, women, and children. The rituals of burial and grief are detailed. All funeral rites, for instance, contain the following words (Wampum 108): Now we release you, for it is true that it is no longer possible for us to walk about together on the earth. Now, therefore, we lay the body here. Here we lay it away. Now then we say to you, Persevere onward to the place where the Creator dwells in peace. Let not the things of the earth hinder you.

Pervading the document is the sense of the properly lived life when the obligations to respect the boundedness of human action are observed.

Our Place in the Environment Western culture is commonly regarded as containing a fundamental disrespect for the natural world. European culture has conceptualized

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nature as a resource, as a mere instrumentality through which we satisfy our wants. Nature, in itself, is understood as pure negativity, as a nothingness upon which we write and act our own script. It is mere matter, raw material, natural resource, natural endowment to be used in the production of commodities. We evaluate states on a scale of development from least to most developed—and define development as the capacity to transform nature.10 Not imbuing nature with any meaning or value in itself (as opposed to the value it has for our purposes) has had important consequences both for our relation to the environment and for our relations to others. As lifeless and inert in the Western understanding, nature is seen solely from the perspective of the satisfaction of our wants. Nature is judged in its relation to its pliancy to our purposes, and is transformed in the image of our wants. We want to live in a certain way, and the environment must be reshaped to suit this. The relentless instrumentality of our attitude to nature also extends into our relations to others. European, white civilization looks upon aboriginal persons as either a natural resource to be used or else as a natural obstacle to be overcome. European settlers understood aboriginal persons as part of the land, and like the land they needed to be cleared, dug up, rooted out, and so on. The universalizing tendency of white thought and practice is evident here. Western civilization has transformed nature in Europe. Further, it will not rest content until it has developed the whole world, eliminating what is aboriginal and replacing it with a managed, manipulated, reprocessed, fertilized, strip-mined, overharvested environment. The last three centuries are witness to this transformation of everything into an instrument. The aboriginal view of nature, and of the proper way of living within it, is vastly different. Based on the idea that we have an obligation to preserve the environment for the seven generations to come, the aboriginal understanding is that we should live so that when we are gone there is no trace of our having been here. Humans are not the center of the universe with the power and the right to shape and reconstitute the system of life. The natural world must be respected in its own right. For example, when an animal is killed, it is thanked. Even though it must be killed for our survival, it is itself a living being, worthy of respect, and its spirit must be accorded proper dignity. In this way the basis of human being within nature is reaffirmed. The most poignant summary of the aboriginal view of the natural world, and the human relation to it, is the thanksgiving invocation required before any meeting of the people. Whenever people gather to

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deliberate they must open their meetings by giving thanks to all that makes life possible. This is constitutionally mandated (Wampum 7). Whenever the statesmen of the League shall assemble for the purpose of holding a council, the Onondaga statesmen shall open it by expressing their gratitude to their cousin statesmen, and greeting them, and they shall make an address and offer thanks to the earth where men dwell, to the streams of water, the pools and the lakes, to the maize and the fruits, to the medicinal herbs and trees, to the forest trees for their usefulness, and to the animals that serve as food and give their pelts for clothing, to the great winds and the lesser winds, to the Thunderers; to the Sun, the mighty warrior; to the moon, to the messengers of the Creator who reveals his wishes, and to the Great Creator who dwells in the heavens above who gives all the things useful to men, and who is the source and the ruler of health and life.

In practice this invocation is much longer—often lasting thirty minutes or more. According respect to nature is seen as critical to moderate, reasoned deliberation. We are thought to act and decide wisely only insofar as we are cognizant of the groundedness of our being in the natural. This discussion allows us to observe the variance between aboriginal and white attitudes towards nature. The first is the ontological continuity/discontinuity of the natural and the human. Where aboriginal understanding sees an ontological sameness between all living things, the white view is that human being is superior to nature and that nature exists only as tool and instrument. The natural world is not seen as having value in itself. This is the ontological correlate to the notion that reason is mere instrument in satisfying impulses. Such a view of the natural world permits us anything. Second is the related juxtaposition between the aboriginal notion of the natural world as living and full of spirit, and the Western notion that matter is essentially inert. The idea of thanking the rivers and the air, of expressing gratitude to plants and animals, is anathema to the Western conceptualization of nature as lifeless at best, and because passive and unyielding, life destroying at worst. Nature is an obstacle, a block, something to be subdued and reshaped. In contrast, the aboriginal intuition is that nature is fully spiritual. Corn, beans, and squash— the basis of Iroquoian agriculture—are the Three Sisters. The smoke from tobacco carries our prayers and our thanks to the Creator. After the Oka, Quebec, crisis of 1990 ended the elders at Kahnawake, a Mohawk reserve near Montreal, Quebec, realized the pain and the fear that the children of their community still suffered. The young people

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were encouraged to draw pictures of their fears, which the elders then burned mixed with tobacco. This smoke sent their fears to the Creator, who could calm them. White ideas of scientific truth, of myth, of psychosomatic healing cannot embrace the full sense of the living spirit within the natural that underlay this event. We find no evidence of a Creator and so attribute healing to the effects of belief in the immune system and so on. The modern Western view of the environment as a resource has led to behavior which has depleted the environment to the point where future life is not assured. Oil, minerals, fish, topsoil, and forests are all disappearing. Even water, air, and ozone are under significant threat. These impending (or present) catastrophes could only happen in a culture where the environment is seen as an object to be manipulated, managed, and even, in the height of hubris, improved. The Great Law of Peace envisioned that people would exist in harmony with the environment. The aboriginal peoples believed that they should live so that they do not leave any marks on the earth. Transforming nature was ungrateful and in violation of Wampum 7.

Peacefulness between Peoples Perhaps most telling of all the difference between the aboriginal world view as epitomized in the Great Law of Peace and the European, or white outlook, can be found in their respective understandings of, and relations towards, the other. Whites have demonized the other. Racism, anti-Semitism, witch burnings, anticommunist hysteria, slavery, the enemy as subhuman, and so forth pervade Western attitudes to others. Our fear of alterity, our chauvinism towards difference, have been elaborated with scientific precision—the Bell Curve (1994) is only the latest such craze—inculcated into our soldiers, and glamorized by our popular culture. The Realist understanding of international relations, which dominates the theory and practice of the Western world, conceptualizes peace in a radically different way. Following Hobbes, Realism sees peace and war as ontologically equivalent.11 The dominant view in Western culture is that humans relate to each other in ways that are at base mutually hostile. Our sense of our being as self-contained, our notion of the self as autonomous, mean that our economic and political relationships are characterized by a life and death struggle that is only mitigated by surrender and standoff. Peace is, therefore, not different from war in the underlying antagonistic relations between the peoples. For Hobbes, hostility, and the war of all against all, remain a permanent possibility, even in civil society. We only cease hostilities when it is

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in our interest to do so, and yet it is this very motivation of self-interest which constitutes our relationships as warlike. The white attitude towards nature similarly evinces notions of mastery and domination that vary profoundly from the aboriginal understanding that emphasizes accommodation. Moreover, the tendency of whiteness to create others out of difference underpins the notion of permanent war and hostility that is formalized in the Realist doctrines of international relations, a notion that radically departs from the aboriginal idea of the natural peacefulness of peoples. The Great Law rejected the notion that other peoples were “otherness” and less worthy of respect. Wampum 73 summarizes the understanding of difference: The Great Creator has made us of one blood, and of the same soil he made us, and as only different tongues constitute different nations, he established different hunting grounds and territories and made boundary lines between them.

This respectful understanding of the other as not different is reflected in the Two-Row Wampum Treaty, a seventeenth century treaty between the Iroquois and the Dutch. The relationship established was symbolized by two colored rows of beads set against a solid background. The symbol of the two rows represented the Iroquois belief that the river was large enough to carry the two boats—one standing for the Iroquoian peoples and the other for the Dutch. Each group would live in its own way in harmony with its neighbor. The striking contrast between this attitude to alterity and that of white European culture can be drawn by imagining the reception the Iroquois would have received had they arrived on the Dutch coast and asked to share the land. The Two-Row Wampum is still the governing ideal behind Iroquoian negotiations with Canada (see Alfred 1995, 13a). Less dramatic, perhaps, but no less telling of the Iroquoian understanding of the other was the practice of adoption articulated in the Great Law. Rather than identifying the Iroquois as biologically or culturally distinct and superior, the Great Law spelled out how others were to become part of the League and, indeed, members of the various nations. Wampum 68 states how the adoption of an individual into an Iroquoian clan will take place. Individuals can be adopted by a clan other than their own, and even persons who are not members of the League may be adopted. Refuge is also offered to anyone who asks for it. Dennis Banks, a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) sought refuge under Wampum 75 with the Onondaga. As a veteran of the standoff at Wounded Knee he was under

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indictment. His request for adoption was sponsored by the Onondaga Council of Chiefs in March 1983, and their decision to accept him was confirmed by the Grand Council of the League. He remained under the protection of the Onondaga nation for over a year until he surrendered to New York State authorities. The Great Law also permits—even encourages—the adoption of whole nations. The League, as it was first established, contained five members. In the early years of the eighteenth century, the Tuscarora nation of North Carolina, an Iroquoian-speaking people, had suffered a series of defeats and were being driven from their home territory. They presented themselves to the Grand Council and asked for admission. By the early 1720s they were formally included as the sixth nation of the Confederacy. In fact, so common was the practice of adoption that Francis Jennings has estimated that as much as one half of the current ethnic composition of the Iroquois is from adopted peoples (1984: 95–96) The practice of accommodation of neighbours and of adopting foreign peoples into the clans of the League or even as new members of the League stems from the central ideal and goal of the Great Law— namely the establishment of peace through reasoned moderation. This vision of proper living was not exclusive to the Iroquois themselves. Wampum 1 states, With the statesmen of the League of Five Nations, I plant the Tree of Great Peace. I plant it in your territory, Atotarho, and the Onondagan Nation: in the territory of you who are Firekeepers.

Wampum 2 extends the ideal of peace to all who desire it: If any man or any nation outside the Five Nations shall obey the laws of the Great Peace (Kaianarekowa), and shall make this known to the statesmen of the League, they may trace back the roots to the Tree. If their minds are clean, and if they are obedient and promise to obey the wishes of the Council of the League, they shall be welcomed to take shelter beneath the Tree of the Long Leaves.

There is no sense that the arrangements envisaged by the Great Law, the peaceful relations that it established between the Five Nations, are to be exclusive to them. Peace was not imagined as a pragmatic, instrumental cessation of hostilities, but as an active, cooperative living together. The Five Nations, therefore, were not exclusive. All who wanted peace were invited to join.

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To elaborate, the Great Law was founded to establish a peacefulness between nations and within nations that is based on reasoned moderation. The Great Law of Peace and its message were brought to the Iroquoian people by the Peacemaker.12 The Iroquois nations were at war, caught in an endless cycle of blood feuds and revenge killings. The Peacemaker came from across the waters of Lake Ontario with a message of peace through reason: only if the people moderated their passions through reason could there be any hope of peace. He first brought his message to Hiawatha, a Mohawk noted for his rhetorical skills. Using Hiawatha as his spokesperson he brought his message to all the peoples of the Five Nations, who were eventually convinced that peace through reason was superior to war. Only Atotarho, the terrible chief of the Onondaga, remained unconvinced. So awful was Atotarho that by legend he had snakes for hair. At first he repulsed Hiawatha and the Peacemaker, rejecting their appeals with a cynicism reminiscent of Thrasymachus. Evil and war are the way of the world said Atotarho, and he refused to follow the Great Peace. Eventually he was convinced by the inner strength of Hiawatha. Hiawatha had three daughters who had been killed—most likely by Atotarho himself. So overwhelmed by grief was Hiawatha that he wandered off into the woods to be alone. He was only able to return to his people and to renew his life because of the consolation that he received from the message of the Peacemaker. In so doing he renounced revenge. When Atotarho saw the courage and tranquility that Hiawatha displayed he realized the strength of the message of peace through reasoned moderation offered by the Peacemaker. He was made the first chief of the League and the Onondaga nation was made the seat of the Confederacy. The meaning of peace in the Great Law is symbolized by the renunciation of the passion for revenge by Hiawatha. Similarly, war is utterly rejected by the Great Law. Wampum 65 states, I, Tekanawita, and the United Chiefs, now uproot the tallest tree (skarenhesekowa) and into the hole thereby made we cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the deep underneath currents of water (Tionawatetsien) flowing to unknown regions we cast all the weapons of strife. We bury them from sight and we plant again the tree. Thus shall the Great Peace be established and hostilities shall no longer be known between the Five Nations, but peace to the United People.

The Great Law of Peace recognizes the possibility of war. Human being is properly governed by reasoned moderation, but we live in the space between reason and passion. Even when foreign nations are

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presented with the opportunity for peace they may reject it. Foreign nations are each offered the chance to accept the Great Law of Peace and to live in peaceful relations. Wampum 78 encourages those who accept peace with the League to “endeavour to persuade the other nations to accept the Great Peace.” However, it is envisioned that not all will do so. War, though, is only permitted when foreign nations refuse the offer of peace. Wampum 88 reads, When the proposition to establish the Great Peace is made to a foreign nation, it shall be done in mutual council. The foreign nation is to be persuaded by reason, and urged to come into the Great Peace. If the Five Nations fail to obtain the consent of the nation at the first council, a second council shall be held and upon a second failure, a third council shall be held and this third council shall end the peaceful methods of persuasion. At the third council, the War Chief of the Five Nations shall address the chief of the foreign nation and request him three times to accept the Great Peace. If refusal steadfastly follows, the War Chief shall let the bunch of white lake shells drop from his outstretched hand to the ground, and shall bound quickly forward and club the offending chief to death. War shall thereby be declared, and the War Chief shall have his warriors to back any emergency. War must continue until this contest is won by the Five Nations.

Warfare, when necessary, was never to be pursued to the finish. Wampum 83–87 spell out that the underlying relationship between peoples is peace, not war. The moment that a foreign nation ceases hostilities peace is reestablished. Typical is Wampum 84: Whenever a foreign nation is conquered or has by their own will accepted the Great Peace, their own system of government may continue, but they must cease all warfare against other nations.

Unlike the dominant vision of Realism, the Iroquois saw war as an aberration. The real interests of both sides are served by peace and by peaceful relationships. The Iroquois themselves were testament to this. After they had accepted the vision of the Peacemaker they put aside all hostilities and accepted peace through reasoned moderation.

Conclusion The universalization of whiteness paradoxically masks its essential properties. Some of these properties have been thrown into relief by examining the Great Law of Peace—an articulation of aboriginal life that provides a standpoint outside Western bourgeois culture. In

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particular, the Iroquoian understanding of human being, its cultural attitude towards nature, and the peacefulness it accords to the relations between nations contrast sharply with the Western understandings that comprise whiteness. When we contemplate the excesses inflicted upon the world by the ascendancy of whiteness, our analysis of the Great Law of Peace, in addition to staining essential aspects of whiteness, also provides a measure of those properties. Here we can begin to see that the European understanding of human being fails to be true to the concrete richness of life and, consequently, easily lends itself to immoderate conduct. The white attitude towards nature similarly evinces notions of mastery and domination that vary profoundly from the aboriginal understanding that emphasizes accommodation. Moreover, the tendency of whiteness to create others out of difference underpins the notion of permanent war and hostility that is formalized in the Realist doctrines of international relations, a notion that radically departs from the aboriginal idea of the natural peacefulness of peoples. Indeed, from the aboriginal standpoint whiteness emerges as a pathological condition characterized by distorted conceptions of human being, a quest to dominate nature, and the systematic conquering of nonwhite nations. Whiteness, as a form of life, informs the excesses of modernity. It is also the form of life least likely to encourage a balanced and moderate approach to living, an approach necessary to foster longterm human well-being. The need to recover more moderate forms of life—in effect to save humanity from whiteness by simultaneously saving whiteness from itself—will be served well by examining those countless others who dangle from the precipice of extinction, and doing so on their own ethical and philosophical terms. The potential for instruction from nonwhite forms of life is paradoxically fading as they become needed more desperately. The Great Law of Peace can serve us well in this epoch of need.

Notes 1. Wampum are belts made of shells. The different colors are arranged to form patterns that act as a kind of language. Wampum was reportedly discovered by Hiawatha. Each of the sections of the Great Law has its own Wampum belt. 2. The white pine is the symbol of peace for the Iroquois. Tradition says that at the conclusion of the Great Law the lawgiver overturned a white pine and buried under it all the weapons. 3. This brief list of twentieth-century excess could be expanded easily to include the innumerable holocausts and protracted conflicts and wars that have characterized modern life. The sheer volume of attention that these tragedies

40 David Bedford and W. Thom Workman occupy attests to their scope. And yet their frequency also contributes to a sort of “banality” (Arendt 1963). 4. For an elaboration of this see our article (Bedford and Workman 1977). 5. Many commentators have argued that modernity is characterized by an absence of constraints or boundaries to human praxis. As such, we appropriate for ourselves the right to determine good and bad, and the limits to our actions. See Bedford (1994). 6. The mechanisms that permit the unprecedented expansion of European culture include such diverse practices as direct military aggression, the commodification of all domains of daily life, and the dominance of Western media. 7. This conception has continued from the early expression of the classical economic tradition by such writers as Adam Smith (1937) through to current liberal theorists such as John Kenneth Galbraith (1958). 8. The Great Law had a system for balancing power between men and women. Only men could be chiefs; however, only women could appoint chiefs, who could be removed at any time. Older women who had the right to appoint chiefs were known as clan mothers. 9. We use the term “man” here because the gendered nature of the concept “economic man,” that is, the way that its content overlaps with our ideas of masculinity makes it incomprehensible to say “economic woman.” 10. Ecological critique, especially eco-feminist analysis, has drawn attention to the problems associated with the white attitude towards nature. See for example, Shiva (1988). 11. The clearest and most enduring expression of Realism may be found in Morgenthau (1973). 12. According to custom, the Peacemaker’s name is not uttered.

References Alfred, G. 1995. Heeding the voices of our ancestors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Arendt, H. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. New York: Viking. Bedford, D. 1994. God, nature and the end of history. History of European Ideas 19 (1–3): 371–376. Bedford, D., and W. T. Workman. 1977. The Great Law of Peace: Alternative inter-nation(al) practices and the Iroquoian Confederacy. Alternatives 2 (1): 87–111. Galbraith, J. K. 1958. The affluent society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Hegel, G. W. F. 1976 [1830]. Philosophy of mind. Trans. W. Wallace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Herrnstein, R. and C. Murray. 1994. The bell curve: Intelligence and class structure in American life. New York: Free Press. Jennings, F. 1984. The ambiguous Iroquoian empire. New York: W. W. Norton and Co. MacPherson, C. B. 1962. The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes and Locke. London: Oxford University Press. Morgan, L. H. 1962. The League of the Iroquois. New York: Citadel Press. Morgenthau, H. 1973. Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. The Great Law of Peace. 1973. Akwesasne, NY: White Roots of Peace. Shiva, V. 1988. Staying alive: Women, ecology and development. London: Zed Books. Smith, A. 1937. Wealth of nations. New York: Modern Library. Wright, R. 1993. Stolen continents: The “New World” through Indian eyes. Toronto: Penguin Books.

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2 “The Iniquitous Practice of Women”: Prostitution and the Making of White Spaces in British Columbia, 1898–1905 Renisa Mawani

On January 22, 1906, the Provincial Secretary of British Columbia forwarded a report from the superintendent of the Children’s Aid Society to the Attorney General of the province. The lengthy collection of documents—including detailed correspondence between local, provincial, and federal authorities—emphasized what many officials believed was a growing problem in British Columbia, “the alleged traffic in young girls by Indians.”1 The report documented numerous complaints made by local authorities about the “great many evils” being practiced by Native women and men in northern spaces, including reserves and industrial settlements. Frustrated by the lack of attention that the provincial and federal governments had paid to earlier grievances on this matter, the superintendent of the Children’s Aid Society demanded that “a thorough and complete investigation” finally be made into the “supplying of young girls, half breeds, and others, for immoral purposes to the whitemen of the various camps round the district.”2 Allegations of prostitution within British Columbia’s Native communities and white settlements were virtually absent from the historical record, only to emerge in the mid-nineteenth century. From this moment onward however, government officials—including lawmakers, Indian agents, local constables, and missionaries—began making frequent, albeit conflicting complaints about the extent of prostitution and its causes. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed unprecedented accounts of the “social evil” described by journalists and others in popular, political, and legal discourse. Sensationalist headlines such as “Indian Girl Sold for 1000 Blankets,” and “Five Little Girls Sold at Alert Bay Potlatch” became commonplace, scattering the pages of local newspapers in both Vancouver and Victoria.3 Whereas authorities disagreed about the circumstances which caused and sustained prostitution, they agreed that both the problem and the 43

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solution were about the management of racialized and gendered spaces. As one Indian agent explained, the widespread immorality in northern British Columbia was the fault of Indian women who stepped out of place to go on “whoring expeditions around the logging camps” where white working class men were seasonally employed.4 In late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British Columbia, local and provincial authorities deployed a litany of inclusionary and exclusionary techniques in their illusive efforts to build the province into a racially pure and Christian white settler society (Barman 1996, 204; McDonald 1996). As several scholars have forcefully argued, the creation and policing of racialized spaces was central to this process (Anderson 1991; Goldberg 1993, 185–206). Earlier interracial heterosexual arrangements, combined with the close proximity of the province’s racially diverse population, precipitated colonial anxieties of widespread miscegenation and legitimized governmental initiatives to spatialize the population. Just as government and religious officials began expressing more vehement opposition to “race mixing,” by denouncing concubinage and interracial marriage, and by constructing reserves and Chinatowns, reports of prostitution across the province became louder and more persistent. Controlling prostitution and the movements of Native women became one strategy through which authorities attempted to contain porous racial borders and spatialize social relations in the province. In this chapter these emerging narratives of prostitution in British Columbia will be unpacked. Prostitution in its historical manifestations has been well researched by Canadian scholars (see for example Barman 1997/98, 237–266; McLaren 1986, 125–165; Valverde 1991, especially chapter 4). Departing from these historians and legal scholars—many of whom have discussed prostitution through notions of uncontrollable sexuality and as the twentieth century symbol of vice and sexual degeneracy, for example—I seek to problematize prostitution in spatial terms (see also Razack 1998, 338–376). Several interrelated questions must be asked. First, why did Indian Affairs officials and missionaries become so preoccupied with asserting and patrolling the boundaries between Native women and white men? In other words, why did state and religious authorities see interracial heterosexuality as being a threat at this historical juncture when these couplings had been a crucial aspect of social life in earlier periods? Second, how were narratives of prostitution implicated in concerns over interracial heterosexuality? Why did discussions of prostitution intensify and the “Native woman as prostitute” emerge at this specific moment? In what ways did the body of the prostitute mark the impurity and purity

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of certain spaces? And finally, how did the spatial techniques aimed at regulating her enable officials to assert whiteness and respectability in the province? We begin with a brief overview of the social and sexual relations in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British Columbia by tracing the growing uneasiness over interracial heterosexuality which began in the mid-nineteenth century. As officials became more aggressive in their attempts to build a respectable settler society, they viewed concubinage and miscegenation as threatening to whiteness and to Euro-Canadian dominance. Spatial segregation, through the displacement of Native peoples onto reserves for example, became a preferred strategy for restricting interracial contact. The ways in which Euro-Canadian superiority and Native inferiority was predicated on narratives of sexual degeneracy will be examined in part two. I contend that in efforts to secure these colonial relations, government and religious authorities constituted the reserve as a space of sexual degeneracy and the Native woman as prostitute, albeit in often conflicting and contradictory ways. The ways in which Native men endeavored to enter into these discourses, and how their voices were appropriated to support colonial mentalities will also be considered. Addressing prostitution more explicitly by reviewing legal and nonlegal strategies and their governmental enforcement, it will be seen that eradicating the “social evil” was never the intended goal. Rather, state and religious authorities aimed to regulate prostitution or rather manage it in spatial terms. Disciplining Native women was paramount to both governing prostitution and policing racialized space.

Making Whiteness and Policing Sex in British Columbia At the time of the first European contact in what is now known as British Columbia, it is estimated that nearly half of Canada’s Native population lived in the province. British Columbia’s rich natural resources for hunting and fishing undoubtedly encouraged Native settlement, as large numbers of aboriginal peoples continued to inhabit the province’s rugged terrain throughout the nineteenth century (Barman 1996, 6). In spite of a steady decline in the Native population (Barman 1996, 100), a strong aboriginal presence continued, and by 1871 when British Columbia joined the Confederation, the population remained predominantly Native and “mixed-blood” (Foster 1984, 22). Notwithstanding various state initiatives to populate the “‘virgin’ territory” (McClintock 1995, 24) with “desirable” Euro-Canadian settlers,

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white settlement in the province was slower than it was in other parts of Canada. Native and non-Native populations did not reach equal numbers in British Columbia until the close of the nineteenth century (Barman 1996, 154; Perry 1997, 502). The imbalances in British Columbia’s population were not only racialized but also gendered. The province’s non-Native populace remained largely male throughout this era. Thousands of single nonNative men came to British Columbia during the land based fur trade and later in the Fraser River gold rush. Jean Barman, a British Columbian historian, estimates that “[d]uring the heady years of the goldrush, at least 30000 White men and several thousand Chinese and Blacks sought their fortunes in British Columbia” (1997/98, 246). Since many of these men anticipated their stay as temporary, white women were virtually absent from the early colonial landscape (Van Kirk 1991, 180). For various other reasons it seems that white women were reluctant to call British Columbia’s rough terrain their home. By the late nineteenth century, there was still only one nonaboriginal woman for every three non-Native men in the Province (Perry 1995, 27). These racial and gendered dimensions of British Columbia’s population undoubtedly influenced sexual partnerships, as several British Columbian historians have claimed (Barman 1997/98, 24; Perry 1995, 27). While the scarcity of European women made it unlikely that white women and Native men would couple, it raised the odds that both longstanding and transient heterosexual relations would develop between Native women and white men. However, the gendered nature of British Columbia’s population also raised other colonial concerns. Large numbers of single men intensified anxieties among provincial authorities, as British Columbia’s homosocial environment evoked the (unthinkable) possibility that same-sex relations could potentially develop between and across racial boundaries (Barman 1997/98, 252; Perry 1995, 27–43; Perry 1997, 504). Many fur trade historians have by now established that heterosexual relations between Native women and white men were very common throughout this early period (Brown 1986; Van Kirk 1980). While these relationships undoubtedly emerged and were cultivated within complicated social, cultural, and economic circumstances, the gender imbalances in British Columbia and in other parts of the country certainly influenced “who bedded with whom” (Stoler 1997, 347). Since the Hudson’s Bay Company had little interest in promoting white settlement in British Columbia (Foster 1984, 22), Company men endeavored to adapt briefly to local Native cultures. In many cases, Native women helped to make these transitions easier for Euro-Canadian men by acting as liaisons between Native and white communities. As Sylvia Van

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Kirk’s important work on the fur trade suggests, it was commonplace for traders including prominent men from the Hudson’s Bay Company, to marry Native and later mixed-blood women, a practice commonly known as “marriage à la façon du pays” (“in the local style”; Van Kirk 1991, 181). In British Columbia, interracial heterosexual relations did not stop with the fur trade, but on the contrary, flourished throughout the nineteenth century. Estimates of the mid-nineteenth century gold rush suggest that one in every ten aboriginal women lived with a nonNative man at some point in her lifetime, and that interracial heterosexual relations in Canada’s most westerly province were ordinary rather than exceptional (Barman 1997/98, 248). By the early nineteenth century, Euro-Canadian views towards Native women and inter-racial heterosexuality began shifting rapidly. Officials were undoubtedly influenced by the growing hegemony of imperialist sexual ideologies imported from Britain, which constituted indigenous women throughout the colonies as “the epitome of sexual aberration and excess” (McClintock 1995, 22). However, government officials gave these colonial narratives a uniquely Canadian twist. As their interests changed from exploiting natural resources and labor to the acquisition and appropriation of Native lands, state officials began contesting the prevalence of interracial heterosexual relations. Historians and anthropologists have documented similar processes in other colonial contexts. Ann Laura Stoler points out that by the early twentieth century colonial elites in French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies condemned concubinage for “undermining those things that it was charged with fortifying decades earlier.” As Stoler explains, “[l]ocal women who had been considered protectors of men’s wellbeing were now seen as the bearers of ill-health and sinister influences; adaptation to local food, language, and dress, once prescribed as healthy signs of acclimatization, were now sources of contagion and loss of (white) self” (1997, 351). As a settler colony, the concerns in British Columbia were somewhat different, however. Many authorities warned that a permanent respectable society could never be built upon miscegenation and racial impurity. While relations between fur traders and Native women had served specific social and economic functions in earlier moments, administrators became vigilant in denouncing these unions, suggesting them to be the result of immorality and sexual depravity on the part of both races and sexes.5 As whites began settling in greater numbers, and hence making British Columbia their new home, Indian Affairs officials and missionaries increasingly viewed concubinage as blurring the boundaries between whiteness and Indianness. Interracial heterosexuality symbolized a growing threat to morality, respectability, and white

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superiority, and in the eyes of state and religious authorities alike, needed to be dealt with quickly and urgently. Although Indian Affairs Agents and missionaries did indeed fear that white men may “go Native” (Perry 1997, 508), by the end of the century, government officials articulated their anxieties about concubinage and interracial marriage more vehemently in discussions of racially hybrid children. Fears of “mixed bloods” intensified throughout the nineteenth century, as Indian Affairs agents and missionaries were convinced that interracial heterosexuality was pervasive and that mixed-race populations were proliferating at a rapid pace. Officials dreaded that race mixing would threaten and confuse the racial ordering that they were trying very hard to establish. For instance, the mixing of blood often resulted in subtle variations in skin color, eyes, nose shape, and so on, which made it possible for mixed-race children to pass or be mistaken for white. Local authorities did in fact make intermittent reports to the Department of Indian Affairs about racially hybrid children who looked and acted white. In one instance, an official from the Children’s Aid Society detailed a sexual and racial scandal involving “quarter, eighth and sixteenth breed girls,” who because of their fair skin were sold by slave dealers for a better profit as white girls rather than as Indians.6 In 1895, the Methodist Missionaries in British Columbia could no longer wait for government action to deal with the growing menace of mixed bloods. They sent a petition to the Attorney General of the province, urging him to enact legislation to deal with both interracial heterosexual relations and racially hybrid children. In their petition, the missionaries lamented, “there are a number of white men and Indian women who are living in unlawful concubinage throughout the province. As a result of this unlawful union there are numbers of illegitimate children who are a standing menace to the laws of our land and the well being of our communities.”7 In their plea to the Attorney General, the missionaries emphasized the immorality of both Native women and their offspring, complaining that these women and children were spreading vice and lawlessness across the province, and thus corrupting both Indians and whites alike. The Methodist missionaries believed that Native women and racially hybrid children posed a menace to white settlement for a variety of reasons. While the primary concern in other colonial settings was that indigenous concubines and their “illegitimate” children could successfully seek access to European property and inheritance,8 in Canada, the issues manifested themselves differently. Under the Indian Act—first legislated in 1876 to govern the lives of Canada’s Native populace— Indian women who cohabited with white men, and any progeny from

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these relations, immediately lost their Indian status (Walker 1997, 54). Thus, Native women and mixed-race children were no longer legally entitled to live on reserves, nor did they have access to money, resources, or land claims which were available to those defined as Indians by law. This was not the state’s concern. Rather, perceptions of the growing prevalence of mixed-race children in the province especially exacerbated narratives of racial (im)purity and degeneration (Perry 1997, 506). Since racially hybrid individuals could be legally identified as neither Indian nor white, their presence complicated processes of racial classification, making it increasingly difficult for Indian Agents and missionaries to legally and socially distinguish between Euro-Canadians and Natives. While mixed-race children who looked and acted white were often assimilated into European populations in various colonial regimes, in western Canada, this was not the case. Rather, the Department of Indian Affairs created a new racial classification for mixed-race progeny—the “half breed, ”who was believed to possess the worst characteristics of both races and was typically described as a most “disreputable character” (See also Stoler 1992, 532–533). In attempts to transform the social and sexual nature of British Columbia society—from a transient fur trader community into a permanent white settler colony—government officials utilized a number of different strategies (Van Kirk 1991, 198–199). Adele Perry’s research in the British Columbia context reveals that colonial administrators encouraged assisted immigration schemes for white women, believing that their presence was not only the solution to changing the conjugal and social arrangements of British Columbia society, but was also necessary for the successful transformation of the province into an agricultural, industrial, and permanent colony (Perry 1997, 504). By the late nineteenth century, government officials also introduced more coercive strategies to address the perilous situation of interracial heterosexual relations in British Columbia. As the nineteenth century approached its close, and fears of racial degeneration and threats to whiteness escalated, authorities became more cautious in policing the racial and sexual boundaries between Native women and white men. Spatial patterns of segregation became one way in which these racial and sexual boundaries were asserted. As white settlements were established, Native populations were displaced and pushed onto reserves further and further away from white settlers (Clayton 1992, 51). Efforts to secure Euro-Canadian dominance in Canada’s most westerly province emphasized a shift away from the earlier sexual patterns of concubinage that blurred important racial distinctions. Since there were still few white women in the province, and hence Euro-Canadian

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marriage was not always a feasible option, prostitution quickly replaced interracial sexual arrangements including concubinage. As I argue in the next two sections, the “Native woman as prostitute” was constructed by colonial officials in response to the crisis of racial mixing discussed above. While concubinage brought the races dangerously close, prostitution enabled white men to maintain their access to the bodies of indigenous women in certain racialized spaces, thus securing morality, respectability, and whiteness in the process.

Creating Racialized Bodies and Immoral Spaces Postcolonial scholars have well established that racialized narratives of sexuality have been central to maintaining Native inferiority and European superiority in both metropole and colony (Gilman 1985, 76–109; McClintock 1995, 113). In British Columbia as in many other colonial locales, sexual difference, or more correctly, sexual degeneracy, was also crucial to drawing and maintaining spatial boundaries between indigenous peoples and white settlers. Sexual narratives did not only enable government administrators to establish a racial ordering, but also legitimized the need for federal, provincial, and local “protection” of and intervention into the lives of Native peoples. Indian agents and missionaries relied on racialized images of sexuality to mark the depravity of aboriginal bodies and spaces. Whereas the bodies of Native women came to signify wretchedness and immorality, the reserve increasingly became a space of dirt and disease, a process which was mutually constitutive of identity and place. As Sarah Carter notes, government officials commonly referred to the inherent “licentiousness” of indigenous women in their discussions about marriage, child rearing, and housing (1996, 31). Native women were blamed for various social problems which plagued reserves and aboriginal communities, but which were in fact caused and/or exacerbated by European colonization. While government and religious authorities constituted Native women as lascivious, they also constructed reserves as sinister and degenerate spaces. Missionaries and Indian agents commonly told sensationalist stories about the “primitive” and “savage” sexual customs practiced by aboriginal peoples on various reserves in the province. Although government officials agreed that not all indigenous populations were equally immoral, they rarely made distinctions between communities, nor did they specify which “Indians” they were speaking about. At a meeting of the Methodist Missionary Society in Toronto, Mrs. Tate, the wife of a British Columbia missionary, described the “barbaric” marriage customs practiced among indigenous peoples in

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the province. She captured her audience by speaking about “child marriages” and polygamy, which she pointed out were common practices on British Columbia reserves. Mrs. Tate reported what she believed was a typical instance, “in which a girl thirteen years of age was forcibly taken from her home to be married to a man who already had two wives.”9 However, she spoke very generally, as did most government and religious authorities, failing to specify exactly which Native populations practiced these rituals. Although several Indian agents questioned the authenticity of her story, Mrs. Tate’s narrative was a common one. Missionaries and Indian agents across the province recurrently described the sexual aberration, and hence inferiority of Native peoples, and confirmed Mrs. Tate’s story with their own reports of “child marriages” and “young girls being sold as slaves” by family members, including parents.10 Local and provincial authorities and white women’s organizations pointed to Native marriages and customs as indicative of the widespread sexual immorality on reserves. However, they also cited these “barbaric” conditions as causing other forms of vice and debauchery, most notably prostitution. On May 12, 1910, the Women’s Baptist Home Mission Society of Ontario, hearing of the “great evils existing on the Island of Vancouver,” wrote a letter to the Department of Indian Affairs. The Women’s Mission urged that these Native marriage customs on the West Coast were intricately linked to the problem of prostitution. They wrote that the “revolting marriage customs of the Indians” was closely related “to the sale of Women and girls” and needed to be abolished.11 The Women’s Mission supported their claims by arguing that the parents and families of young girls sold their daughters to older men for blankets and other goods, a narrative which has been documented in other colonial regimes, most notably India (Burton 1994; Grewal 1996; Sinha 1995). Whereas white feminists in other geographical contexts were concerned about intraracial child marriages, white women’s organizations and government officials in British Columbia were troubled by the exploitation of young girls in both its intra- and interracial manifestations. Like the Women’s Home Mission Society, many Indian agents blamed marriage, and more specifically polygamy, for widespread prostitution on British Columbia reserves. Agent McLean from Port Alberni observed that Indian marriages were too easily dissolved, and when “it suits the man (or the woman as the case may be) he . . . abandons her and forthwith takes another wife.”12 Others claimed that this “very bad habit among Indians—of being allowed to take more than one wife”13 often had serious consequences for Native women and for white society in general. Indian Agent Meason, for

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one, made explicit links between prostitution and polygamy, emphatically stating that polygamy and the general mistreatment of women were in fact the root causes of widespread prostitution. “In many instances,” explained Meason, “the woman [prostituting herself] is the legal wife of an Indian, who has deserted her, and thus driven her to adopt that means of living.”14 Meason, backed by several Indian agents and missionaries, emphasized that stronger marriage laws and the abolition of indigenous marriage customs were necessary for the protection of Native women, the prevention of prostitution, and the preservation of white settlement in the province.15 Local authorities also blamed traditional Native ceremonies, such as the potlatch, for causing prostitution. The potlatch was a communal ceremony practiced by many West Coast Nations. It brought together Native peoples from various bands who feasted and gave gifts to commemorate major events including births, marriages, and deaths. Colonial authorities denounced these gatherings, arguing that the feasting and gift giving that characterized these events were excessive and encouraged among other things, immorality and prostitution. As several historians have suggested, the potlatch was seen to be the ultimate sign of degradation, as it allegedly symbolized the depravity, savagery, and primitiveness of Native peoples (Barman 1997/98, 251–258; Loo 1992, 125–165). In her widely read article “Dan Cranmer’s Potlatch,” Tina Loo argues that Euro-Canadians were deeply offended by the potlatch because it violated their deepest values and ideals (1992, 143). While Loo discusses the sexual subtexts which often accompanied debates around potlatching, she does not explicitly see the potlatch as offending Eurocentric views of sexuality. I would extend Loo’s arguments by suggesting that for Euro-Canadians, the potlatch also symbolized the “sexual depravity” of Native peoples. While selling women for material gain was practiced by and expected of Native peoples who lacked civility, for “civilized” white settlers these practices were both inconceivable and abominable. Thus, like law and economy, sexuality was fundamental to the ways in which Euro-Canadians inferiorized aboriginal peoples and indigenous spaces. These racialized narratives of sexuality also enabled them to constitute their own identities as racially superior. The potlatch was central to discussions of prostitution. Reverend Hall, a missionary who lived for ten years among the Indians of Northern Vancouver Island, reported that in his jurisdiction, the “wholesale migration” of young women to southern towns “was to procure by illicit intercourse property which enables their male Indians to carry on the ‘Potlatch.’”16 He told officials that young women were forced to prostitute themselves among white men in urban areas in

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order to obtain goods for their families. An Indian agent in Alert Bay confirmed Hall’s allegations, declaring that almost every Indian in his agency “who is in the potlatch is a slave dealer or sooner or later becomes one; Fathers sell their Daughters, Brothers sell their Sisters, or cousins, if the cousin has no nearer relatives, and I know of one instance where a Son offered his old Mother for sale as a slave.”17 In a letter to the superintendent of Indian Affairs, Hall emphasized the urgency of suppressing the potlatch, claiming, “everything is sacrificed for the potlatch. . . . Every conceivable crime is committed to acquire blankets—to pass a ritual.”18 Several Indian agents reported with horror that many older and less scrupulous women on their reserves were also complicit in supporting the potlatch and the subordination of younger women. As several sources pointed out, women and men equally encouraged the sale of Native women and girls to acquire material goods necessary for potlatching. Indian Agent Loring agreed that potlatching and prostitution were closely linked in his agency as well. However, he insisted that Native women were also involved in this gross immorality: “The giver in these occasions uses all possible means to get as much money as possible together in a given time. If he has daughters, nieces, or any other female connections, he forces them to contribute their share. . . . A father or mother will not hesitate to shout out in a boastful tone before the invited Indians: this pile of blankets, guns, etc was earned by my daughter or niece amongst the whites, or as the case may be.”19 While some Indian agents acknowledged that Native women condoned prostitution for the acquisition of property, local authorities also told stories of women who acquired whiskey and other material goods by “pimping” young girls across the province. The superintendent of the Children’s Aid Society described one case to the Department of Indian Affairs. He wrote that an Indian woman of “notoriously bad character . . . has for many years been a procuress of girls for immoral purposes for the logging camps on the Coast.”20 In a similar vein, officials argued that entire communities were corrupt, pointing out that even chiefs (implicitly or explicitly) allowed men and women to sell their wives, daughters, and sisters to white and Indian men both (Van Kirk 1996, 113). Whereas some Indian agents and missionaries viewed prostitution as a manifestation of the “savagery” of Native cultures in which women were also implicated, others saw Indian women as “victims” who needed protection from the vice and debauchery on reserves, and more urgently, from white society. Indian agents and religious officials commonly argued that interracial prostitution resulted from the close social proximity between Natives and whites. Justifying the need for

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spatial segregation, local authorities warned the Department of Indian Affairs that “vulnerable” Native women needed to be kept far away from the clutches of “immoral” white men, particularly those employed in logging camps a short distance from reserves. Reverend Hall was among those who, by evoking paternalistic attitudes, advocated racial and sexual segregation. Hall explained that white society was having detrimental effects on Native women and indigenous peoples in general, and that these women required sheltering from the “harmful influences” of the white man. Hall, and others like him, urged that the key to preventing sexual immorality, including prostitution, was to keep Native women from having social and sexual contact with white men, and thus to keep them far away from white settlements.21 Other Indian agents agreed that social and sexual contact between the races led to a myriad of problems including prostitution. Indian Agent MacKay for one, blamed prostitution on the prevalence of concubinage in the province. He explained the situation in his agency as follows: “A fertile source of open immorality and one which provides most of the recruits for the houses of ill-fame frequented by Indian women, is the habit still practiced by many white men in this Province of taking Indian girls from their homes with the consent of their friends and keeping them as concubines and after having had several children by them, turning them adrift to keep for themselves and their progeny.”22 Native leaders echoed corresponding concerns. From the mid-nineteenth century, anger was growing among Native communities, many of whom questioned the white man’s morality. Some aboriginal men saw the women in their communities as victims, and blamed white men for causing prostitution and sexual immorality, and for devastating their communities. In his letter to a Methodist missionary, the chief from a northern region of British Columbia urged the government to pass legislation to help them “keep the women straight and bad whites away.”23 At a custody hearing, a Native man who had been fined for drunkenness, made a similar request. Testifying on behalf of the Children’s Aid Society, he boldly asked the court, “You fine us for drunkenness, why don’t you help us to keep our women out of the logging camps?”24 While Indian agents had conflicting agendas as to why concubinage and interracial heterosexuality were a problem, Native men’s concerns were distinct from those of the colonizers. During the furtrade, aboriginal men recognized indigenous women as an important liaison between Native peoples and Europeans (Van Kirk 1991, 26). Their involvement in the debates on prostitution were most probably a response to the dramatic shifts in how white men came to view

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indigenous women. The growing belief among white settlements of indigenous women as sexually depraved and in need of disciplining undoubtedly influenced the views of aboriginal men. Although Native men agreed with Indian agents and missionaries that something needed to be done to curtail prostitution, their concerns had more to do with contesting the image of the Native woman as prostitute, and preventing white men from accessing the bodies of Indigenous women, than with explicitly regulating aboriginal women. Fearing that interracial sexual encounters left indigenous women and their children in a destitute state and dependent upon Native communities, it seems more likely that aboriginal men who entered these debates were contesting the further destruction of their societies. Perhaps not surprisingly, Indian Affairs agents interpreted Native men’s concerns about prostitution very differently. Many saw the objections made by aboriginal men as responses to the growing “immorality” on their reserves and among their women. They perceived these responses as agreement from Indigenous communities that officials needed to regulate Native women. For example, Indian Agent Pidcock, the agent for Alert Bay, reported that the “majority of the Indians in this Agency are anxious to stop the women from going away for immoral purposes,” as these women rarely returned to their reserves.25 Pidcock, for one, urged the Department of Indian Affairs to take action on behalf of the Native men in Alert Bay, as they “do not feel themselves strong enough at present to take action in this matter.”26 On March 8, 1895, thirty-four aboriginal men from Fort Rupert signed a petition requesting that some legal measures be taken to stop the degradation of Native women. The petition read as follows: “We the undersigned desire to represent that our wives and daughters and sisters are carried to Victoria for illegitimate purposes. As we are not able to stop the shameful traffic with Indian women without the assistance of the law we desire that a law to the following effect be passed. That Captains of steamers flying on this Coast be allowed to carry only such Indian women as produce a written permission from the Indian Agent or of a person authorized by the agent.”27 As the language of this document suggests, it is more than likely that the petition was written by local missionaries or by the Indian agent at Fort Rupert, rather than by Native men (Barman 1997/ 98, 253; Fiske 1997/98, 271). While it is difficult to say exactly whose concerns were expressed in this petition, it is possible to speculate that these issues were, to some extent, shaped by and reflect the interests of government authorities. Although some authorities blamed white working-class men for prostituting and corrupting Native women, most government officials

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agreed that aboriginal women were the ones who caused and perpetuated prostitution across the province. In a report to the Provincial Police, Henry Jones, the local constable amongst the Indians on the Nass River denied “ever having heard of an Indian girl being sold to a white man.” Rather, he explained that “I, and mostly everyone, will admit that Indian women as a rule are immoral and of course prostitute themselves whenever an opportunity arises.” He added that these women entered into immorality voluntarily, to acquire both monetary and material gain. As the constable stated, “I do not believe that Indian men force the women to be prostitutes or that the women give the money so came by to them to their men for the potlatch; in fact, I think they manage to spend it on dress.”28 Indian agents and religious and other authorities made numerous accounts of prostitution and also debated its causes; however, there was still very little understanding of which sexual activities fell under the definition of prostitution. Throughout this period, Indian Affairs officials discussed prostitution frequently, and yet continued to define it ambiguously, in social discourse and in law. In a letter to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Ottawa, Indian Agent Beattie expressed typical confusion about the definition of prostitution, and asked the department for some clarification on the matter. He questioned, “If a woman occupies a house on a Reserve and allows a man not her husband to come and go when he likes, to remain overnight with her and occupy the same bed, is she guilty of an offence against this Act [Section 106 of the Indian Act] providing she allows only one man to visit her in that way and if there is no financial gain in such a situation, is it adultery or prostitution?”29 In spite of the fact that there was no exchange of money or material gain—which were the defining features of the “social evil”—these circumstances were interpreted by the Department of Indian Affairs as prostitution. As the superintendent explained; “A woman who allows a man to whom she is not married to occupy the same bed with her must certainly be regarded as a prostitute herself, and if he or she is already married, as committing adultery also.”30 In other words, the Department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa was suggesting that all aboriginal women who had intimate relations with Native or white men, and who were not married to them, were indeed prostitutes and were to be treated as such. By the mid-nineteenth century, Indian agents, missionaries, and local authorities had firmly established prostitution and the Native woman as prostitute as social problems on British Columbia reserves and in logging camps and canneries. At this historical moment, when whiteness was being threatened by the presence of “concubines,” “mixed bloods,” and

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the influx of “foreigners,” discussions of prostitution pervaded official discourse. In his important work on colonial India, Kenneth Ballhatchet argues that prostitution served a specific purpose in the nineteenth century. He illustrates how British officials came to see prostitution as a more acceptable sexual alternative to Indian mistresses and “concubines,” conjugal relations which had been pervasive in the decades earlier (1980, 10-20). Influenced by Ballhatchet’s arguments, what I suggest is that in British Columbia, the body of the prostitute and the practice of prostitution protected whiteness and Euro-Canadian superiority in important ways. Whereas the concubine blurred the racial boundaries between whites and Natives, the body of the prostitute sharpened these boundaries by demarcating racial superiority and inferiority through notions of respectability and degeneracy (see also Razack 1998). Prostitution ensured that Euro-Canadian men could continue their interracial sexual transgressions with Native women with few social, political, or economic consequences. Under concubinage, white men could potentially lose their property, racial privilege, and respectability, whereas through prostitution these relations were secured. Native women, whose bodies were inscribed with sexual and racial degeneracy, could never legitimately pursue white male privilege or property. Furthermore, constituting Native women into prostitutes meant that these would not lose their Indian status as did concubines. Thus, the Native woman as prostitute, while still sexually accessible to white men, could continue to be regulated by the Indian Act and other racially specific legislation. This being the case, government officials could draw from a variety of legal and nonlegal regulatory practices to discipline and punish her. And discussed in the following section, the formal and informal techniques of governing prostitution were not aimed at eradicating the “social evil,” but rather were directed at disciplining aboriginal women and governing the spaces that she could inhabit and in which prostitution could occur.

Governing Prostitution and the Making of White Spaces By the mid-nineteenth century, discourses of prostitution flourished and the Native woman as prostitute became a permanent figure in British Columbia’s colonial landscape. While government officials at the federal, provincial, and local levels constituted these discourses, they also used them to rationalize the often coercive responses towards aboriginal women. From the late nineteenth century onward, various legal and nonlegal regulatory techniques were enacted and enforced to manage prostitution and to punish the Native woman as prostitute. Although

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Indian agents, missionaries, and local officials openly condemned both intra- and interracial prostitution, and many emphasized the need for more “stringently applied laws,”31 I suggest in this section that these formal and informal governing techniques were aimed at controlling rather than eradicating these sexual practices. This was especially evident in its interracial manifestations. Officials dealt with intraracial prostitution by implicating the Native man in perpetuating the “social evil,” and by ensuring that he was punished both legally and nonlegally. In the case of interracial prostitution, however, officials seemed more concerned about where these sexual transgressions took place, leaving white men outside of the discourse and beyond legal and nonlegal punishment. In failing to hold white men accountable, government officials ensured that they could continue to access the bodies of indigenous women with few consequences. Although Indian agents and missionaries continually expressed their concerns about Native women prostituting themselves to working class white men, they did not discuss the need to eliminate these sexual practices. Rather, the concern was about containing prostitution to nonurban and “degenerate” spaces such as reserves, away from “respectable” white settlements. One Indian agent explained that Indian women should not be allowed to practice “open prostitution in the cities, towns, and settlements of the whiteman.”32 Interestingly, he said nothing about prostitution in logging camps and on reserves, spaces in which the “social evil” was believed to be widespread. By publicly expressing their anxieties of intra- and interracial prostitution, Indian agents and missionaries in British Columbia and in other parts of the country successfully urged the federal government to implement new laws that dealt with the problem. By the late nineteenth century, provisions relating to prostitution were added to the Indian Act, and amendments were made to the Criminal Code of Canada, the latter making it easier to convict Native rather than white women for the same activities (Backhouse 1985, 422; Carter 1996, 40–41). Since their inception, the prostitution-related sections of the Indian Act underwent several revisions, each adding more teeth to the legislation. The Indian Act of 1879 focused on punishing individuals who kept houses of prostitution. However, these sections were repealed and replaced in 1880 and again in 1884. The 1884 Act extended the provisions of the earlier legislation from “keepers of houses of prostitution” to include any Indian woman or man keeping, frequenting, or found in a “disorderly house or wigwam.” The law was changed again in 1887, so that keepers and inmates of houses of prostitution would be equally liable to a fine of one hundred dollars or six month’s imprisonment. 33 Interestingly, these new provisions were aimed at eliminating intra-racial prostitution

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only. The Indian Act criminalized Native women for practicing prostitution and punished aboriginal men for pimping and purchasing the services of prostitutes; however, there was no mention of nor attempt to punish white men. Despite the new amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada and to the Indian Act, there is little evidence that Indian agents and law enforcement officials secured convictions, or desired to do so, under this legislation.34 The provincial superintendent of Indian Affairs explained that the reluctance to use the law could be due to difficulties in enforcement. In spite of the fact that “the machinery of the law is in almost perfect working order,” he explained, it was difficult to implement, especially in “a wild country sparsely settled and poorly policed.”35 In addition to problems with administration, it seems that the Department of Indian Affairs had little interest in convicting women or men for prostitution-related offences. Upon request by one authority to implement the laws relating to prostitution in British Columbia, the Department of Indian Affairs responded that “as far as criminal offences are concerned the Department does not recognize the responsibility for the enforcement of the law,” except in the case of liquor. The department clarified that the liquor provisions were stringently enforced “largely because a revenue exists, and there has been a feeling that where a revenue is derived the work should be done and expenses borne by the Department which benefits from the revenue.”36 Albeit these laws were seldom enforced to full capacity, Native women did not go unpunished. Rather, many aboriginal women who were arrested for prostitution-related offenses were banished from cities and towns and were forced to return to their reserves or face other forms of punishment.37 Informal regulatory practices were also a common strategy for dealing with prostitution in British Columbia. Although no pass system was legally established in the province, it seems that Indian agents endeavored to regulate prostitution by restricting the mobility of the Native woman as prostitute and by limiting the spaces through which she could travel. Just as women arrested for prostitution-related offences were sent back to reserves, many aboriginal women suspected of prostitution were unofficially prohibited from leaving altogether. Government officials attempted to control prostitution, or rather, contain it within certain spaces, by preventing Native women from frequenting cities and towns. These nonlegal techniques of surveillance ensured that prostitution could flourish in nonurban spaces where Indian agents and missionaries could more easily regulate it. Governing the movements of the Native woman as prostitute secured the reserve as “red light district” while simultaneously preserving the respectability of white urban cities and towns (Razack 1998).

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Interestingly, the regulation of space was a gendered and racialized process, since restricting the mobility of white and Native men was never an issue in British Columbia.38 While the possibility of restricting white men never emerged, authorities did debate spatial constraints for aboriginal men. However, Indian agents and missionaries deemed it would be problematic, as they agreed that mobility for indigenous men was essential to employment, including hunting, fishing, and hop picking in fields across the border.39 In March of 1889, a number of Indian women and men were waiting for the Sardouxy, a steamer traveling from Alert Bay, off the coast of northern British Columbia to Victoria, the capital of the province. Pidcock, the Indian agent in Alert Bay, prohibited six aboriginal women from going south on the steamer; two he reported were refused “at the request of their relations.” These six women were restricted from leaving their reserve as it was believed that they had the “avowed purpose of prostituting themselves in Victoria and other places.”40 Pidcock justified his actions by stating that he “had previously been requested by numbers of the young men to prevent if possible their wives and sisters from going to Victoria, who they know seldom return except in a diseased and dying condition.”41 However, Captain Irving of the Sardouxy was outraged by the actions of the Indian agent, and sent a letter of complaint to the Indian commissioner in Victoria. In his letter, Irving wrote angrily that “the Indian Agent assisted by the Provincial Government Policeman refused to allow the Indians to take their wives with them, and on that account they would not come themselves.” Irving described the agent’s actions as “illegal and uncalled for,” emphasizing that Pidcock’s interference resulted in a “direct loss to the company.”42 The actions of Agent Pidcock in Alert Bay heated up an enormous controversy that was already brewing among the federal and provincial governments, Indian agents, missionaries, and other local authorities about how best to manage prostitution and the Native woman as prostitute. Over the span of several years, authorities from various agencies wrote letters back and forth debating the implementation of new laws, the vigilant enforcement of existing legislation, and use of informal and ad hoc regulatory techniques. Interestingly, government and religious officials always discussed the regulation of prostitution in spatial terms. Spatial segregation was deemed by authorities to be crucial to the management of prostitution, and the strategies advocated by government officials were aimed primarily at containing the movement of the Native woman as prostitute. Indian Agents and missionaries discussed in great detail the need for legislation to limit the physical spaces in which Native women

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could travel. After careful consideration, however, most agreed that laws directed at curtailing the mobility of aboriginal women would cause more harm than good. Authorities feared that attempts to legally prevent Native women from leaving their reserves would be unenforceable, and moreover, could potentially result in “much disquietude to all the Indians in the Province, who would make it a general grievance were their women deprived of freedom.”43 Others argued that the implementation of such laws would result in even greater immorality within Native communities. As Agent Todd explained, although “some of the men of different bands would at first gladly second any attempt to curtail the freedom of their women, their desire to steal each others wives would very soon cause them to join in smuggling women away from the control of an Indian Agent as well as from their husbands or parents.”44 He and others concluded that laws of this nature would simply contribute to the sale of young women and girls. Irrespective of these concerns, there were many dissenters who did request legislation. However, the Department of Justice responded to these requests rather curtly, stating that “there is not at present sufficient material on hand to permit the drawing up of a Bill fully dealing with the question” of prostitution. Instead, the Minister of Justice encouraged local authorities to use the Vagrant Act against “Indian women frequenting houses of ill-fame.”45 The Department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa tried to “pass the buck” by urging the British Columbia government to introduce a bill in the legislature to legally sanction a pass system. Officials from Ottawa suggested that under such bill, steamships should “be requested to give passage to no Indian women unless they have permits from the Indian Agent to leave by the Steamer for other parts.”46 Although no such law was passed in British Columbia, Superintendent Vowell requested Agent Pidcock in Alert Bay to inform the owners and operators of steamships as to the immoral practices of Native women and to request them to “refuse passage on the steamer or other boats, to certain points of destination.”47 Much to his dismay, Vowell received a letter from Captain Warren, the owner of a British Columbia steamship, who made no firm commitment to follow these requests. Rather, Warren informed Vowell that his steamer would comply only “so far as is consistent with our carrying trade” and would follow the example of “other steamers on the Northern route.”48 Provincial authorities also encouraged local Indian agents and Native communities to use their own discretion in these matters. Agent Pidcock observed that aboriginal men who complained about the immorality of their women “have it entirely in their power to prevent their wives and daughters from going to Victoria for immoral purposes.”49 He and other agents stated that they would happily

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assist indigenous communities by preventing Native women from leaving their reserves, as Pidcock himself had done in the Sardouxy incident at Alert Bay. Some authorities went a step further, suggesting that a local volunteer be appointed to assist Indian agents in their efforts. For instance, Indian Agent Loring urged that a “trustworthy Indian” should be assigned to each village or district to aid Indian agents and Native communities in monitoring the movements of aboriginal women.50 The Native woman as prostitute was the target of both legislative and nonlegal endeavors to manage prostitution. However, she was also punished by more coercive techniques decided upon and implemented by local authorities on a discretionary basis. There is some evidence to suggest that local authorities often resorted to overt and violent methods, including corporal punishment, in their pursuit to manage the practice of prostitution and to punish the Native woman as prostitute. On May 7, 1892, a case came before the Caribou County Court in which “a missionary and five Indians” were charged with assaulting a Native girl. “Lucille,” an Indian girl of about seventeen years, was accused by the chief and Indians in her village of being “out behind one of the Indian houses at the Fountain with an Indian boy who was endeavoring to induce her to do ‘dirty things.’”51 The residing missionary was called, and he instructed that she and the boy both be given fifteen lashes. While there is no mention of what happened to her male counterpart, “Lucille” was ordered on advice from the missionary, to “take off her clothes and lie down on the floor.” She was severely whipped and beaten for two days. While the missionary and Native men were convicted on assault charges, the defense reported that “[w]hipping for the offence of which “Lucille” was accused had been customary [on that reserve] for many years.”52 The Alert Bay episode and the flogging of “Lucille” reveal that government officials also utilized informal regulatory practices to manage prostitution and the Native woman as prostitute. Like the various prostitution-related provisions in both the Indian Act and the Canadian Criminal Code, these nonlegal strategies also reflect an ambivalence about the “social evil.” Although government officials condemned prostitution, their legal and nonlegal activities suggest that they were concerned with managing the spaces in which these sexual practices occurred and had very little interest in eliminating prostitution altogether. The legal ambivalence about prostitution, observes Sherene Razack, can be explained through spatial relations. She notes that from the turn of the twentieth century onward, prostitution had been the spatial marker of depravity. Razack argues that prostitution has marked certain spaces as degenerate, while simultaneously signifying contrasting

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spaces as white and respectable (1998, 367–368). Preventing Native women from frequenting cities and towns ensured that prostitution could flourish in “immoral” spaces. Regulating the movements of Native women secured the reserve as a space of degeneracy where white men could continue their sexual transgressions without compromising their own positions of superiority (357). Thus, in northern British Columbia, efforts to contain prostitution to reserves and nonurban spaces secured both the respectability of white urban cities and the privileged identities of white men.

Conclusion I have chronicled the ways in which government and religious officials constituted and spatially regulated the Native woman as prostitute in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British Columbia. Discussions of prostitution emerged at a moment when the state’s interests changed from exploiting land and resources to permanently acquiring them. As administrators began aggressively encouraging white settlement in the province, they also became preoccupied with the illusive aspirations of asserting whiteness and ensuring racial purity. While concubinage undermined these goals, prostitution enabled government officials to spatially reinforce and secure white supremacy in complex ways. Scholars theorizing about whiteness have documented that the fragility and invisibility of white hegemony demands its constant (re)production. “In order to produce whiteness as a stable, natural, given identity,” Abbey Ferber explains, “the boundaries of whiteness must be specified and secured” (1998, 23). Government and religious officials expressed extreme vigilance in regulating heterosexual arrangements between Native women and white men at a time when the parameters of whiteness were still ambiguous and yet crucial. A large Native and racially mixed population in British Columbia greatly outnumbered white settlers. While the gender and racial demography of the province combined with widespread interracial heterosexual relations, an influx of “foreigners” undoubtedly challenged state and religious endeavors to build a “British British Columbia” (Anderson 1996, 208). Although official opposition to interracial heterosexuality intensified during this historical period, Indian agents and missionaries did not aim to prevent mixed-race transgressions altogether. Rather, their anxieties were fixed on specific manifestations of interracial sex. While the concubine had been socially and politically acceptable in earlier historical periods, by the late nineteenth century, she and her mixed-race progeny threatened the porous boundaries between colonizer and colonized. Unlike concubinage, which officials believed blurred important

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racial distinctions, the Native woman as prostitute secured racial and spatial divisions in important ways. By defining all Native women as prostitutes, authorities ensured that white men could continue to access the bodies of indigenous women while ensuring that these women and their children could never make “legitimate” claims to Euro-Canadian property, identity, and privilege (Carter 1996, 43). The practice of prostitution and the Native woman as prostitute enabled Indian agents, missionaries, and local authorities to maintain the racialized hierarchies which underpinned their ambitions and strategies to build a white settler province. Although government officials did not openly condone prostitution, and in fact many vigorously condemned it on moral grounds, the legal and nonlegal strategies aimed at the “social evil” did little to eradicate it. Rather, these initiatives ensured that prostitution would flourish within certain socially constituted spaces. By spatially segregating Native women, officials hoped that prostitution would be contained to the “immoral” spaces of reserves and nonurban areas. While restricting the movement of the Native woman as prostitute did not eliminate the practice of prostitution, it ensured that these sexual transgressions involving aboriginal women and white men would remain far away from “respectable” white towns and cities— spaces which government officials and religious groups were attempting to construct as the basis for a white settler society. Since the boundaries between white settlers and Native communities were not easily maintained, government officials in British Columbia relied on prostitution to defend these permeable borders and to champion a British identity and a white presence in Canada’s most westerly province.

Notes 1. British Columbia Archives and Records Service (hereafter BCARS), Attorney General, GR 0429, Box 13, File 1, J. Fulton to Attorney General, January 22, 1906. 2. BCARS, Attorney General, GR-0429, Box 13, File 1, C. J. South to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, September 20, 1905. 3. There is a small collection of newspapers. See National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), RG 10, Reel 10193c, Volume 3816, File 57,045. 4. NAC, RG 10, Reel 10193c, Volume 3816, File 57,045–1, De Beck to Vowell, December 20, 1905. My emphasis. 5. There is a series of letters on this topic in NAC, RG 10, Reel c10115, Volume 3658, File 9404. 6. BCARS, Attorney General, GR-0429, Box 13, File 1, Superintendent C. J. South to the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, September 20, 1905, p. 7.

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7. BCARS, Attorney General, GR 0429, Box 3, File 3, Methodist Missionaries to Attorney General of Victoria, January 21, 1895. 8. There is a series of letters about the property rights of concubines and illegitimate children in British Columbia. See NAC, RG 10, Reel c10104, Volume 3599, File 1520. 9. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10148, Volume 3842, File 72,217, report in Toronto Empire, no date. 10. BCARS, Attorney General, GR-0429, Box 13, File 2, memo from the Honorary Attorney General, February 19, 1906. 11. NAC, RG 10, Reel c10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045, L. Edith Staik to the Minister of the Indian Department and the Department of Justice, May 12, 1910. 12. BCARS, Attorney General, GR 0429, Box 13, File 3, H. R. McLean to Attorney General, July 4, 1906. 13. BCARS, Attorney General Correspondence, GR 0429, Box 1, File 4, Moffat to Attorney General, May 14, 1886. 14. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, Meason to Vowell, August 4, 1890. 15. Ibid. 16. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, Hall to Superintendent of Indian Affairs, October 5, 1889. 17. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, De Beck to Secretary, Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, October 22, 1905. 18. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, Hall to Superintendent of Indian Affairs, October 5, 1889. 19. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, Loring to Vowell, August 12, 1890. 20. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, Children’s Aid Society of Vancouver, British Columbia. 21. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 54,045-I, Alfred Hall to Superintendent of Indian Affairs, October 5, 1889. 22. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 54,045-I, Mackay to Vowell, July 4, 1890. 23. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 54,045-I, E. S. Liginiltlls to C. M. Tate, February 7, 1912. 24. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-1, Sarah Seawhit and the Children’s Aid Society of Vancouver. 25. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Pidcock to Moffat, April 3, 1889. 26. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, petition sent to Pidcock, March 8, 1895. 27. Ibid. 28. BCARS, Attorney General, GR 0429, Box 13 File 1, Henry F. M. Jones to Colin S. Campbell, Chief Constable, December 29, 1905.

66 Renisa Mawani 29. NAC, RG 10, Reel c11245, Volume 2591, File 119,529, Beattie to Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, September 10, 1891. 30. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-11245, Volume 2591, File 119,529, Superintendent of Indian Affairs to Indian Agent John Beattie, September 17, 1891. 31. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, J. W. Mackay to A. W. Vowell, July 4, 1890. 32. Ibid. 33. For a clear discussion of these developments see The Historical Development of the Indian Act, 2nd ed., (Treaties and Historical Research Centre, P. R. E. Group, Indian and Northern Affairs, August, 1978), especially chapter five. 34. To date, I have found no cases of aboriginal convictions under the prostitution-related provisions. However, there is evidence that white women were convicted for prostitution-related offenses. This suggests perhaps that Native women were dealt with informally. 35. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Vowell to the Secretary, Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, September 27, 1905. 36. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, memorandum for the Superintendent General of British Columbia, October 10, 1905. 37. My research at the Vancouver City Archives has revealed a number of cases in which Native women were sent out of the city as their punishment for prostitution. 38. Several Indian agents wrote letters to Victoria emphasizing that Native men had never been prevented from traveling off reserves via steamers. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 54,045-I. 39. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 54-045-I, Guilford to Vowell, August 22, 1890. 40. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Pidcock to Moffat, Victoria, April 13, 1889. 41. Ibid. 42. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, J. Irving to Honorary Indian Commissioner, March 29, 1889. 43. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Vankoughnet to British Columbia Indian Office, February 25, 1891. 44. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Todd to Vowell, October 8, 1890. 45. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57-045-I, Thomspson to His Excellency the Governor General in Council, March 18, 1890. 46. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Department of Indian Affairs, Ottawa, to E. Dewdney, February 5, 1890. 47. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Vowell to Pidcock, February 21, 1890.

“The Iniquitous Practice of Women” 48. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57,045-I, Warren Vowell, March 21, 1890. 49. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57-045-I, Pidcock Vowell, April 24, 1895. 50. NAC, RG 10, Reel c-10193, Volume 3816, File 57-045-I, Loring Vowell, August 12, 1890. 51. BCARS, Attorney General, GR-0429, Box 2, File 5, F. B. Gregory Attorney General, May 7, 1892. 52. Ibid.

67 to to to to

References Anderson, K. 1991. Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial discourse in Canada, 1875–1980. Montreal and Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ———. 1996. Engendering race research. In Body space, ed. N. Duncan, 197–211. New York and London: Routledge. Backhouse, C. 1985. Nineteenth-century prostitution law: Reflection of a discriminatory society. Social History 18: 422–50. Ballhatchet, K. 1980. Race, sex, and class under the Raj: Imperial attitudes and policies and their critics. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Barman, J. 1996. The west beyond the west: A history of British Columbia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ———. 1997/98. Taming aboriginal sexuality: Gender, power, and race in British Columbia. British Colombia Studies 115/116: 237-66. Brown, J. S. H. 1986. Strangers in blood: Fur trade company families in Indian country. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Burton, A. 1994. Burdens of history: British feminists, Indian women, and imperial culture 1865–1915. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Carter, S. 1996. Categories and terrains of exclusion: Constructing the ‘Indian woman’ in the early settlement era in Western Canada. In Gender and history in Canada, ed. J. Parr and M. Rosenfeld, 30–49. Clayton, D. 1992. Geographies of the lower Skeena. British Columbia Studies 94: 29–58. Ferber, A. 1998. White man falling: Race, gender, and white supremacy. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Fiske, J. 1997/98. From customary laws to oral traditions: Discursive formation of legal pluralism in northern British Columbia, 1857–1993. British Columbia Studies 115/16: 267–88. Foster, H. 1984. Law enforcement in nineteenth-century British Columbia: A brief and comparative overview. British Columbia Studies 63: 22–40. Gilman, S. 1985. Difference and pathology: Stereotypes of sexuality, race, and madness. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

68 Renisa Mawani Goldberg, D. T. 1993. Racist culture: Philosophy and the politics of meaning. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell. Grewal, I. 1996. Home and harem: Nation, gender, empire and the cultures of travel. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Loo, T. 1992. Dan Cranmer’s potlatch: Law as coercion, symbol, and rhetoric in British Columbia, 1884–1951. Canadian Historical Review 73: 125–65. McClintock, A. 1995. Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge. McDonald, R. A. J. 1996. Making Vancouver 1863–1913. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. McLaren, J. 1986. Chasing the social evil: The evolution of Canada’s prostitution laws. Canadian Journal of Law and Society 1: 125–65. Perry, A. 1995. ‘Oh I’m just sick of the faces of men’: Gender imbalance, race, sexuality, and sociability in nineteenth-century British Columbia. British Columbia Studies 105/06: 27–43. ———. 1997. ‘Fair ones of a purer caste’: White women and colonialism in late nineteenth-century British Columbia. Feminist Studies 23: 501–24. Razack, S. 1998. Race, space and prostitution: The making of a bourgeoisie subject. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 10: 338–76. Sinha, M. 1995. Colonial masculinity: The ‘manly Englishman’ and the ‘effeminate Bengali.’ Manchester: Manchester University Press. Stoler, A. L. 1992. Sexual affronts and racial frontiers: European identities and the cultural politics of exclusion in colonial Southeast Asia. Comparative Studies in Society and History 34(2): 514–551. ———. 1997. Making empire respectable: The politics of race and sexual morality in twentieth-century colonial cultures. In Dangerous liaisons: Gender, nation, and postcolonial perspectives, ed. A. McClintock, A. Mufti, and E. Shohat, 344–73. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Valverde, M. 1991. The age of light, soap, and water: Moral reform in English Canada, 1885–1925. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Van Kirk, S. 1980. Many tender ties: Women in fur trade society in Western Canada, 1670– 1870. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ———. 1991. The impact of white women on fur trade society. In Sweet promises: A reader on Indian-White relations in Canada, ed. J. R. Miller, 175–183. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ———. 1996. ‘Women in between’: Indian women in fur trade society in Western Canada. In Out of the background: Readings on Canadian native history, ed. K. S. Coates and R. Fisher, 102–17. Toronto: Copp Clark. Walker, J. W. 1997. ‘Race,’ rights and the law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical case studies. Ontario: The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and Wilfrid Laurier Press.

3 A White World? Whiteness and the Meaning of Modernity in Latin America and Japan Alastair Bonnett

Introduction [W]e have always been looking at Western countries as progressive ones. These were places that Japan had to catch up with. From this there developed sort of a complex—“it’s a white world.” —M. Creighton, “Soto Others and Uchi Others: Imaging Racial Diversity, Imaging Homogenous Japan”

The notion that “it’s a white world” appears both obvious and faintly ridiculous. The idea that those social, economic and cultural forms that dominate the planet may be characterized as white, whether in terms of their origin, their values, or which group benefits from them, is a ubiquitous one. Yet it is frequently swiftly followed by certain caveats—“for the time being at least;” “or so they like to think”—qualifiers that simultaneously undermine and highlight the pomposity of the initial claim. The demands and delusions of whiteness are keenly observed by many people around the world, its conceits identified, scrutinized, and often resented. The notion that Western economic and social influence has expanded across the earth is a leitmotif of nearly all studies of post-fifteenth century global change. Indeed, the intrusion, as well as the assimilation, of Western-identified ideologies and practices might be said to form the core problematic of modern history. Although many aspects of this process have been extensively debated, the way these ideologies and practices were and are racialized remains relatively undiscussed. European social and economic paradigms were connoted through the symbols of race, symbols that gave capitalist incursion and modernity a European, and hence white, identity. It follows that 69

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the history of this era may benefit from the consideration of the relationship between whiteness and modernity, more specifically, that any understanding of the interpretation, or translation, of “Western modernity” into different cultures around the world demands an understanding of these cultures’ adoption and adaptation of notions of racial whiteness. Thus this chapter introduces what may be termed the “whiteness of modernity” in the nonwhite world. The scale of this topic demands that I be selective with my sources and clear as to the limits of my conclusions. I shall be highlighting just a few instances of the reception of and engagement with whiteness, instances that are framed by particular national narratives. More specifically, my sources will be drawn from what tend to be regarded in contemporary Europe and North America as nonwhite societies, namely Latin America (more specifically Brazil and Venezuela) and Japan. These examples should not be read as generalizable to other non-Western countries. Although broader themes on the place of whiteness in contemporary capitalism do emerge in this discussion, to be either accurate or instructive, the histories that will be discussed here need to be accorded their geographical particularity. The following account is divided into two parts. In the first section I address Latin America, focusing on the history of whitening in Brazil and Venezuela before turning to a very particular contemporary phenomenon, namely the appeal of the blond white Brazilian media megastar Xuxa. In the second section I introduce material from East Asia addressing history of the adoption but also the assimilation—what might be called the strategic reading and appropriation—of whiteness in Japan.

The White Modern in Latin America Anybody who watches Brazilian television for half a day sees that it is dominated by whites and by white images of power, success, intelligence and beauty. —A. Simpson, Xuxa: The Mega-marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity

The power and prestige of the European colonizing powers in Latin America was interpreted through and justified by categories of identity. Amongst the most important of these identities were the associated terms Christian, civilized, and white. These themes were deployed from

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the late sixteenth century to depict and legitimize Portuguese and Spanish conquest throughout the Americas. More specifically, they were employed to organize the economic and social structure of colonial societies. The most inflexible of these identities, the one that was least available to be assimilated either by native people or by imported African slaves, was whiteness. Not unrelatedly, the possession of whiteness became the key symbol of access to economic and social status. Writing in the early nineteenth century the German explorer Alexander von Humbolt (1941) drew attention to the specifically colonial context of claims to white identity. “In Spain it is a kind of nobility not to descend from Jews or Moors. In America, the skin, more or less white, is what dictates the class that an individual occupies in society. A white, even if he rides barefoot on horseback, considers himself a member of the nobility of the country” (cited in Mörner 1967, 55–56). The further away from whiteness one was understood to be, the more difficult it was to obtain either wealth or respect. Indeed, a complex system of racial classification arose in most countries in the Americas that illustrated both “the almost pathological interest in genealogy that is characteristic of the age” (Mörner 1967, 59) and the role of whiteness as the core of racial hierarchy. Thus, for example, Steven’s account, from 1825, lists twenty three “mixture[s] of the different castes, under their common or distinguishing names,” and their associated color. Steven’s list includes Mestiso (white father and Indian mother; color described as “6/8 White, 2/8 Indian—Fair”); Mulatto (white father and “Negro” mother; described as “7/8 White, 1/8 Negro—often Fair”); Zambo (“Negro” father and white mother; “4/8 White, 4/8 Negro—dark copper”); and Quarteron (white father and “mulatto” mother; “6/8 White, 2/8 Negro—Fair”) (Pratt 1992, 152). By the late nineteenth century the category white was becoming firmly enmeshed in the capitalist transformation of Latin America. It was also increasingly being viewed through the optic of European Social Darwinism. Two interconnected assumptions arose from these new ideologies: the position of white as the top slot in any objective classification of the natural units of society and the association of white people with the virility and dynamism of bourgeois economic development. As we shall see in the ideologies of national “whitening” discussed below, some of the clearest signs of the role played by white identity in the process of capitalist and national modernization may be found in the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. However, the independence movements of the early and mid-nineteenth century also evidence the deployment of “Europeanness” as part and parcel of a recognizably modern(izing) project. The cultural and racial ambitions of the Creole (that is, European heritage) elites who dominated the independence

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movements have been summarized by Mary Louise Pratt in the following terms: “[T]he liberal Creole project involved founding an independent, decolonized American society and culture, while retaining European values and white supremacy” (1992, 175). The potential tensions evident within such a project were cohered and concealed within the concept of the “modern nation.” In other words, they were conflated within a discourse of national independence that offered the prospect of creating new and dynamic European civilizations unshackled by ties to the outmoded and oppressive institutions of old Europe. As in Europe itself, fantasies of capitalist modernity in Latin America were engaged and disrupted by romantic and pastoralist representations of national identity. Indeed, a contrast between capitalist, industrial Europe and noncapitalist, rural visions of Latin America was deployed as a way of defining the distinctiveness of American society by early advocates of independence (for example, the Venezuelan poet and statesman Andrès Bello). As this implies, to be non or antiEuropean and, hence non or antimodern, has also sometimes played a part in the construction of national identities in Latin America. However, Pratt draws our attention to the way such symbolic opposition to Europe was always also a form of Europeanization in the service of Creole power. She suggests it represented the new elite’s adoption of distinctly European categories and conceits of resistance to capitalist alienation. The naturalist perspective associated with Humbolt was, Pratt notes, particularly significant in providing Creole elites with a way of depicting Latin America as an empty canvas, a vast and untrodden landscape awaiting their control and civilizing influence: “Humbolt’s aesthetic mode of treating subjects of natural history reenacted an América in a primal state from which it would now rise into the glory of Eurocivilization. In the myth that followed from his writings (and for which Humbolt must not be held solely responsible) América was imagined as unoccupied and unclaimed terrain; colonial relations were offstage; the European traveller’s own presence remained unquestioned” (1992, 181). Pratt’s reading of colonial relations is suggestive of two things about the development of white identities in Latin America. Firstly, we cannot think about this process as simply reflecting the imposition of Western values on non-Western societies: whiteness was actively interpreted and translated. Secondly, the limits to non-Western adaptations were set by the power relations within the newly independent countries of Latin America as well as between Latin America and Europe (and North America). Western values may have been actively interpreted but it was the West that had the power to supply the privileged discourses of identity and Western-identified people (namely, the Creole elite) who did most of the work of “translation.”

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“Money whitens.” If any single phrase encapsulates the association of whiteness and the modern in Latin America, this is it. It is a cliché formulated and reformulated throughout the region, a truism dependent upon the social experience that wealth is associated with whiteness, and that in obtaining the former one may become aligned to the latter (and vice versa). The social or economic nature of racial categorization in much of Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking America has often been contrasted with the more exclusionary, biologically determinist notion of whiteness supposedly characteristic of the United States. However, differences between the methodologies of racialization in the North and South of the continent should not blind us to fact that whiteness has been sustained from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego as a key to, and symbol of, social and economic ascendancy. The boundaries of racial status may be more permeable in Latin America but, as numerous historical and contemporary studies of racial attitudes and racial politics south of the Rio Grande have shown (see, for example, Skidmore 1974; Wright 1990; Twine 1998), whiteness remains the most important element in the organization of racial identity. The white ideal is apparent at various levels of society in Latin America. Its power is felt within macro and micro socioeconomic organization as well as within the sphere of everyday cultural interaction. A typical contemporary case study of this power within the social and economic realm may be found in Hugo Nutini’s fieldwork in Mexico. “Upward mobility has been fluid” in Mexico, Nutini notes, but always underlined by racial whiteness as an advantage in the social categorization of phenotypes: that is, the overwhelming majority of the lower classes are phenotypically Indian, while the great majority of the upper classes are phenotypically European. Not even the 1910 Revolution was able to address this fundamental fact of Mexican society, as the social, ruling, and political classes of the country are still primarily constituted by European and light Mestizo phenotypes. . . . [E]ven though Mexicans are overwhelmingly Indian, it is essentially a European country culturally. For example, ideals of physical appearance and standards of beauty are essentially European. . . . This is easily confirmed by the predominance of European phenotypes that dominate television and all forms of graphic advertising. (1997, 231)

A reflection of the way white “ideals of physical appearance and standards of beauty” have come to be integrated into the etiquette of everyday life is offered by Roger Lancaster in his study of attitudes towards skin color in Nicaragua. Noting the use of the polite terms chele for white European heritage people (chele is a Mayan word meaning “blue,” denoting the eyes of Europeans) and moreno for “black or

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very brown skin,” Lancaster reports the following exchange with one of his respondents. Whiteness in Nicaragua, he notes firstly, “is a desired quality, and polite discourse inflates its descriptions of people . . . . Well then, I wondered, how should I respond to Virgil’s mother, when she greets me a Chele? Should I say, ‘Buenas tardas, morenita’? ‘No, not at all,’ I was informed. A proper and polite greeting would be: ‘Chele, por cariòo’ (or, roughly, ‘you, too, are white, in my affection’). When I tried this formula out the following day, the results were exactly as [my respondents] had prescribed. Doòa Jazmina appeared flattered, and remarked on my mastery of polite conversation” (1991, 344). France Winddance Twine’s interviews with inhabitants of the Brazilian town of Vasalia provide further illustrations of the way whiteness affects interpersonal conduct. The problems and opportunities of marrying someone with darker or lighter skin than oneself are raised time again by her respondents. For example, Tùnica, an Afro-Brazilian women who has just married a Euro-Brazilian man, explained to Twine, “I was really thinking of the children. I used to think, ‘OK, let me marry a person lighter than myself because if I marry a dark person like myself, [the children] are all going to be dark—the little children.’ But I was still thinking of the children right?. . . . [I]f I found a lighter man . . . then I will marry a lighter man because then my children will come out prettier” (1998, 93). Here again we see that the permeability of racial categories in Latin America and the ubiquity of interracial relationships should not be confused with the subversion of white supremacy. A similar point needs to made about the praxis and ideology of mestizaje (racial mixture). An affirmation of the necessity and desirability of racial mixing may be found in the social practice, as well as within the official narratives of national identity, of many South and Central American societies. For some this orientation may be taken to provide evidence that (a) Latin American is a more tolerant and antiracist place than North America, and that (b) white identity in Latin America lacks a strong normative function. The former interpretation is simplistic but, overall, plausible. However, the latter contention is wrong. Again, it needs to be pointed out that a white norm dominates the relatively fluid system of racialization in Latin America just as powerfully as it does in the rest of the continent. This point will be exemplified in the discussion of immigration policy and popular cultural practice provided later. However, a useful introduction to the issue may be made through one of the principal elaborators of mestizaje as an official national ideology, José Vasconcelos. Vasconcelos was the Mexican minister for education between 1921 and 1924. He is best remembered today as the man who commissioned

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the wall murals that adorn some of Mexico City’s public buildings, murals that integrate revolutionary class politics with new national myths organized around native images and legends. However, Vasconcelos was also the author of a number of studies on racial hybridity. In direct opposition to European notions of race purism and the “excessive esteem for European and Anglo-Saxon culture” that characterized the prerevolutionary regime of Porfirio Dìaz (Beltrán cited in Knight 1990, 80). Vasconcelos drew on established traditions of race mixing in Latin America to propose that hybridization was the only way forward for humankind. Thus Vasconcelos identified European racism not simply as an imperialist ideology but one that was subversive of the attempt to develop a new and better form of civilization in Latin America: “The British preach natural selection, with the tacit conclusion that world domination belongs, by natural and divine law, to the dolichocephalous man from the Isles and his descendants. But this science, which invaded us with the artifacts of conquering commerce, is fought as all imperialism is fought: by confronting it with a superior science, and with a broader and more vigorous civilization” (1997, 33–34). Vasconcelos’s critique of European racial hierarchies was highly influential when first published in La raza cûsmica (“The Cosmic Race”) in 1925. His advocacy of the dynamic and virile qualities of the “cosmic race” offered revolutionary Mexico a new national myth of identity, one that, at face value, appeared to promise that modernization and development could proceed apace without the blessing or intervention of Europeans (see Knight 1990). However, mestizaje has rarely been able to extricate itself from white supremacy, and Vasconcelos’s version was, in this respect at least, no different from many others. For although Vasconcelos often appears convinced that when the various racial elements were blended together, whiteness, blackness, and so on would disappear, and racial utopia would be achieved, he also considered that some racial elements were more desirable than others. Thus he argued that the input of “inferior races” into the mixing process should be both limited and controlled. Indeed, there exists a telling slippage in Vasconcelos’s work between the notions of “mixture” and “absorption.” As the passage below reveals, the latter process does not promise the destruction but rather the final victory of white racism: “The lower types of the species will be absorbed by the superior type. In this manner, for example, the Black would be redeemed, and step by step, by voluntary extinction, the uglier stocks will give way to the more handsome. Inferior races, upon being educated, would become less prolific, and the better specimens would go on ascending a scale of ethnic improvement, whose

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maximum type in not precisely the White, but that new race to which the White himself will have to aspire with the object of conquering the synthesis” (1925, 32). Vasconcelos’s position provides a stark example of the way the celebration of mestizaje, or race mixing, can both challenge and reaffirm racist categories. Echoes of this aspect of his work may be found in many examples of the nation-building process in Latin America. Within Columbia, for example, mestizaje has simultaneously been associated with racial equality and with Eurocentric discrimination. As explained by de Friedemann and Arocha in their survey of Columbia’s racial history, “The essence of Columbia’s 1886 constitution was an ‘either/or’ proposition in which ‘people’ equaled mestizos, and ‘not people’ equaled indigenous people. The constitution glorified as the goal of progress the conversion of Colombians into a single ‘race,’ speaking one language and believing in a single God. . . . In 1922 the ideology of whitening (blanqueamiento) as a necessary condition of national progress was used to. . . . [legally forbid] the immigration of people who would be ‘inconvenient’ for the nation and the development of the Colombian ‘race’” (1995, 65). The policy and ideology of “whitening” provide some of the clearest testimonies to the association between whiteness, development, and modernity. Immigration policies oriented towards enabling white immigration and discouraging nonwhite immigration were once commonplace across North, Central, and South America. I shall not attempt to survey the many particular histories pertinent to this history. Instead I offer two specific cases, each from a putative “racial democracy,” namely Venezuela and Brazil.

Whitening in Venezuela and Brazil Both Venezuela and Brazil are sometimes offered as exemplars of nonracist societies. In contrast to the United States, both countries can, indeed, sometimes appear very much like the racial democracies their leaders have at various times proclaimed them to be. It is true that in both nations elite groups tend to be light skinned and the poor dark skinned. It is also true that almost every indicator of social and economic status shows that, on average, whites do better than other groups in both countries. However, it is equally the case that to an extent greater than in some other countries in North and South America, there remains considerable mobility between racial-economic stratum, and the correlation between status, wealth, and race is more a rule of thumb, a roughly defined tendency, than an iron law. It should also be pointed out that explicit articulations of racial grievances are

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relatively rare in both countries. Indeed, to the evident chagrin of contemporary antiracist anthropologists from the United States, the kind of black consciousness politics evident in the latter country remains a marginal current (Twine 1998). The adage “money whitens” has considerable significance in both Venezuela and Brazil. Of course, the corollary of the notion that money whitens is that poverty darkens. More insidiously still is the closely related assertion that respect for whites is based not on racial sentiment but on an admiration of people who are successful, and that prejudice against nonwhites simply reflects a revulsion against poverty. In Café con Leche, Winthrop Wright has dissected the convoluted connections between economic and racial status evident within Venezuela. Looking back over the country’s history he notes, “Occasionally financial and political success socially whitened black Venezuelans. . . . For them and their white counterparts, clothes, education, language, social position, and the accumulation of wealth combined to make an individual whiter in the social context. In such a setting the term blanquear (to whiten or bleach) had tremendous social significance”. . . . “[T]he emphasis placed on whitening as a prerequisite for social and political mobility suggests the antithesis: black characterized backwardness, ignorance, poverty and failure” (1990, 6). This chain of association did not only affect the lives of European- and African-heritage Venezuelans. All groups were positioned relative to the ideal of whiteness, including native people and other immigrant groups. The link made between backwardness and dark skin color meant that the path towards modernity, towards national advancement, has often been understood in Venezuela as a route towards whiteness. At the beginning of the twentieth century the Venezuelan politician Cristûbal Mendoza explained, “This is the only sure and easy road we have towards civilization: to educate, to instruct, but not in the stagnant atmosphere in which we have vegetated during centuries, but rather in the powerful ambience of European civilization” (Wright, 1990, 77). It is a familiar plea. To be modern, to be forward looking, demands a break with a non-European past and an immersion into the new ways and attitudes of European civilization. The range and scale of the attempt to Europeanize Venezuela and Brazil were considerable. To be culturally sophisticated, to adopt modern economic roles and practices; to build cities, roads, farms, and factories and arrange bureaucracies in an efficient manner; all these keys to advancement were symbolized by things European. And the central and cohering symbol of things European was, of course, the flesh of the European. Thus the practices and ideologies of modernity were embodied in the figure of the European, in the person of the white who offers progress

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as a universally obtainable project, a distributable gift, but whose own body is its defining symbol. The conundrum of modernity’s symbolic reliance on something as apparently fixed and limited as white skin was acerbated in Latin America by the intellectual impact of Social Darwinism and eugenics. Although the notion that whites represented the most advanced race was current before the influence of these forms of sociobiology, they further codified and naturalized white supremacy in racial discourse. More specifically, Social Darwinism and eugenics were incorporated into emerging narratives of national identity. The conquest and/or assimilation of other races by whites was increasingly deemed not only justifiable but a reflection of a basic law of nature, an inevitable part of national growth. Thus the presence and history of people with significant native or African ancestry was increasingly deemed to belong to a “dark past,” a past against which the nation had to struggle, a past to be contrasted with the white (or, at least, whiter) future. As this implies, many political leaders in both Brazil and Venezuela in the first few decades of the twentieth century were acutely aware not merely of the undesirability of nonwhites in their population, but of a racial contrast between the past and future, between a premodern, primitive, and unsuccessful black and brown country and a successful European-heritage country waiting to be born. “We are two steps from the jungle because of our blacks and Indians,” explained the Venezuelan politician Blanco Fombona in 1912, “[a] great part of our country is mulatto, mestizo, and zambo, with all the defects which Spencer recognized in hybridism; we must transfer regenerating blood into their veins” (Wright 1990, 72). Before explaining how the desire to whiten Brazil and Venezuela translated into immigration policy, it may be useful to briefly touch on another aspect of this process, one that is often overlooked: the national geography of whiteness. As I have already hinted, the racialization of modernity was also a spatialization. European is, after all, an identity premised on the existence of a racial homeland, Europe. In both Venezuela and Brazil, geographical distance from the centers of the Europeanizing process (such as metropolitan areas), was used to map the presence or absence of backwardness, to chart which regions, which places, were part of the preceding era and which were part of the future. In both countries the forested interiors, often identified with native settlement, as well as those areas associated with African-heritage people, were and are typically understood as distant, exotic, awaiting development, or, indeed, protection. Such areas have long been conceptualized both as problems that need to be solved and as representing the unspoiled, excitingly savage spirit of the country. In

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either case—whether they are seen to offer pleasures for primitivists or headaches for developers—they are used to connote the past. In other words, whether considered appalling or alluring they are constructed as spatially and temporally remote, their survival an anachronism. The flip side of this association is the way urban areas have been connoted as points of concentration for the white ideal. Most of the main cities in Brazil and Venezuela have acted as both conduits for and sites of expression of the white ideal. Indeed, as with many other cities in the Americas, they have often been built, or rebuilt, in such a way as to evoke European order, rationality, and technological superiority. An example is the planning of Rio de Janeiro in the early twentieth century. The rebuilding of Rio was designed to Europeanize the city, to take it away from the past by cleaning it up, ridding it of diseases, and making it, in the words of one contemporaneous commentator, an attractive place for “foreign blood, foreign brawn and foreign capital” (Skidmore 1974, 131). As part of the city planners’ ambition to eradicate the “dirty, backward and fetid” past, many of the areas of AfroBrazilian settlement in the city were demolished, and their inhabitants forced to leave. Once these nonwhite elements had been expelled the Exposition of 1908 could be held, a celebration of Brazil’s technical and economic achievements and bright, modern future. As with other countries around the world, immigration policies in Venezuela and Brazil have been shaped by concerns about the existing population profile. For many years the principle concern was an explicitly racial one: there were not enough whites. As I have already indicated, racial questions were also economic and social questions. Politicians in both countries framed the issue of white immigration in terms of the need for modernization. Hence, to enable white immigration was to enable each country’s transition from peripheral backwater to economic center stage, from impoverished and unimportant place to rich and influential one. “[S]trong [that is, white] immigration,” the Venezuelan intellectual Gil Fortoul observed in 1895, will bring with it “an industrial and capitalist system that surely will produce considerable changes in distinct manifestations of the national life” (Wright 1990, 56). In both countries a policy of national whitening was pursued by both state and nonstate interventions in immigration control. Within Brazil one of the first indications of the former was a government decree, issued on June 28, 1890, permitting “free entry by persons healthy and able to work . . . except natives of Asia or Africa, who can be admitted only by authorization of the National Congress and in accordance with the stipulated condition”1 An example of a less formal, nonstate, attempt to achieve the same end may be found in the work of the Society for the Promotion of Immigration. Founded in

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1886, the Society consisted of a group of wealthy Brazilian landowners who had clubbed together to encourage white immigration. Their ostensible motive lay in the claim that the best agricultural workers were European. The Society encouraged Europeans to come to Brazil by paying their passage from Europe to Sao Paulo and arranging jobs for them when they arrived. Most of those who arrived under this scheme were Italian, but nationals from many other European countries also took advantage of the Society’s generosity. It is indicative of the close relationship and mutual interest between the landowning and political elite that the Brazilian state took over financial responsibility for this program until its abolition in 1928. Further state support for the whitening of Brazil was provided in the Constitution of 1934. Article 121 (section 6) states, “The entry of immigrants into the national territory will be subject to the restrictions necessary to guarantee the ethnic integration and the physical and legal capacity of the immigrants.” The carefully coded message of 1934 was offered in less cryptic form by the decree-law of 1945, which asserted that entry of immigrants should be based on the “the necessity to preserve and develop, in the ethnic composition of the population, the more desirable characteristics of its European ancestry.” A similar set of legal and civic initiatives may be found in Venezuela. In 1866, Jacinto Reyeno Pachano, Minister of Development, had rationalized the government’s stance in the following terms: “[I]f the appropriate immigration, that of the European of good physical and moral condition, the industrious and capable European is a moral and progressive element, bad immigration, that which lacks such virtues, far from producing positive good for us will become a germ of immorality and decadence” (cited by Wright 1990, 62). The attributes of the ideal immigrant, were summed up in the newspaper El Derecho in 1892: “If to the vigor of nature one joins the perfection, the superiority of intelligence and the active assiduity of the Caucasian race, which one finds for the most part in Europe, the judgment favours European immigration, a decision that becomes irrevocable since experience has confirmed that that race crossed with the hybrid that composes the general population of Venezuela, perfects ours, producing a sane, intelligent, beautiful and strong generation” (cited by Wright 1990, 65). To expedite the development of “a sane, beautiful, and strong generation” Venezuelan governments subsidized the passage of European migrants (as authorized in immigration laws in 1831, 1837, and 1840). The 1891 immigration law stated, “Individuals of Asiatic nationality or those from the English and Dutch Antilles [who were assumed to be of African heritage] will not be contracted or accepted as immigrants.”2

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The official ban on nonwhite immigration into Venezuela was enforced until 1945. However, the racist rhetoric of certain Venezuelan and Brazilian laws and lawmakers should not be used to obscure the complex and contradictory nature of racial attitudes in both countries. For, in marked contrast to the United States, there remained a good deal of hesitancy in both societies about explicitly categorizing all those who were not white as inferior. Indeed, some of the measures mentioned, such as the restrictive Brazilian decree of 1890, never made it into law (the 1890 decree was not included in the immigration law of 1907). A widespread unwillingness to appear anti-nonwhite, to appear to be calling for the extinction or extermination of nonwhites, was apparent throughout much of the debate. Discussing Brazilian government policies on national whitening Thomas Skidmore explains “[M]ost deputies like most members of the elite shied away from such overtly racist gestures as an absolute colour bar. They believed in a whiter Brazil and thought they were getting here by a natural (almost miraculous?) process. An overt colour bar smacked of the United States, which remained a constant reminder of what almost all Brazilians considered an inhumane (and eventually self-defeating) solution to the ethnic problem” (1974, 198; see also Skidmore 1985, 1990). As the example of Vasconcelos’s theory of “the cosmic race” suggests, the ideology of mestizaje, of race mixing, combines racism and antiracism. The contradictory, ambivalent qualities of mestizaje make it an alluring political discourse for those seeking to appear, simultaneously, as opponents of white domination and advocates of the benefits of national Europeanization or whitening. Versions of mestizaje were adopted by politicians in both Venezuela and Brazil to evade accusations of racism while sustaining a virulent white supremacy. Thus the practice of whitening through white immigration was portrayed, not as an attempt to sustain a discrete or pure white race, but as feeding in whiteness to a brown and black pool, as improving the racial stocks of both countries by further mixing them with European blood. Such was the strength of the belief in the superiority, the natural vigor, of Europeans that it was widely assumed that the union of white and nonwhite would naturally whiten the latter, that whiteness would inevitably gain ascendancy. Thus, racial intermixture was not considered a threat to white racial dominance, as it was in the United States, but as the key site of its survival and ascendancy. Venezuelan president Carlos Gûmez explained in 1906 that “The crossing of our sickly and old-looking race with vigorous and young races is indispensable” (Wright 1990, 77). A visitor to Brazil from the United States, Clayton Cooper, expressed the matter in more brutal terms in 1917: an

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“attempt is honestly being made here,” he explained, “to eliminate the blacks and browns by pouring in white blood” (Skidmore 1974, 74). At the First Universal Races Congress, held in London in 1911, the director of the Brazilian Museu Nacional, João Bastida de Lacerda, presented a paper entitled “The Métis, or Half-Breeds of Brazil.” Lacerda disputed the conventional wisdom of many European racial scientists that racial mixture led to degeneracy. “Contrary to the opinion of many writers,” he told his audience, . . . the crossing of the black with the white does not generally produce offspring of an inferior intellectual quality. [C]hildren of métis have been found, in the third generation, to present all physical characteristics of the white race. . . . [Some] retain a few traces of their black ancestry through the influence of atavism . . . [but] the influence of sexual selection . . . tends to neutralize that of atavism, and removes from the descendant of the métis all the characteristic features of the black race. . . . In virtue of this process of ethnic reduction, it is logical to expect that in the course of another century the métis will have disappeared in Brazil. This will coincide with the parallel extinction of the black race in our midst. (Skidmore 1974, 66)

Larcerda’s views capture perfectly the logic and morality of the “racial destiny” supported by many upper and middle class Brazilians. They could simultaneously claim that theirs was a society without racial prejudice—because it was a society of race mixture—while maintaining a profound white supremacy. The matter was neatly encapsulated in a pamphlet written by Caio de Menezes issued in 1914: “We enjoy an advantage over the United States—the good fortune to have discarded color prejudice with the result that the Negro himself tends to dissolve in the inexorable whirlwind of the white race” (Skidmore 1974, 131). For a great number of the politicians and intellectuals in Venezuela and Brazil active during the years when scientific racism was at its most influential in both countries (that is, between 1850 and 1940), only the “inexorable whirlwind” of whiteness could produce national salvation. Whiteness was going to blow away the decrepit, parochial past and enable a successful and vigorous country to emerge. It would produce, moreover, a new society, a bold social experiment. The ideology of mestizaje does not permit a simple copying of Europe, or Europeanness. It projects, instead, an absorption of whiteness as the foundation of societies that are not merely as good as Europe or North America, but potentially better (better, at least in part, by virtue of being less racist and because they had achieved the synthesis of the best parts, the most productive energies, of all races).

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Relative to their impact on the history and demographic profile of the region, the ideologies and practices of whitening remain neglected topics within political and economic debate. This marginalization returns us to the role assigned to the United States in discussions on whiteness and racism. For a great number of Latin Americans the very terms “white supremacy” and “racism” evoke the United States. The latter country symbolizes race problems. By comparison—and it is a comparison often drawn—countries in Latin America (especially Brazil and Venezuela) are seen by many of their own nationals, as well as by foreign observers, as not having a particular problem. The social significance of such comparisons with the United States is examined in some detail by both Wright and Skidmore (see also Twine 1998). Wright concludes that “throughout the present century Venezuelans defined racism in terms of the virulent, hate-filled type of discrimination and segregation found in the United States; they have not considered the subtle forms of racism they practice as discrimination” (1990, 126). Skidmore develops the same argument in the context of Brazil. He also makes a controversial additional observation to the effect that the rise in the 1960s of Civil Rights and other antiracist movements, alliances, and legislation in the United States (as well as anticolonial independence movements around the world) has undermined both the international prestige of white identities and the utility of the comparison with the United States for Brazilians who wish to see their country as a racial democracy: [T]he achieving of political independence in Afro-Asia and the civil rights revolution in the United States dramatically underlined the loss in prestige for the archaic European-centred culture whose racist assumptions had first led Brazilians to formulate their “whitening” rationale. Brazilians had produced that vision of their racial future because it seemed to reconcile the reality of the multi-racial society with the European-North American model of development they sought to imitate. Now that Europe and North America had politically (as well as scientifically) repudiated racism, and now that non-whiteness had become a source of cultural pride and political power both in Afro-Asia and the United States, Brazilians were left with a badly outdated ideal of their racial future. . . . Brazilian opinion-makers are still living with the intellectual legacy of the compromise their parents and grandparents made with racist theory. (Skidmore 1974, 214–218)

There are various contentions at work in this passage. Firstly, Skidmore reiterates the notion that the advance of antiracism in the nation that Brazilians have employed to define their own racial tolerance (that is, the United States) has subverted that comparison and opened up questions about the reality of Brazilian racial democracy. This point may be supported by reference to the rise of Black

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consciousness organizations in Brazil since the 1970s, as well as an increase in criticism of what is now, indicatively, a clichéd phrase, “the myth of racial democracy.”Since he wrote in the early 1970s, a time when it could still be imagined that anti-imperialism and third worldist perspectives were, or would be, sweeping all before them, it is understandable that Skidmore should seek to connect this contention to a supposed global decline of whiteness as a racial ideal. However, whichever way we excuse it, it remains a bitter irony that the latter observation exhibits what we may term the fallacy of racial chronology, a fallacy Skidmore’s own studies in Brazil had helped expose. For the logic of the idea that nonwhite Brazilians were of the past and whiteness was of the future reappears, albeit turned on its head, in Skidmore’s contention that in contemporary Brazil whiteness is an ideology of bygone days, a remnant of an earlier and now discredited racism. It is pertinent to note here that, although it is true to say that the connections between scientific racism and ideologies of development were stronger and certainly more explicit in the first half of the twentieth century, the relationship between white identity and modernity has never been wholly reliant on scientific racism. The range and repertoire of white supremacy far exceed the terms of biological racism and, as events have shown, it is quite capable of surviving the latter’s relative demise. This is particularly clear in Latin America, where the idea that there are naturally discrete races with unequal capacities has long been suffused, or been subordinate to, the contention that in purely biological terms, all races are equal but white people are associated with the most sophisticated and civilized mode of cultural, social, and economic practice. I asserted at the beginning of this chapter that the social ideal of whiteness remains prevalent throughout the contemporary world. This does not mean that people all over the globe adhere to the myths of racial science. Indeed, it implies that the relationship between whiteness and ideologies of modernity goes deeper, and is more varied, than scientific racism. It also suggests that this relationship is a mutable one; its form and content vary in different places and at different times. In the next section these ideas will be illustrated with reference to the time and place of neoliberalism as explored through popular culture, more specifically the Brazilian media megastar of the 1980s and 1990s, Xuxa.

Whiteness and the Symbolic Economy of Neoliberalism: The Xuxa Show To say that whiteness still matters in Latin America is a statement of fact. Yet it is also a little misleading, for if we limit ourselves to

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identifying an inheritance of white racism, to pointing out the continued existence of traditions from the past, we are guilty of offering a very partial reality. Whiteness does not merely haunt contemporary Latin America like some disreputable ghost. It is also part and parcel of today’s “symbolic economy.” This section will elucidate and exemplify this point in more detail by drawing on cultural material from Brazil. However, I want to broach this admittedly complex and controversial issue by citing the Peruvian equality activist Patricia Oliart (1997). Oliart is concerned with the impact of neoliberalism on racism. To understand her concerns we need to know what neoliberalism is. Basically, neoliberalism is a form (indeed some would regard it at as a pure form) of capitalism. In contrast to state-managed capitalism, neoliberalism is identified with the freeing-up of the economy by mechanisms such as privatization and the eradication of restrictive and protectionist interventions in the economy. In Peru, as throughout much of Latin America, neoliberalism has emerged over the past twenty years as the dominant economic paradigm. This process has been facilitated by the advocacy and economic sway of global financial institutions. Any reaffirmation of the free market is also, of course, a social project, one that ties economic change to a set of expectations, stereotypes, and illusions about the benefits of a cosmopolitan, open society. More specifically, Oliart identifies an association of the internationalization of economic and media interests with the reinscription and reinvention of the white European as the symbol of modernity, of social progress and physical attractiveness. “What is happening now is that racism is coming back stronger. . . . Money counts again now and the way you look, we have lots of gyms, that we never had before, all classes doing aerobics and dyeing their hair, like blond hair. . . . [I]t doesn’t matter if you’re not white, you can look white, you can become white, you can wear nice shoes, you can dye your hair, you can get a great body, and if you don’t do that, you have a pony-tail, wear ethnic skirts or whatever, then that’s your problem.” As Oliart’s observations indicate, whiteness has come to be associated in Peru not simply with the ideals and norms of the old elite but with a more contemporary phenomenon, namely consumerism. Whiteness is connoted as a lifestyle, symbolically tied to the pleasures of a consumption-led identity (pleasures such as freedom and choice). The figure of the white consumer is not an entirely novel one in Latin America. Indeed, the “white shopper” has been a normative model in the construction of elite female roles in metropolitan cultures of modernity in the region since the late nineteenth century. However, as the ideology and practices of consumerism have become more globalized and

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socially extensive, this aspect of white identity has become available to a much wider range of people. Now almost everyone is expected to be desirous of exercising their right to immerse themselves in the market. Neoliberalism is associated with the deregulation of previously protected economies, enabling them to become more open to outside capital and influence. It privileges flexible, decentralized, non-statecontrolled socio-economic arrangements at the expense of public, state-owned, and non- or anticapitalist forms of organization. This process has had the consequence of further encouraging North American, Asian, and European business interests to move into Latin America. One of the most visible markers of this expansion is the fact that in the downtown area of many cities in Latin America one now finds the same or similar consumer outlets and company logos as those encountered in the United States. The streets are increasingly cluttered with fast food outlets such as McDonalds (or local versions of it), advertisements for Coca Cola (or local versions of it), and many other consumer brands recognizable as part of international consumer culture. Western goods and symbols are the most visible symbols of the transition to neoliberalism. Nevertheless, the racialization of neoliberalism is full of subtleties and contradictions. Like other forms of capitalism, neo-liberalism provides arenas of resistance and egalitarian change alongside its socially conservative and antiegalitarian tendencies. It is interesting to note in this regard that it has become associated with the assertion of inter and multiculturalism in Latin America (see Laurie and Bonnett 2000). This alliance may seem a strange one but is, in fact, quite logical. Neoliberalism seeks to create flexible market-led economies. It needs geographically and socially mobile societies. Hence it requires the dismantling of those barriers that stand in the way of such flexibility. Some of the most significant of these barriers are ethnic and racial prejudices and loyalties. Moreover, there is also evidence to suggest that consumer identities can also be antiracist. For example, the deployment of African American and Latino style and “attitude” amongst youth groups in Latin America appears to be offering an avenue into both consumerism and the ostensible rejection of whiteness. However, this latter current remains a slender one in most countries in the region. Indeed it is surely of note that the terms “multiculturalism” and “antiracism” and, in certain contexts, “black” and “Latino” identities are often understood in Latin America as imports from the United States. It is true that neoliberalism offers possibilities of opposition, especially within the realm of aesthetics and consumer choice. It is also true that it deploys discourses of equality in those circumstances where inequality is seen to stand in the way of social and economic flexibility. However, these tendencies are continuously compromised by the much

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more powerful normative and antiegalitarian currents within neo-liberalism. Multiculturalism and antiracism may sometimes be encouraged by free market reforms, but it is a celebration of equality that takes place within societies where the appeal and power of whiteness are being both sustained and, at least in certain areas, strengthened. Maria da Graca Meneghel became a megastar in Brazil in the early 1980s. It was also at this time that she adopted the name “Xuxa.” She is a television personality, a white star in a predominately nonwhite country. Reflecting a pattern evident throughout Latin America, the Brazilian media and advertising industry routinely portray an image of the country as white. White models, actors, newscasters, and other personalities are as ubiquitous as black ones are rare (see Moore 1988; see also Kottak 1990). Xuxa is not exceptional because of her whiteness. However, the scale of her personal success is distinctive. She is a media phenomenon, a household name throughout the country, whose life story and achievements have captured the interest of both journalists and scholars of Brazilian popular culture. The Xou da Xuxa (Xuxa Show), a children’s program that also attracts a large adult following, is Xuxa’s principal vehicle. Although its studio audience and musical guests are overwhelmingly Brazilian the show is similar to the kind of light entertainment programming now found all over the planet. The musical style is relentless disco pop; the presenters look and sound, if not European, then “of the West.” The atmosphere is one of boundless zany fun and endless enthusiasm for the latest consumer fashion. Xuxa has been able to extend this format beyond her television show and into numerous other arenas of cultural production. The range of items issued under her name, from songs to shoes, from dolls to films, is enormous. However, her fame is rooted in television, a fact that reflects the role of the TV as the primary medium of consumer and, indeed, national identity in Brazil. Brazilians watch a lot of television (A study in Sao Palo showed that 95 percent watched regularly during the week. Brazilians also have a lot of television sets, ranking fourth in the world in terms of numbers owned [Simpson 1993]). Moreover, television production companies in Brazil are large and influential. The company which produces Xuxa, Globo, owns about one third of the broadcasting stations in Brazil. Such media giants have been able to shape the style, content, and social function of television. According to Amelia Simpson’s study Xuxa: The Mega-marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity, “Globo has become known as the instrument largely responsible for creating a national culture in a country with many separate regional identities” (1993, 63). This televised national culture contains several elements, but at its core is the figure of the consumer. Audiences are consistently bombarded with images of goods for sale and attractive lifestyles and people to emulate.

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The seeming incongruity of such programming in a country where the majority of the population have only a small disposable income has not been lost on social critics within Brazil. Nico Vink suggests that a “contradictory consumption society has been formed in which, for the majority of the population, the images of consumption goods have increased more than the real access to these goods.” This process relies on the commodity functioning primarily as image, as a pacifying spectacle, an always out of reach, but always to be reached for, icon of fulfilment and identity. “Product placement” on the Xou da Xuxa is explicit. For example, in the “Coca Cola Game” the contestants wear Coca Cola logos on their t-shirts while rushing around in the attempt to put together a picnic, a meal that consists of hot dogs, straws and, of course, Coca Cola. The idealization of American-style consumerism also emerges in the game called “Yes or No.” This game ties triumph or defeat to the value of goods and delivers a lesson in the authority of the market place. No particular product is promoted; instead, the issue of relative value is raised. The single participant, sitting in a soundproof booth and unable to see what Xuxa and the audience are viewing, is required to agree or not agree to trade one item for another. Without knowing what the items are, the player must respond “yes” or “no” when a light is switched on. Xuxa might ask, for example, “Will you trade your video game for a bicycle?” or “Will you trade your TV for a pacifier?” Afterward, Xuxa releases the player from the booth, awards the prizes, and explains what the boy or girl traded away. This game of chance stimulates in the audience a kind of frenzied appraisal of goods. “Yes or No” teaches that a video game is more valuable than a bag of marbles and that exercising one’s options, even with limited choices and in compelling circumstances, is a way of defining oneself as a winner or a loser (Simpson 1993, 86). Although it can sometimes appear as if the real stars of Xuxa’s show are the products on display, it is Xuxa’s personal advocacy of consumerism and her deployment of whiteness that animates and structures the programme and its spin-offs. As this suggests, the specific visual mechanisms that communicate her appeal also tell us something about the kind of whiteness that she represents. I have already mentioned the theme of pleasure, of white identity being offered as a way of being that is associated with the thrills and freedoms of participation in a market economy. This chain of connotations may be extended further to include excitement and transgression. In the Xou da Xuxa all these attributes are conflated, condensed into one sign, as sexiness (sexy is a word now known in its English form in many non-English-speaking countries). As this implies, Xuxa’s image in Brazil is not simply that of a white person or, indeed, of her whiteness as aesthetically superior. It is

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something more particular: the sexual desirability of the young blond white woman. Indeed the representation of Xuxa, in publicity and poster material, in film spin-offs and in the show itself, is organized around the clichés of soft pornography; more specifically, of the flirtatious sexual availability of the submissive, feminine and childlike blond. This role is continued in the interactions of Xuxa with the children on her show. The show’s child guests are encouraged to engage Xuxa in erotically suggestive banter. Indeed, it may be argued that in the Xou da Xuxa the themes of whiteness and consumerism find expression in an infantilized sexuality, in which sexual attraction is synonymous with “naughtiness” and the prepubescent body. Xuxa’s blondness may be seen, then, as a key signifier not simply of her whiteness but of her affiliation with the nonadult and, relatedly, submissive femininity. By the mid-1980s Xuxa was established as Brazilian television’s principal star, a success that was soon to be mirrored in other countries throughout Latin America. Xuxa also made inroads into the Spanishspeaking television market in the United States. However, to many North American commentators, the most striking thing about Xuxa was the incongruity of a supposedly nonwhite country such as Brazil producing a white star (Brooke 1990; Chapoval 1992). This putative tension provides the central problematic of Simpson’s analysis of the Xuxa phenomenon: She asserts the superiority of whiteness through her own image and its many manifestations, including the blond imitation Xuxas, the Paquitas, who are the envy of virtually every Brazilian girl at one time or another. Blondness is a norm of attractiveness that is inaccessible to most people in Brazil, the country with the world’s second-largest number of people of African descent. Yet Xuxa’s representation of all-white aesthetic is symptomatic, not prescriptive. The star’s promotion of the white ideal functions only with the complicity of an audience eager to view blond beauty. (1993, 7)

Simpson is surely right to emphasis the inaccessible nature of Xuxa’s whiteness, an attribute which compliments the “out of reach” nature of the consumerist fantasy she embodies. However, whether this process is unique to Brazil or Latin America is debatable. Western societies are, after all, also entangled with the endless quest for fulfilment through spectacles of consumption and ideal racialized beauty. Capitalism relies on precisely this type of personal investment, of a constant effort to emulate lifestyles beyond one’s reach. If we accept this contention, then the representation of Xuxa by Western commentators as an extraordinary phenomenon, indeed, as ludicrous, starts to appear myopic and self-deceptive. Such portrayals begin to appear like an attempt to identify Brazil as the comfortably distant location for the

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racialized dramas that characterize all contemporary forms of capitalism. Emphasizing the foreignness, the oddity, of Xuxa has a dual if contradictory comfort value for European and North American critics and their readers. It reassures them that non-Western societies are dominated by Western norms—that “they” want to become like “us”— while at the same time implying that the West has no investment in the racialization of consumerism. One is reminded of Henry Champley’s condescending glee, introduced at the start of this chapter, in observing what he took to be nonwhite people’s forever failing attempts to emulate white role models. Yet who could ever live up to such archetypes? Fantasies of extraordinary beauty and fabulous wealth are no more real, no less deceptive, in the West than anywhere else. The Xuxa phenomenon may be taken as an example of the power of discourses of white supremacy within contemporary Brazil. Yet, this process cannot be understood merely in terms of the imposition of a racist ideology on Brazil. Rather Xuxa has been actively produced within Brazilian society. Her symbolic repertoire reflects less some preformed “white identity” that has been manufactured in the West and exported round the world than a process of selection carried out in Brazil itself, a process that has created a version of whiteness for the Brazilian market. Pursuing this theme, it is pertinent to note that the subpornographic infantilism of Xuxa has many of the hallmarks of kitsch, a popular aesthetic mode that exaggerates and parodies existing cultural traditions. Thus we may be tempted to argue that Xuxa appropriates whiteness, even that she represents a kind of resistance to more conventional and reverential attitudes towards this identity. Certainly, she makes whiteness look rather silly, an empty-headed and immature search of short-term pleasures. However, although it is tempting to locate transgression within non-Western engagements with whiteness, it seems clear that the Xuxa story is much more about domination than it is about resistance.3 It may be claimed that Xuxa translates, mutates, and otherwise disrupts the conventions of whiteness. In part this is true. But it is a minor truth. The more prosaic and historically familiar aspects of the Xuxa phenomenon—namely its white supremacy, its Eurocentrism, its association of whiteness with modernity—are also the ones that tell us the most about Brazilian society and Xuxa’s place within it.

Deploying and Adapting Whiteness: Imagining Self and Other in Japan Over the past one hundred years or so white identity has been used to construct a series of competing and overlapping categories in Asia and

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the Third World. Often this process has involved these identities being defined as not white/Western or as against whiteness/Westernness. Many societies, though, are difficult to place within such neat dualisms. Japan provides us with an example of a country that can often appear both Western and non-Western, aligned with the “white club of nations” but not—or so it seems to many—a natural member of that club. It is pertinent to recall that some Japanese politicians in the early and mid-twentieth century sought to depict their country as the leader of the “colored” or non-white people of the world against the West. This sentiment was one of the factors that lay behind the Japanese government’s attempt to include a clause on racial equality in the League of Nations Charter, adopted in 1920 at Versailles (a more specific motivation was to attack those racist laws in existence in the United States that were preventing Japanese immigration to that country). Although it was blocked by the United States, Australia, and Britain, Japan’s diplomatic effort established the country’s ability and willingness to act as a voice for nonwhite peoples (Naoko 1989). Indeed, in 1935 the African American intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois noted that “Japan is regarded by all the coloured peoples as their logical leader, as the one non-white nation which has escaped for ever the dominance and exploitation of the white world” (Füredi 1998, 44). Throughout the Second World War the Japanese government sought to capitalize on such aspirations; there existing what Wagatsuma calls a “hidden subcurrent” within Japanese propaganda which positioned Japan “as the ‘champion of the colored nations,’ [fighting] against the ‘whites’” (1968, 139).4 However, by the time the notion of the “Third World” emerged in the 1950s,5 the Japanese economy and Japanese culture were so thoroughly enmeshed in the ambitions and networks of Western capitalism that this earlier non- or anti-Western collective identity appeared increasingly irrelevant. Indeed, Japan’s presence at the Bandung Conference (a summit of leading politicians from “non-aligned” African and Asian nations held in Bandung, Indonesia, in April, 1955, the Bandung Conference is commonly regarded as a founding moment in the forging of an anticolonial, Third World identity) was greeted with suspicion by many other delegates (see Ampiah, 1995). The fact that Japan was attending the conference at the request of the United States (it was felt by U.S. diplomats that Japan’s attendance might weaken the presence of communist China), and that some East Asian nations at Bandung had had recent experience of Japan as a colonial power, heightened the sense that Japan was there in the role of outside observer rather than as an active participant. In the late 1950s and the

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1960s the perception that Japan could no longer position itself as an authentic non-Western society was strengthened by the ability of Chinese politicians to take on the mantle of leaders of the Third World. This maneuver had the effect of further cementing the association of capitalist, Western, and white identities. An extreme version of Chinese “Third Worldism” was recorded by Louis Baracta in his study of Chinese communist intellectuals derived from interviews conducted in 1967. These ideologists, he noted, foresaw “an epic struggle between the races—an Armageddon in which China would lead the exploited colored peoples in their battle against the powers of white reaction” (1968, 194). As Dikötter further records, such “[r]acial hatred reached a peak during the Third Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in February 1963, when the Chinese delegates vehemently insisted that the ‘white’ Russians would never commit themselves whole-heatedly to the antiimperialist struggle” (1992, 195). In the post–Cold War era Third Worldism has appeared increasingly susceptible to fragmentation and political redundancy. By contrast the notion of “Asia,” and more particularly of “Asian values” seems to have been fortified. Asian values have been cited as the defining features and key to the success of the so-called Tiger Economies, and other emergent economies, in East Asia. First propagated by the government of Singapore in the early 1990s, the notion of Asian values has been taken up by a variety of regimes in the region, often in an attempt to secure their own legitimacy. The values considered Asian tend to be conservative, traditionalist, and work ethic oriented. This collection of ideals is often understood as rooted in Confucianism and/or Islam. Perhaps even more importantly, they are values considered either not present in the West or as having been lost by the contemporary West. Hence, the latter is cast as materialist, decadent, individualistic, and alienated.6 Japan has tended to be treated as a special case in East Asia. In part, this may be said to be justified by Japanese leaders’ traditional reluctance to see the country as part of a wider Asian community of nations. Indeed, rather than seeking to define Japan against the West in order to align it with Asia, Japanese intellectuals and politicians have often appeared to claim Westernness in order to differentiate Japan from Asia (the notable exceptions to this phenomenon being associated with periods of ultranationalism, especially before and during the Second World War). In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan, as in China, indigenous traditions of valuing white skin color became integrated with Western categories and assumptions concerning race, more specifically the superiority of Europeans (Leupp 1995). Positive attitudes towards whiteness thus became mixed up with positive attitudes towards

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Europeans as “the white race.” Such ideas persist in contemporary Japan. Hiroshi Wagatsuma’s study of Japanese skin color preference found a persistent tendency to ascribe beauty and superiority to “the white race” Wagatsuma argued that, “Japanese eyes, despite cases of plastic surgery, may keep their Oriental look, but through these eyes Japanese see themselves as part of the modern Western world conceptualized in Western terms” (1968, 435, see also Kitahara 1987). Wagatsuma’s conclusion is a familiar one. Histories of Japan have long placed the themes of Westernization and modernization as inextricably linked and central problematics of that society’s development over the last 150 years. Particular emphasis has been placed on the way Japan has come to define itself in relation to the West, and the concomitant diminishment of the established tradition of viewing Japan in terms of its association with China (Sato 1997). This way of understanding the country’s development posits the Meji period (1867 to 1912) as the founding era of contemporary Japan. Sometimes termed the “Japanese Enlightenment” (for example, Blacker 1969), the Meji period saw Japan open up to the West (in contrast to the previous two centuries of isolation). To provide a specific example of this process we may turn to the writings of the Japanese intellectual often considered one of the most important exponents of enlightenment and Westernization, Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835–1901). Fukuzawa was an ardent advocate of Western approaches to a wide range of social and technical practices. Indeed, he identified Westernization with civilization: “We cannot wait for our neighbour countries to become so civilized that all may combine together to make Asia progress. We must rather break out of formation and behave in the same way as the civilized countries of the West are doing. . . . We would be better to treat China and Korea in the same way as do the western nations” (cited by Blacker 1969, 136). The employment of the West as the benchmark of civilization required the displacement of the influence of China and the absorption of Western social habits and technologies. However, this process of absorption had a somewhat contradictory intent. Its principal aim was not to achieve assimilation into the West but Japanese independence. The latter, Fukuzawa argued, could only be secured with “modern,” “rational”—that is, Western—approaches to warfare and political governance: “The only means of thus preserving our independence is to adopt western civilization.” “A country which abides by reason,” he added, “cannot be assailed from without” (cited by Blacker, 1969, 68). Japan’s turn towards the West led to the Japanese word for foreigner, gaijin (literally “outside person”), becoming virtually synonymous with “white person.”7 However, the cultural emulation of white

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people could carry subversive connotations. In a commentary on Japanese cultural hybridity, Sakamoto concurs that Fukuzawa’s concern was to adopt Western values only in as far as they could be used to strengthen Japanese national ambitions, and to secure Japan’s superiority over other societies in Asia. However, he makes an additional point: “[That] the transplantation of ‘Western’ civilization to Japan is possible at all disturbs the West’s identity as the only subject of history as civilization, as the only author of the narrative of world history. Thus, although reinscribing and grafting the jargons of civilization into the Japanese context, Fukuzawa created a difference that challenged Western Orientalist domination. His discourse positions Japan within the dominant narrative of Western modernity, without being totally overwhelmed” (1996, 121). In fact, the affirmation and rejection of Western values have often proceeded simultaneously in Japan. More specifically, the assertion of a fundamental difference between Japanese and Western approaches has been used to locate the unique nature of Japanese identity and Japanese modernity. Peter Dale’s (1988) analysis of nihonjinron (literally, “discussions of the Japanese”) literature—a huge array of popular and scholarly texts that have sought to define the Japaneseness of Japan— locates a persistent dualism (in which the West and Japan are established as opposites) existing alongside the translation of Western values into Japanese terms (for example, the values of capitalism, consumerism, and entrepreneurialism). An example cited by Dale is Tadanobu’s Tsunoda best-selling book on the “Japanese Brain” (published in 1978). Following the pattern established within other texts in the nihonjinron tradition, Tsunoda offers a vision of the Japanese as a unique people whose mental processes evidence a distinctive holism, a characteristic shown by comparison with the more fragmented, alienated nature of the Western mentality. As summarized by Dale, Tsunoda asserts that amongst the Japanese the left brain “unifies the perception of the natural acoustic phenomenon (linguistic, musical and natural sounds), whereas these are treated separately . . . in the Western brain” (1998, 189–190). The tendency within nihonjinron literature to pose individualism and materialism as Western values has also been argued to have a political function in Japan, namely the concealment of these tendencies in Japanese capitalism. Describing this process as “cultural exorcism” (1988, 40) Dale claims that “repudiation of Western conceptual models stems from the fact that these latter tend to expose, by force of analogy with earlier Western life, aspects of tenacious medievalism operant in the Japanese version of capitalism. In this sense, then, the nihonjinron’s picture of Japan’s alternative modernism disguises both a sympathy for

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feudal values and critical hostility or revolt against the logic and institutions of bourgeois culture” (1988, 44–45). The expansion and relative success of the Japanese economy since the 1950s has meant that it is now a major power within Western politics. Japan has not only been admitted into Western financial and political mechanisms but become a core component of the world’s dominant political current and power block, namely Western capitalism. This process has been accompanied by the Americanization of postwar Japanese culture (see Tsurumi 1987) and, at a more fundamental level, the realignment of notions of the West in Japanese discourses of self and nation. Western identity has become increasingly deployed, become ever more familiar, as part of the set of things that define what it is to be Japanese. Within this process the whiteness, the Europeanness, of Westernness emerge as a disruptive force, capable of creating moments of tension, of disjuncture, within the country’s allegiance to the West. The sense that Japan is not really Western, that it is “pretending,” that it exists within the club of Western powers as a stranger, can erupt into even the most official of forums. “Looking at television’s coverage of national leaders on such occasions as the summits of the industrial democracies,” notes the Director of the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Kawai Hayao, “one can see at a glance that the Japanese prime minister, although dressed like everybody else, is different from the rest” (1998, 144). The sense that Japan stands out in the company of Western nations is tied by Hayao to the Japanese people’s uniquely intense interest in questions concerning their own national identity. “The Japanese alone, it seems,” Hayao writes, “are obsessed by questions about who they are and what their culture is about. In a sense, this is only natural. . . . [A]mong the countries known as advanced nations, only Japan lacks a Judaeo-Christian background and has a yellow race.”(1998, 143–144). The tension surrounding Japan’s entry into the “white club” of Western nations can, in part, be glossed over by the replacement of the word “Western” with other terms, such as “advanced” or “developed.” Yet this maneuver also has the effect of evoking the racialized nature of these categories. What, after all, does it mean to be advanced or developed, other than to be aligned with European modernity and civilization? Despite the success of the Japanese economy these associations have yet to be severed. Thus the whiteness of the West, the fact that the one connotes the other, continues to inform the historical and geographical imaginations of the Japanese. As this implies, the figure of the white person must be placed particularly carefully in Japanese discourses of self and other. The white must be simultaneously “like us” and “not like us,” both foreign and not foreign. Perhaps a suggestive

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rephrasing of this problematic would be to say that whiteness is deployed in Japan as an otherness that is owned, an alterity that is claimed and assimilated. Drawing on the research of the anthropologist Millie Creighton (1995, 1997), I will explore this seemingly contradictory dynamic further by turning to the figure of the white in Japanese advertising. The ambivalences generated when nonwhite national and ethnic identities are constituted through discourses of modernity are not, of course, unique to Japan. In the discussion of Latin America provided earlier in this chapter it was shown how whites are used both as symbols of economic and social conservatism and of a consumerism connoted with pleasure and transgression. The media’s use of the “beautiful,” “sexy” white is just as apparent in Japan. A creative director at one advertising agency provided Creighton with the following explanation “for the abundance of gaijin” in advertising images: “[F]or a long part of Japanese history, from Meiji at least, we have always been looking at Western countries as progressive ones. These were places that Japan had to catch up with. From this there developed sort of a complex—it’s a white world” (1997, 216). White Westerners in Japanese advertising tend to be used in roles considered unacceptably daring for Japanese models and/or as symbols of consumerist excitement. Thus, for example, while naked and seminaked gaijin women have been relatively common in poster and television campaigns, the same cannot be said of Japanese women. As explained by another advertising employee, “[A]ds can’t use Japanese women for such nude scenes because it is too realistic, so gaijin are used” (Creighton 1995, 145). As Creighton explains “Gaijin are much more likely to be shown overtly breaking the conventional rules of Japanese society, or as individuals who struggle incompetently with the habits and customs of Japanese life. Nude representation of gaijin, particularly naked shots of the upper bodies of both men and women, are common in advertisements for products and services where naked depictions of Japanese would be inappropriate” (1995, 137). Creighton goes on to explain that advertising campaigns that wish to sell a particular consumer product on the basis of its appeal to possessive individualism (that is, as items of personal satisfaction, to be selfishly guarded) find it appropriate to employ the bodies and the language of white westerners. Foreigners often provide a safer mechanism for expressing selfish sentiments in a culture which has long frowned on wagamama, or selfcentered concerns. Related to this is the prevalent used of the English word “my” in advertising and product names rather than the Japanese

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equivalents watakushi no, watashi no, or boku no. Ads and product labels commonly refer to “my jeans,” “my car,” “my home,” “my peanut butter” and even—as I saw in small town in Shikoku—“my toilet paper” (Creighton, 1995, 146). The deployment of the English word “my” is suggestive of the way a particular attribute of capitalism (in this case its possessive individualism) can be sustained in Japanese society by being “othered” at a symbolic level. A kind of knowing game is enacted that allows the pleasures of selfish consumerism to become all the more tantalizing by being cast as simultaneously foreign, trangressive, and entirely available. This process finds echoes in many societies around the world but the strength of the Japanese economy, its place—albeit an ambivalent one—within the West appears to accentuate it. Indeed, it may be suggested that the body and rhetoric of selfishness of the gaijin are less likely to be read as an imposition from outside than as reflective of Japanese agency, as products of Japanese priorities, a Japanese manipulation of the identities available within capitalism. The theme of Japanese possession of whiteness has been directly addressed by Creighton (1997). The illustration she chooses to introduce the issue is a Japanese cartoon of an encounter between a Japanese woman and African Americans. In the cartoon, the African Americans are aggressively remonstrating with the woman, presumably because her clothes feature prints of Sambo figures. The Japanese woman is represented “with stereotypical white features and hair coloring” (228). The U.S. context of this image may be significant: the alignment of Japanese Americans with and as whites in the United States is an emergent tendency noted by Hacker (1992; see also Lipsitz 1998). However, Creighton uses the cartoon to make a broader point, noting a shift in Japanese culture towards the occupation of whiteness as a site of dominance within the global economy. The “Japanese have entered the symbolic space of ‘white,’” she asserts, “a space suggesting privilege, economic and political prominence” (1997, 228). If we accept this argument then the advertising cliché of the sexualized, transgressive gaijin becomes even more intimate and exciting; the gaijin becomes part of a process of symbolic transposition that is understood as a symbolic transposition, a process whereby whites are being employed to represent elements of a shared (white?) culture. What happens, though, when being Japanese appears not simply as good as being white but better? In Western advertising in the late twentieth century, Japanese products began to be sold on the basis of their association with the technological and aesthetic superiority of Japanese society (Moeran 1996). The notion that Japanese society, especially its

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technological and business practices, may in fact be superior also began to find expression in Japanese advertising. The white began to be cast as someone unable to keep up with the Japanese, as someone who was not capable of emulating Japanese efficiency and standards. Again we may turn to Creighton for a depiction of this process: “If for decades advertisements reflected a gaijin complex that it’s a white world, with Japan’s reclaimed assurance in its own cultural identity, gaijin faces are now used to suggest that maybe it is, or should be, a Japanese world after all. Humour in recent commercials is provided by beautiful and elegantly attired gaijin women trying to tell jokes in Japanese but stumbling inadequately with the language. A commercial for the Osaka Keikin shopping mall features a gaijin repeating the phrase, ‘I can’t keep up with the Japanese’” (1995, 149). Another example of this phenomenon is found in an advertisement from the early 1980s for the National Rice Council: “According to this advertisement it is no longer the Japanese trying to ‘catch up’ with the West. Instead a white businessman in Japan is trying to determine why the Japanese are the front runners. The white businessman sits, holding a bowl of rice in his hands, and says to himself, “I wonder what makes Japanese business so successful. It must be the rice they eat” (Creighton 1997, 220). In a society where (Japanese short grain) rice is connoted with national identity and purity, the white businessman’s dilemma is particularly challenging: it is as if he can neither grasp nor hope to connect with the organic, natural essence of Japaneseness. Such examples suggest that the failed and exhausted white may have begun to provide a new and distinctive figure through which to define Japanese identity. The partial dethroning of European-heritage people as representatives of a superior white race does not necessarily imply the abandonment of whiteness as an ideal or model in Japan. As I have already implied, racial whiteness appears to be available for assimilation, for adaptation and adoption, in Japanese society. I would tie this admittedly speculative suggestion with another one. It strikes me that traditional notions of whiteness in Japanese society—that is, whiteness as a valued, nonracial marker of purity, beauty, and superiority—may be able to be redeployed in order to envision a renewed Japanese claim on whiteness. It is interesting to note in this regard that Wagatsuma’s interviews with Japanese men and women revealed a distinctively subversive current, namely an attempt to question the whiteness of Europeans. The ugliness of European whiteness as compared to Japanese whiteness was mentioned by several of his informants. More specifically it was argued that people of European heritage do not possess white skin but transparent skin. Three respondents’ views are cited below:

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This may be completely unscientific but I feel that when I look at the skin of a Japanese woman I see the whiteness of her skin. When I observe Caucasian skin, what I see is the whiteness of the fat underneath the skin, not the whiteness of the skin itself. Therefore, sometimes I see redness of blood under the transparent skin instead of white fat. Then it doesn’t appear white but red. I have seen Caucasians closely only a few times but my impression is that their skin is very thin, almost transparent, while our skin is thicker and more resilient. The Caucasian skin is something like the surface of a pork sausage, while the skin of a Japanese resembles the outside of kamaboko [a white, spongy fish cake]. (Wagatsuma 1968, 142–143)

“This may be completely unscientific,” notes the first interviewee, but in a world where race is no longer regarded as a matter of science, does the European claim on whiteness still have to be respected in such terms? Is whiteness becoming open to deracialization, to being absorbed (back?) into symbolic repertories that no longer privilege any particular race as its rightful owner? Well, perhaps. These questions are worth posing but we must also admit that even an affirmative response needs to be followed up by a swift, “but not much.” The racialized nature of the central conceits of our era—modernity, civilization, progress, and their various offshoots—means that detaching whiteness from the figure of the European still appears counterintuitive, almost unthinkable.

Conclusions In some areas of India the Hindu goddess Durga is traditionally depicted astride a tiger—and traditionally she is painted black or brown. However, recent years have seen her colour change. She has become paler, whiter. A BBC reporter investigating the phenomenon was told that she “used to be brown but in this day of TV people want more pleasant images. . . . Indian men today prefer fairer women” (BBC 1998). Durga’s change of appearance is, in itself, a minor story. Yet it reflects a much wider process. Despite the supposed death of scientific racism, the idealization of whiteness continues apace. I have argued in this chapter that this process is bound up with modernization: one cannot understand the latter—surely the core social and economic force of our era—without appreciating its dependence upon its naturalization and embodiment in racial whiteness. The triumph of European whiteness has been to transform itself not simply into a norm of and for bourgeois Europeans but for all

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humanity. Of course, most people’s lives are affected by a variety of ethnic and racial norms. Whiteness is not, of course, necessarily dominant in each and every racialized situation. Nor, where its presence is felt, is it usually able to be clearly separated from other identities. However, there can be few people left in the world who do not employ whiteness to define at least a part of what they are. Its presence is particularly powerful in the construction of pannational identities, such as “Asian,” “Third World,” “black,” and so on. But many, more local, identities also make use of whiteness, as something to aspire to, to define oneself against or, as in Japan, in a more complex and tense relationship of assimilation and refusal. White identities have been deployed in the dissemination and maintenance of power across the globe. Sometimes this power has been crudely and explicitly racial—the whites conquering the nonwhites— but more often, and increasingly, the symbolic repertoire of whiteness has been more subtle. Whiteness has become less a sign of fear, of military conquest, something that is “theirs” and that “we” cannot share in, and more one of the symbolic axis of the process of modernization, a process that we are all encouraged to identity with or define our ethnic uniqueness against. To say whiteness is now less a sign of fear does not mean that its relationship to military power no longer matters. The ability of the country understood by many around the world to be the white power par excellence, the United States, to militarily intervene around the world has, if anything, increased since the end of the Cold War (for discussion of the contemporary relationship between whiteness and war, see Lipsitz 1998). Nevertheless, with the diminishment of direct colonialism and the emergence of an ever more globalized capitalist world system, the preponderant tendency appears to be towards a situation where whiteness is not so easily recognized as an exterior threat, as an enemy from without. Increasingly, it is something that exists in popular culture as a symbol of “our progress” and “our pleasure.” This is not to argue, however, that whiteness is today a free floating signifier, part of some endless moment of creative play to be constructed or disposed of in any way anyone, or any particular society, sees fit. The power of whiteness continues to be generated by its relationship with social and economic hegemony. As with many of the most successful forms of oppression, whiteness has been internalized not merely as a sense of inferiority, but as a symbol of freedom, of excitement, of the possibilities that life can offer.

Notes This chapter is derived from Alastair Bonnett’s White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives (Harlow, U.K., Prentice Hall, 2000). The editor

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acknowledges Prentice Hall for their permission to print a revised section from the book. The context for the epigraph at the introduction to this chapter can be found on page 96. 1. All translations of Brazilian decrees and legislation are derived from Skidmore (1974). 2. All translations of Venezuelan decrees and legislation are derived from Wright (1990). 3. A similar point must also be made in response to many less obviously conservative cultural practices in Latin America, practices that contain moments or themes that appear to be racially counterhegemonic. The racial politics of carnival is a case in point. For example, in his account of the dominance of white skin norm in Nicaragua Lancaster notes the existence of “moments of reprieve, flashes of rebellion” and writes, “[I]n carnivalesque festivities like Santo Domingo, negritude is symbolically elevated over whiteness, and things Indian supersede things Spanish. Celebrants appear drenched in grease and wearing Indian costumes. Youths blacken their own and their elder’s faces. As tough in revenge against white envy and color climbing, blackness thus assaults the entire community, triumphantly asserting itself as a reversal of the people’s into a Spanish Catholic Church” (1991, 347). Yet as Lancaster notes, “[T]o date, this spirit of rebellion has not much escaped the confines of carnival.” Such “moments” are symbolized as brief temporally and spatially restricted sites of fantasy which by celebrating the exotic and transgressive qualities of nonwhiteness confirm the centrality of whiteness. They may speak of a desire to resist but this quest is articulated in the language of white supremacy. 4. The alliance of the Japanese with other nonwhites also enabled the establishment of several panracial groups in the United States. The Colored People’s Union, established in Seattle in 1921 by Japanese immigrants and AfricanAmerican followers of Marcus Garvey, was open to all “except the white or Teutonic races” (Taylor 1990, 426). Another group, the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World, established in 1932 in Chicago, sought to bring together all the nonwhites of the world under the leadership of Japan. Lipsitz’s 1998 analysis of these forms of activism stresses how seriously they were taken by the U.S. government. He cites one Department of Justice report from the 1920s warning that “It is the determined purpose of Japan to amalgamate the entire colored races of the world against the Nordic or white race, with Japan at the head of the coalition, for the purpose of wrestling away the supremacy of the white race and placing such supremacy in the colored peoples under the domination of Japan” (1998, 193). 5. First used by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy in 1952, the expression “Third World” was quickly taken up by the leaders of ex-colonial nations (especially Nehru in India, Nasser in Egypt, and Sukarno in Indonesia), who used it to express the formation of a “non-aligned” grouping, beholden to neither of the two superpowers (Worsley 1964, 1984).

102 Alastair Bonnett 6. However, precisely because it is a relatively recent construct, it is difficult to gauge the adaptability and durability of the notion of Asian values. The crisis within the economies of East Asia in the late 1990s may be said to have offered a test to its central conceit, although at the time of writing, it is premature to judge the form and impact of this challenge. It certainly appears as if some regional leaders are beginning to find the term too inclusive to provide effective support for their own particular brand of politics. Writing in 1999 Bell, reports that “Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew . . . has recently abandoned use of the term ‘Asian values’ on the grounds that it is too vague and encompasses too many diverse societies. Instead, Lee prefers to expound on the ‘Confucian values’ of Confucian-influenced East Asian societies, such as China, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore” (6). 7. Creighton explains, “Although the word gaijin can be applied to any non-Japanese person it is most commonly only used for white foreigners, who are conceptualized as ‘pure gaijin,’ or ‘true gaijin.’ Other non-Japanese groups are designated differently, the collective noun gaikokujin (persons from an outside country) being applied to other Asians and black people (1997, 212).

References Ampiah, K. 1995. Japan at the Bandung Conference: The cat goes to the mice’s convention. Japan Forum 7 (1): 15–24. BBC. 1998. Kalis’s smile. Broadcast on Radio Four, May 6. Baracta, L. 1968. China in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. New York: Hart Publishing Company. Bell, D. 1999. What does Confucius add to human rights? Times Literary Supplement January 1st. Beltrán, A. n.d. “The Indian and the Mexican revolution,” lecture, University of Texas. Quoted in A. Knight. 1990. Racism, revolution, and indigenismo: Mexico, 1910–1940, in The idea of race in Latin America, 1870–1940, ed. R. Graham. Austin: University of Texas Press. Blacker, C. 1969. The Japanese Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brooke, J. 1990. Brazil’s idol is a blonde, and some ask ‘why?’ New York Times, July 31. Chapoval, T. 1992. Brazil’s blond bombshell explodes worldwide. San Diego Union, January 31. Creighton, M. 1995. Imaging the other in Japanese advertising campaigns. In Occidentalism: Images of the West, ed. J. Carrier. Oxford: OUP. ———. 1997. Soto others and uchi others: Imaging racial diversity, imaging homogenous Japan. In Japan’s minorities: The illusion of homogeneity, ed. M. Weiner. Routledge: London.

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Dale, J. 1988. The myth of Japanese uniqueness. Routledge: London. de Friedemann, N., and J. Arocha. 1995. Columbia. In No longer invisible: Afro-Latin Americans today, ed. Minority Rights Group. London: Minority Rights Publications. Dikötter, F. 1992. The discourse of race in modern China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Fukuzawa, Y. n.d. “Datsuaron, Zoku Fukuzawa Zenshu.” II, 42. Quoted in C. Blacker. 1969. The Japanese Enlightenment: A study of the writing of Fukuzawa Yukichi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Füredi, F. 1998. The silent war: Imperialism and the changing perception of race. London: Pluto. Hayao, K. 1998. Japan’s self-image: What distinguishes the Japanese? Japan Review of International Affairs 12 (2): 143–156. Humbolt, A. 1941. “Ensayo político sobre el reino de la Nueva España.” Quoted in M. Mörner. Race mixture in the history of Latin America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Kitahara, M. 1987. The Western impact on Japanese racial self-image. Journal of Developing Societies 3: 184–189. Knight, A. 1990. Racism, revolution, and indigenismo: Mexico, 1910–1940. In The idea of race in Latin America, 1870–1940, ed. R. Graham. Austin: University of Texas Press. Kottack, C. 1990. Prime-time society: An anthropological analysis of television and culture. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishers. Lancaster, R. 1991. Skin color, race, and racism in Nicaragua. Ethnology 30 (4): 339–353. Laurie, N., and A. Bonnett. 2001. Adjusting to equity: Anti-racism and the contradictions of neo-liberalism in Peru. Antipode, 33, 5. Leupp, G. 1995. Images of black people in late mediaeval and early modern Japan, 1543–1990. Japan Forum 7 (1): 1–13. Lewis, L. 1995. Spanish ideology and the practice of inequality in the New World. In Racism and anti-racism in world perspective, ed. B. Bowser. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Lipsitz, G. 1998. The possessive investment in whiteness: How white people profit from identity politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Moeran, B. 1996. The Orient strikes back: Advertising and imagining Japan. Theory, Culture and Society 13 (3): 77–112. Moore, Z. 1988. Reflections on blacks in contemporary Brazilian popular culture in the 1980s. Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 7: 213–226. Mörner, M. 1967. Race mixture in the history of Latin America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Murphy, A. 1997. Peru handbook. Bath, U.K: Footprint Handbooks.

104 Alastair Bonnett Naoko, S. 1989. The Japanese attempt to secure racial equality in 1919. Japan Forum April: 94–5. Nutini, H. 1997. Class and ethnicity in Mexico: Somatic and racial considerations. Ethnology 36 (3): 227–238. Oliart, P. 1997. Interview with Alastair Bonnett, April 3, Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru. Pieterse, J. 1990. Empire and emancipation: Power and liberation on a world scale. London: Pluto Press. Pratt, M. 1992. Imperial eyes: Travel writing and transculturation. London: Routledge. Sakamoto, R. 1996. Japan, hybridity and the creation of colonialist discourse. Theory, Culture and Society 13 (3): 113–128. Sato, K. 1997. Same language, same race: The dilemma of Kabun in modern Japan. In The construction of racial identities in China and Japan, ed. F. Dikötter, 118–135. London: Hurst. Siddle, R. 1997. Ainu: Japan’s indigenous people. In Japan’s minorities: The illusion of homogeneity, ed. M. Weiner. London: Routledge. Simpson, A. 1993. Xuxa: The mega-marketing of gender, race, and modernity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Skidmore, T. 1974. Black into white: Race and nationality in Brazilian thought. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 1985. Race and class in Brazil: historical perspectives. In Race, class and power in Brazil, ed. P. Fontaine. Los Angeles: Center for AfroAmerican Studies, University of California. ———. 1990. Racial ideas and social policy in Brazil, 1870–1940. In The idea of race in Latin America, 1870–1940, ed. R. Graham. Austin: University of Texas Press. Taylor, Q. 1990. Blacks and Asians in a white city: Japanese Americans and African Americans in Seattle, 1890–1940. Western Historical Quarterly 23 (4): 545–90. Tsunoda, T. 1978. Nihonjin no nou—Nou no hataraki to touzai no bunka. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten. Tsurumi, S. 1987. A cultural history of postwar Japan, 1945–1980. London: KPI. Twine, F. 1998. Racism in a racial democracy: The maintenance of white supremacy in Brazil. New Brunswick, N. J: Rutgers University Press. Vasconcelos, J. 1997. The cosmic race: A bilingual edition. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Wagatsuma, H. 1968. The social perceptions of skin color in Japan. In Color and race, ed. J. Franklin, 129–165. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Worsley, P. 1964. The third world London. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

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———. 1984. The three worlds London. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Wright, W. 1990. Café con leche: Race, class and national image in Venezuela. Austin: University of Texas Press.

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4 White Noise: Australia’s Struggle with Multiculturalism Andrew Jakubowicz

White Australia As with many colonial-settler societies (Stasiulus and Yuval-Davis 1995), Australia is greatly disturbed by its history but apparently unable to deal with it successfully—neither denial nor engagement have worked. During the last decade of the twentieth century, the comfortable assumptions of successful replacement of Indigenous with settler/immigrant peoples and cultures have started to come unstuck. This chapter is an exploration of part of that disturbance, a generation after the White Australia policy was formally abandoned and the Indigenous people were “given” citizenship in their own land. In particular I want to interrogate the tensions around borders and people, played out in the starburst glare of the racist One Nation party, and the armadillo crouch of increasingly restrictive immigration policy after 1996. “White” plays a central part in the historic mythology of Australia. The Immigration Restriction Act of 1902—which framed what was to be called White Australia—was one of the first legislative decisions of the new Commonwealth Parliament after federation of the former British colonies (1901). For its advocates—and few opposed it—White Australia was necessary for three reasons. Social Darwinism had deemed the Asian races to be less developed and premodern, without technological skills or a capacity to innovate in the new capitalist paradise of the south. Secondly, Asians could survive on tiny incomes, lived frugally, and were diseased, and would thus undermine the wages, conditions, and quality of life won by labor unions in bitter struggles. Finally, Asians could not understand democracy, and would thus be incapable of participation in the egalitarian world of the new Commonwealth. But “white” Australia hid many differences—it was a society dominated by the Protestant descendants of the southern English and the

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Scots, with the Catholic Irish and other Celts held in subordinate positions, while southern Europeans such as Italians and Greeks could be perceived as not-quite-white replacements for the expelled Melanesian laborers of the Queensland cane fields. It was a society dominated by men, where white women were held in subordinate positions. It was also a society that would be one of the first to enfranchise women, but also one where Indigenous blacks were classed as fauna, and rounded up to die out in concentration camps (missions and reserves). The dream that Australia carried into the twentieth century was of a white, democratic, egalitarian society, without hierarchies of entrenched inherited privilege, and without an underclass of helots or coolies. For three generations after Federation this was the reality of the society, the worldview of its leaders and citizens, and the milieu into which its children would be socialized. It was intensely fair and decent for all those allowed in to share the wealth, and stubbornly intolerant of those deemed Other and unacceptable.

Diluting White From 1945 on this fantasy came under sustained attack from many directions—Asian liberation movements demonstrated that democracy and modernity were not the purview solely of the West and whites; racism was condemned by the United Nations, and suddenly modernity meant that color and culture could not be used to exclude people; Indigenous struggles pushed for recognition of betrayal and the right to be citizens of the nation that had appropriated their lands; and millions of not-quite-white immigrants sought to be included in the national imaginary. By 1975, White Australia was dead as a policy, however much it lingered in the popular memory. By 1978, the national government had adopted multiculturalism (introduced five years before in lieu of multiracialism) as its policy of cultural relations (replacing the assimilationist thrust of the massive post-1945 immigration program), land rights had been granted to some Indigenous communities, and the first boat people had landed, refugees from the failed imperial wars of Southeast Asia (for detail on this history, see Jakubowicz 1999). The opposition to multiculturalism as a philosophy of interaction and communal change was apparent from the outset of its introduction. The policy after all reversed the idea that new immigrants shuck off the cultural baggage with which they arrived. Indeed it suggested that multicultural Australia would mean the white community would need to change its culture—become bilingual, change its diet and musical tastes, incorporate different histories than that of Britain and its

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Empire into the popular memory. Resentment at these changes was apparent from data reported in early policy reviews such as that entitled “Multiculturalism for all Australians: Our Developing Nationhood” (Australian Council for Population and Ethnic Affairs 1982). Opposition had been evident in the work of conservative philosophers even earlier. By 1985 the opposition to multiculturalism had blossomed further with well-known Australian populist historian Geoffrey Blainey arguing that “minority groups should not have the power to dictate how we should see our past and our future” (for a critique of the debates at this time see Jakubowicz 1985). The apogee of multiculturalism as a government policy can be identified as 1989 with the release of the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia. John Howard, as leader of the Liberal/ National Coalition parties in opposition, had lost the general election of 1988 to Bob Hawke, Labor prime minister. One of the key issues had been Howard’s rejection of multiculturalism as a “social cement” for Australia, and his concern for the undermining of social cohesion by Asian immigration—both positions earlier voiced by Blainey. Public sentiment however was not ready for policies that could still be painted as racist (his rejection sat bitterly on Howard’s tongue, and he would reinvigorate his agenda on his election in 1996). Moreover, with the replacement of Hawke as prime minister by Paul Keating in the early 1990s, the energy that Hawke had brought to issues of multiculturalism was transferred by Keating to Indigenous issues. The Indigenous issue of land rights, which Hawke had sought to contain for the better part of a decade by avoiding any national policy, came to the fore with the victory by a Torres Strait islander, Eddie Mabo, in a claim for native title. Mabo was able to convince the High Court that native title preexisted in Australia (that is, it was not a terra nullius or no one’s land, the most important foundation myth of white invasion/settlement), and furthermore, that the title persisted unless it had been actively overwritten by the British. Keating made a public commitment to resolve the issue and protect Indigenous interests— which he managed, to an extent (though not to Indigenous satisfaction) through the Native Title Act (1993).

Resurgent White For the white Australia of the cattle properties, mining leases, and agribusinesses, native title was an anathema. The white politics of the next five years would be focused on overturning native title and continuing the subordination of Indigenous people. Moreover, in the cities it would also focus on ending multiculturalism as a keystone policy, and

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on reducing immigration, especially from the Middle East and Asia. The election of Howard to lead the coalition government in 1996 brought white politics back to the center, under the rubric of the “mainstream.” The rainbow coalition of multiculturalism and Indigenous rights was pushed to the margins, the center bleached but proud, the edges colorful but suppressed. As Lauchlan Chipman, the conservative opponent of multiculturalism, had proclaimed in 1990, “It is important that Australian policy-makers do not interpret our national commitment to multiculturalism . . . as mandating ethnic pride as an educational or social objective” (9). The curious contradictions of white Australia find expression in the early months of 1996. In February the Celtic fringe of white Australia finally occupied the three most senior public positions—Irish Catholic Australians were prime minister (Paul Keating), chief justice (Sir Gerrard Brennan) and governor general (Sir William Deane representing the queen of Australia). Since that moment Australia has experienced a sustained reassertion of the primacy of white history and culture. While this process has not occurred without criticism and argument, its extraordinary success reflects the deep crisis in Australian culture over its future, as much as its past. Howard’s victory in March, 1996, presaged a systematic attack on the institutions of multiculturalism, Indigenous programs, and human rights. Most of this was done under the banner of combating political correctness. The new prime minister claimed that the previous Labor government had made the Australian population feel that they could not voice their opinions on a raft of issues—in particular ethnic and race relations. The first institution to go was the prime minister’s own Office of Multicultural Affairs, the main adviser to the cabinet on access and equity for ethnic minorities in relation to government services. The office, which had created the Agenda for a Multicultural Australia in 1989 and organized the World Cultural Diversity Conference in April, 1995, was closed. Soon after the closure, the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research, which had been a focus for research on ethnic relations, immigration, and related policies, was terminated. People of non-English-speaking background were no longer to be placed on government bodies such as the Australia Council for the Arts, to ensure the participation of all members. Funding to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which was soon to be inundated by complaints of racial harassment, was also cut back drastically in the August, 1996, budget, and further decimated by the May, 1997, Budget. Most importantly Howard committed himself to overturning the additional advances made by Indigenous people through another

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victory in the High Court—the 1996 Wik case. By 1999 he had managed to reduce Indigenous rights dramatically, particularly the right to negotiate over the use to which their land could be put. In the process reconciliation between the Indigenous and nonindigenous population, a government policy goal for most of the decade, came under enormous strain. Howard had resisted allowing the federal Parliament to apologize to Indigenous people for the removal of children from their parents—a long-term strategy of governments since the early 1900s. Only in August, 1999, did he grudgingly accept a form of words brokered by the only Indigenous member of the federal parliament, which recognized that Indigenous people had suffered under these policies, but offered no apology. The multicultural arena was more confused. The National Multicultural Advisory Council, cleansed of its Labor appointees, came back with a proposal in April, 1999, for an inclusive Australian multiculturalism which would involve all Australians—not just ethnic communities (National Multicultural Advisory Council 1999). The goal was to show the mainstream that it could benefit from acknowledging cultural diversity (the same policy that had been espoused in 1982 and had apparently failed to gain purchase on the public culture for nearly twenty years). In addition, the council recommended that some of the decisions of 1996 be reversed, identifying the need for a policy office at senior if not prime minister level.

Hansonism and One Nation The other major factor which framed policy debates and political activities was the rise of the One Nation party—a right wing populist party drawing support mainly in rural areas, and focused on an ostensibly egalitarian demand for no special benefits for Indigenous or immigrant people. It condemned multiculturalism, land rights, and globalization. It championed white working-class and lower-middle-class culture against the political and cultural elites. Under its national leader, former Liberal Pauline Hanson, it won a significant following in the Queensland state elections of 1997 with 22 percent of the vote. It was the party of white Australia, opposed to Asian immigration, or indeed any immigration, proudly antiintellectual, and aggressively protective of the small-town rural myths of Australia past. It acted as a voice for the angry and injured parts of the population, affected by rapid deindustrialization, the rural crises, and declining government services (Grant 1997; Hage 1998; Manne 1998). While Hanson lost her seat in the 1998 election (despite a 45 percent personal electorate vote), one of her followers was elected to the New South Wales Parliament in the

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March 1999 state election with about 10 percent of the vote, and One Nation had a federal senator with a similar percentage of the Queensland vote. The rise and plateauing of Hansonism provides an instructive insight to the processes of negotiating white identity. The relationship between Hanson and Howard dominated Australian media accounts of the politics of race throughout 1996 and 1997. Pauline Hanson, formerly the selected 1996 Liberal candidate for the safe Labor seat of Oxley in provincial Queensland, was one of the first beneficiaries of the new government’s freedom of expression. Expelled from the Liberal Party1 just before the election for her racist views on Indigenous people and Asians, she was elected as an independent in the landslide that swept Labor from office. Her maiden speech in Parliament in September, 1996, has been seen as a watershed in the advancement of racist values—it denigrated Aborigines, attacked Asians, called for the end to immigration, and put forward a number of right-wing populist nostrums. In April, 1997, she established her own national political party, One Nation, the title echoing the Liberal policies of a decade before that John Howard had unsuccessfully taken to an earlier election. Hanson became an extraordinary political phenomenon. Scarcely a day went past without her appearance in the media, and her rallies across Australia were well attended—and protected by police cordons from angry demonstrators outside. The media relationship with Pauline Hanson was in itself a rather extraordinary phenomenon, as it hinged not so much on her political views, however controversial they may have been, but rather on the reluctance of the prime minister to confront them in a sustained and believable manner. Hanson must have appeared as a godsend for Howard. He could let her make the running through espousing racist ideas and let the media pick up on her radical message to do the social damage for him. He also had anti-multiculturalist and restrictive immigration goals but was not willing to come out so publicly and provocatively. All he had to do was stay silent, and allow the center of the debate on race and immigration to move towards the Right. The media were active participants in this flight to reaction, often though not quite understanding what they were doing, or indeed, what the stories were. Hanson was clearly good copy, but how should she be played? If Howard had come out early on with his own strategy on promoting intercultural dialogue, then the Hanson comet may not have risen so far, so fast, or so brightly. But he did not. So gradually the story shifted from her comments and pronouncements, which were of little interest after their initial launch, to a more bizarre cat-and-mouse exploration of what Howard really stood for. How far would he let her go before seizing back the

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initiative, which on such a central policy issue should have been his without question? Hanson then became the bait, in some contemporary Hemingwayesque version of The Old Man and the Sea. But the Big One (Howard) would not bite. The bait had to be made larger and more noisome, more attractive and challenging, until he would be incapable of resisting. Then he would charge, take the reeking flesh, and choke on the barb now deep in his throat. The media could then haul him in, gaff him, and hang him up to bleed dry. He had been through that experience once before, in 1988, and it had cost him the election and the leadership of the Liberal Party. It could happen again and he was in no hurry to feed, when the piranha fish of the press were just waiting for him to bite. The media took on the Hanson story with fascination, beguiled by the hypnotic power of her shrill voice, deadpan illogicality, and critical popularity amongst some 20 percent of the voters who identified closely with her positions. The phony war lasted until September, 1996, and her “maiden” speech, when with all barrels she moved on the paranoias of the dark side of Australian society. The journalists hardly knew which way to jump. Should they condemn her, ignore her, applaud her as the little Aussie battler, the feisty woman in the viper’s pit of the House of Reps, analyze her, profile her, present her as the creature of her new momentary Svengali, her press advisor John Pasqualini? They tried out all these approaches. And yet she seemed to have a dream run, playing them as they thought they were playing her. Hanson’s claim to speak for the mainstream has raised some interesting problems for the media. After her appearance on the Midday Show (September 12, 1996) on channel 9, where she was verbally and almost physically attacked by Indigenous activist Charles Perkins, her stocks seemed to have soared, with the channel claiming a huge phonein of support for her position: KERRI-ANNE KENNERLEY (MIDDAY HOST): Well it was not only that audience there. Last week Pauline Hanson was on the day after her maiden speech. We ran a poll following that and we had something like 55,000 telephone calls on the 0055 number. AGNES WARREN: That’s extraordinary, isn’t it? KERRI-ANNE KENNERLEY: It was. And that was within two hours. National calls: 94 percent—and those figures we gave the next day—94 percent agreed with Pauline Hanson. (The Media Report, ABC Radio National, September 19, 1996).

On Alan Jones (top rating radio talk show host on Sydney radio 2UE), Hanson again advanced her views and was supposedly

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overwhelmingly supported in her position by a massive 90 percent plus majority of phone-ins on a polling line. This response at the very least reflected the nature of the audience available and interested in Jones and similar spirits of the populist right. It was no surprise— though it did show the depth of alienation that the conservative working class and petty bourgeoisie, and female, populations had from the heartland of the old bourgeois elite consensus. It also reflected a gender issue—the delight that women in particular take when they see a “feisty” woman, as Hanson has often been described, serving it up to the men, be they “honest John” Howard or the Labor boys associated with the Keating regime. Kerri-Anne Kennerley commented to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (the national broadcaster) Agnes Warren, that “When she [Pauline Hanson] warms up, she is a very fiery, very, very strong woman, and she presents her case in very simple language. And it is tapping into something in the Australian community. So she doesn’t get abusive. Whether or not what she says everybody agrees with, is beside the point. I think she’s tapping in to a lot of Australians who say, “What about me?” She is tapping in to Australia going “Excuse me, I’ve got a mortgage; I’ve got 2.3 children, I work hard. What about me?” (The Media Report, ABC Radio National, September 19, 1996). Hanson’s capacity to work the media, even if by accident, became one of her most redoubtable characteristics. For instance, the whole Parliament rose to her call on October 31, 1996, when it passed a resolution, opposed only by independent former Labor member and “racist” Graeme Campbell, condemning racism and reaffirming tolerance (though not land rights or multiculturalism). Hanson was not present. It was as though she intended to make a clear statement of her absence reflecting her disdain for the conservative leadership and in particular, the Prime Minister John Howard. The press headlines summarized her victory on the day “But where was Pauline Hanson?”(Daily Telegraph) “Hanson leaves Campbell to stand alone” (Australian), or “Hanson absent as MPs join to deplore racism” (Sydney Morning Herald). She developed a careful game plan with the media, selecting those with whom she could have a mutually exploitative relationship. Hanson decided to avoid the Australian Broadcasting Corporation altogether—and also, as it turned out, Ray Martin’s top rating commercial program A Current Affair (Channel 9). Her boycott of the ABC was partly based on a claim, denied hotly by the ABC journalists involved, that the words “white trash” directed at her by Aboriginal women during an early televised visit to an Aboriginal community were edited out of the material that went to air. Martin was banned because

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of his antagonistic views on her public statements, and his “bias” as a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. In a revealing live interview in March, 1997, on ABC radio’s Media Report, Hanson’s former media advisor John Pasqualini described the process of working the media in the name of whiteness. Hanson and Pasqualini had a very clear sense of their audience, and they knew that the ABC would not give them a “fair go.” (A painting of Hanson as Joan of Arc that appeared in the press has her being burned at the stake by a cleric with the double sine curve logo of the ABC on his helmet.) Her views were designed to appeal to that cross section of society who identified themselves as mainstream ordinary Aussies—not well educated, but with a sense of mateship, egalitarianism, and commitment to family and country. This process reached its height with the production of the Australian version of 60 Minutes in October, 1996. This single most culturally important media piece on Hanson in 1996 had her traveling to Palm Island, a former prison camp off the Queensland coast, to meet with local Murri (Aboriginal) women. It was a harsh confrontation, with all the power of televisual immediacy—Hanson castigating the women for their lack of hygiene or care for rubbish in the environment, the women chiding her for her emotional and intellectual immaturity. In the same show we met the rest of her family of birth—mother, the brothers, and so forth. Pauline Hanson’s mother provided an archetypal model for someone imbued with the spirit of Federation and the struggle for national identity. She noted that from her childhood she had been warned about the yellow races and how they would come in and take over everything if given half a chance. For Mother Hanson, it was as though the eroticized imaginary of the Mongol octopus raping the virginal body of the young Australia (as in the Phil May cartoons from The Bulletin, a national weekly magazine in the 1880s and 1890s) haunted her nightmares and fantasies, and saturated the domestic world in which the young Pauline learned the perils of the real world. As the media saga of Hanson developed, one could begin to see ever more clearly what Julia Kristeva (1993) has referred to as the sadomasochistic component of nationalisms and those who draw out the Other. The right-wing provocative commentators on talk-back radio had a field day—a putative member of their audience had become bigger than life and was prepared to play with them. Only Sydney Radio’s John Laws (an old Keating confident) found it all just a little too much, trying to hold John Howard to account and gaining only the astonishing admission that in the new political environment the “black armband” view of history was gone. In keeping with the times, talk

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show radio was now the center of political policy. Every time Hanson made a statement, she was on a talk show to garner support from the audiences. Howard rarely appeared; only Tim Fischer (then deputy prime minister, National Party leader, former army officer during the Vietnam War, the only Catholic and non-Anglo in the cabinet), a globalist aware of the fallout from the craziness around the region, was involved in confronting Hanson. Through 1997 the Hanson impact grew. Over the summer the media murmured that she was finished—Pasqualini sacked and no comments emerging from her office. Then in April she launched her own political group, the One Nation Party. In May, with rising support in the rural heartland of the National Party and in the wake of the launch, Howard finally spoke out against her in a speech that attacked her ideas but not her right to espouse them, however unfortunate the social consequences (including a massive surge in racist attacks and complaints of racism). The populist media saw in Hanson a source of continuing entertainment, as if to say, “Racism can be fun and her fundamental morality may be skewed but it speaks, as we do, for and to the great unwashed.” They seemed to say, “Look how upset people get; conflict makes a story. Hanson is conflict on every front and with a bonus, whatever she says under parliamentary privilege is a free ride: no problems of defamation, racial hatred, or anything else! And our readers get very excited by her—she’s not bright (neither are they) but she’s tough; she’s been through the mill and she’ll let no one run her over. It’s like the Iron Man race, or a Tyson fight. How much punishment can she dish out; how much can she take? What scalps can she claim? What, even that John The Croc Pasquarelli can’t survive her and he’s as mean as you get! Well, hey, she’s our girl!” By the national election of 1998 the National Party was hurting from Hanson’s growing power. Her One Nation Party had gained strong support in the Queensland state elections in 1997, and looked like it might unseat National Party parliamentarians (indeed winning a Senate seat from them). The National Party began a major organizing struggle against One Nation, offering a number of populist policies in competition, and pushing hard against Indigenous rights, especially associated with the 1996 Wik decision. The effect was to undercut the most racist of the One Nation policies, at the cost of incorporating some of the policies into the mainstream of the Coalition of the Liberal and National Parties, which formed the conservative government after 1996. The strategy paid off despite a good overall showing (One Nation captured 9 percent of the primary vote—far more than the National Party but unlike theirs, this vote was dispersed across the country and thus did not return any Lower House members of parliament).

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While multiculturalism appears to have failed to gain endorsement from a significant if minority element in Australia, there are serious questions about why this might be the case. Hage (1998) has suggested the elite has failed to understand the pain of the working-class experience of reconstruction, and has callously disregarded the fears about changing cultural expressions—their neighbourhoods are changing and no one seems to care. Many of the antimulticulturalists have also argued that multiculturalism systematically denigrates white culture, and they seek to reassert the importance of white Australian achievements (Betts 1999; Sheehan 1998). Howard has been a major proponent of this latter perspective, and though he condemned Hansonism and campaigned against it in the period prior to the 1998 election, there were many of its tenets with which he could identify.

Boundary Riding In the curious world of whiteness, the nation’s boundaries become crucial symbols of the social relations within. The Australian government after 1996 turned on immigration and immigrants as a source of major danger to the social cohesion of the society—all the while claiming that race and color were not the issue; however, all the negative outcomes seemed primarily to affect nonwhites. In June, 1999, Prime Minister Howard faced off against arriving flotillas, if not armadas, of rust buckets carrying illegal immigrants. Coming aground on reefs and beaches from Cape York in northern Australia to the New South Wales southeast coast, these vanguards of the people-smuggling epidemic were the increasing signs of the renascent threat from the north—the Yellow Peril and the inexorable logic of cartographic gravity. As part of its overall attack on political correctness, the government addressed immigration as a critical symbol of the dis-ease amongst the masses with elite political ideology. Immigration would be cut back and provision for settlement cut to the bone—immigrants would be driven back from the gravy train and put in their place at the back of the pack. Major changes in the rhetoric of immigration were almost the first indication of the wider new social agenda that the Howard government would be implementing. The government strategy was set within a long public debate about immigration levels, sources, and implications. In a detailed assessment of public opinion polling on immigration questions, Murray Goot has described the situation: “For parts of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s—the post-war decade when settler arrivals were at their highest—Australia’s immigration program enjoyed widespread support. . . . Most of the polls, especially those taken since the mid-1980s, have registered majority opposition. . . .

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While there is clear evidence of majority opposition to the size of the migrant intake through most of the 1980s and 1990s, this does not mean that the issue of immigration has weighed very heavily on the public” (1999, 37). One could conclude then, that even though the issue had some salience, it was far less important than critical social issues such as health and unemployment, which the government would find rather more intractable to policy initiatives. One could hypothesize that immigration and immigrants were soft targets, useful as demonstration arenas for government rhetoric, rather than make or break questions which could determine the outcome of elections. More particularly, neither the Labor Party nor any other organized political lobby would be likely to defend their interests, and the systematic attack on immigration from both One Nation and the white backlash (Sheehan 1998) had changed the public perception of immigrant rights. Goot notes in particular that “the rise in the electoral salience of immigration postdated Pauline Hanson’s first parliamentary speech; it didn’t precede it” (1999, 37). Speaking in early 1998, two years after the Coalition’s landslide election victory, Liberal Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock laid out the broad principles and pragmatics of the government reform agenda. He opened with the issue of integrity, and focused on the erosion of integrity generated by “sham marriages,” “queue jumping,” and people using their legal rights to delay their expulsion (1998, 4). The other major issue for Minister Ruddock was that of “balance,” a code word for a strategy to reduce immigration from countries with a higher likelihood of sending people into unemployment in Australia, or from countries which were utilizing the family reunion program rather too heavily (that is, Asia). The government identified immigration as being relevant to social, economic, environmental, and humanitarian objectives. In essence, these adjectives summarize the critical lobby groups pressuring the government: • •

•

the antiimmigration backlash in the populist movements such as One Nation; the proimmigration push from industry and commerce, especially in housing and domestic goods (but also from the Victorian government under Liberal maverick premier Jeff Kennett); the green movement’s sustained attack on population growth and its ecological impacts (as echoed by New South Wales Labor premier Bob Carr’s antipathy to new settlement in the Sydney basin); and

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the refugee and church lobbies concerned with expanding Australia’s role in buffering international crises and their impact on vulnerable populations.

Australia has had a major government-supported immigration program for over fifty years—a program that has been a crucial part of the economic growth strategy of governments of all persuasions. While in the 1960s over 200,000 immigrants entered the country annually, by 1997/98 settler arrivals were down to some 77,000, with settler departures resulting in a net gain of only 45,000, down 10,000 from the previous year and 25,000 from the year before. In 1987/88 the settler arrivals had been 143,000. The relative role of source countries was also changing. In the bicentennial year of 1988, 43,000 settlers had come from Europe and the then USSR, 29,000 from Southeast Asia, 26,000 from Oceania (mainly New Zealand), and under 13,000 from Northeast Asia. Ten years later Europe and the former USSR still remained the leading source of immigrants (19,000), while 18,000 came from Oceania, 10,000 from Northeast Asia and less than 10,000 came from Southeast Asia. Most of this immigration is white, though the relative proportion from Europe and Asia has remained about the same. Globalization has torn into the social fabric of Australia, increasing the division between rich and poor, concentrating wealth in a small and increasingly affluent segment of the population. This wealthy sector is locked into, parasitic on, and participant in the expansionary element of international capital and its administrative managers. So much is this so that cities such as Sydney now have two faces—a global one, with its eyes focused on the Pacific Rim, Asia, and Europe, and a local one, eyes turned towards the inland, gazing at the smoldering wreckage of industry, mortgaged family farms, and dying rural towns. Immigrants mark this globalization in the everyday—the refugee Somalis who walk the streets of Sydney’s Campsie (a working class suburb in the inner west of Sydney), the unemployed Vietnamese of Richmond in Melbourne, or the Chinese names in the headlines about arrested heroin smugglers. Yet they are also the BMW-driving commodity traders of upper north shore Sydney, or the bank managers of Toorak, or the clothing designers of Little Bourke Street. Their companies style hair on Middle levels, one of the most expensive housing and shopping areas on Hong Kong Island, and in the flash underground malls of the advertising agency belt of North Sydney. They also clean the government offices of Parramatta and drive the trams down Swanson Street. Their presence is a signal of the changes in the wider

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world, and their daily appearance in the familiar milieu of an older and whiter Australia can serve as not merely symbolic of change, but the apparent trigger of social distress. For that older Australia, including many people who themselves had migrated from Europe in a more comfortable and less stressed age, the new immigrants should not be in Australia. In their view, they take local jobs, they have strange habits, they do not believe in the same things “we” do, and they owe no allegiance to the Australian tradition. They are mollycoddled by government and get all sorts of preferential treatment. These myths have become amplified in a public sphere where government rhetoric has emphasized the corrupt elements among immigrants, drawing on graphic imagery designed to rouse antagonism and hatred: raids on itinerant fruit pickers, “illegals” employed on rural Victorian farms because there is no local labor willing to work for the rock bottom wages offered; Social Security frauds, where single mothers strung out on heroin are lambasted for their criminality and social irresponsibility; huge unemployment rates in suburbs where industry left long ago, and where young men congregate, listless and selfloathing, testosterone aching for a sense of focused violence. The government and its media partners have become most adept at these strategies. The television stations have video files stocked with appropriate footage, rolled out whenever a new moral panic is needed. The systematic scapegoating of immigrants has allowed a deepening chasm to be drawn around them, where they are represented as the evil of the outside world brought within, the acid of the Other poured onto the path before the nation. Australians have a long history of fear of invasion. The early 1950s were saturated with political posters of the inexorable red/yellow tide, pouring over the equator and accelerating in the downhill slope that would deliver them in a flood into northern Australia. Australia’s media accounts of the Indonesian political crisis have resonated with the softly spoken but deeply embedded concern that 10,000 refugee boats could launch from Surabaya in a day, and the Brisbane line (the line above which Australia would be sacrificed to the invading Japanese army in 1940s strategy) would have to be resurrected to defend the south. Over the past quarter century the penetration phobia has grown, fed regularly by cascades of boat people arriving as refugees from Vietnam, and then as smuggled goods from ports across southern China. Yet the phobia reflects a fairly minor element in Australia’s immigration intake despite a “240 percent increase” according to Ruddock (1999a) in illegal boat arrivals from 1997/98 to 1998/99 (from 157 to 534). Over 80 percent have been returned to their countries of origin,

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and the vast majority of illegals arrive by air (some 2,100 expected in 1998/99). Prior to 1999 the illegal inflow by sea was rapidly decreasing from over 1,000 in 1995/95, while those denied entry at airports had been rising rapidly. And yet of the 51,000 “overstayers” in Australia at the end of 1997, 11 percent came from the U.K., 9 percent from the United States, and only 5 percent from China. About 25 percent had been in the country more than nine years (Australian Dept. of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs 1999). There was some evidence in 1999 that people smuggling had started to increase, and the government made much of these events to justify its harder line on entry and to defend its detention practices. Incoming illegals, it was claimed, would destroy their documents and then on arrival seek a protection visa.2 They were dangerous, subversive, and bent on undermining Australia’s freedoms. The Immigration Department provides some information about the boat arrivals. China, Iraq, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka provided the largest groups of boat arrivals in 1997/98. Some 123 boats were identified in the period from November, 1989 to June, 1999, with the last of these carrying 12 Afghani adults, running onto Ashmore Reef—a common final resting place for Turkish, Afghani, and Bangladeshi entrants. The boats had been edging closer to Sydney, with detections near Port Kembla and Broken Bay (mainly Chinese) in May, 1999. Of the 3,980 who had arrived in the ten years after 1989, 615 gained refugee status, 75 were given humanitarian entry, 2,648 were expelled, some 564 remained in custody, and 6 escaped. The government response to this challenge focused on increased coastal patrolling and the location of more detection officers in Australia and at overseas missions. New compliance officers were to be placed in Shanghai, Guangzhou, New Delhi, Colombo, Nairobi, Pretoria, and Ankara. Additional airports would be targeted—Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Denpasar, Singapore, and Dubai—to interdict people attempting to board aircraft without valid visas. New legislation increased the penalties on people smuggling to up to twenty years in jail and fines of up to A$220,000 (US $115,000) (Ruddock 1999c). In particular, close liaison was to occur with China and Indonesia, with Prime Minister Howard praising Australia’s close relationship with the Chinese government in his visit to Washington in July, 1999, and Foreign Minister Downer claiming Australia’s relations with China were the best they had been since 1972. In May, 1999, Minister Ruddock had participated in a twenty-nation conference on migration in Bangkok, where a series of multilateral measures were agreed upon to control people smuggling. The key move was to

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reduce the potential for the use of the protection visa system (Ruddock 1999 a,e).

Detention and Human Rights While the government has gained populist approval for its systematic attack on the rights of people arriving in Australia, the response from human rights bodies has been far less approving (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission 1998a). The two most important areas of concern have been the reduction of appeal opportunities and the process of detention itself. The government has argued that it must send strong signals to those who might try to “jump the queues,” or gain access illegally, that they will be detected, seized and expelled, and the experience will be none too enjoyable. Thus it must reduce the opportunities to use the legal system by cutting back rights of appeal and tightening up the review tribunal process, and reducing if not eliminating access to legal aid. The government sought to present the illegals as the primary cause of the overload on the legal system, yet the Auditor General found in 1998 that of the 60,000 applications for protection visas, fewer than 1,000 were from boat people, and the vast majority were from people arriving legally in Australia, who then applied for the visa (a fact recognized by the creation of an “on-shore” refugee category in migration planning from 1996). The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission reported to the attorney general in May, 1998, that “the policy of mandatory detention of most unauthorized arrivals breaches international human rights standards which permit detention only where necessary,” and noted that “these standards are incorporated into Australian law.” Furthermore, “[t]he policy of mandatory detention leads to prolonged detention in many cases. . . . [I]n those circumstances they violate Australia’s human rights commitments.” The commission recommended that “[I]n accordance with international human rights law the right to liberty should be recognized as a fundamental human right. No-one should be subject to arbitrary detention. The detention of asylum seekers should be a last resort for use only on exceptional grounds.” Minister Ruddock rejected the report’s claims, declaring in June, 1999, that the report was “totally unacceptable,” and that the detention practices would continue “as long as illegal entrants concern the community and government. . . . [T]here is no validity to the claims in the report that we are contravening international obligations.” The Minister did note however that of the 94 recommendations regarding the poor conditions in the detention camps, 35 were fully supported and 37 were accepted in part (Ruddock 1999d).

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If the nation is being illicitly penetrated, then that is not the only problem. Those who enter licitly also have to do the hard yards. Soon after its election, in the context of the 1996 budget, the outgoing Labor government’s undisclosed budget deficit referred to as the “Black Hole” by the incoming conservative government, and the swingeing cuts to government spending, immigrants were identified as a potential source of expenditure reduction. The aim was to reduce entitlements, and link access to social provision not to residence and economic contribution, but to citizenship status or entitlement (Social Security Legislation Amendment, Newly Arrived Resident’s Waiting Periods and Other Measures Act, 1997). Immigrants had their entitlement to social security and unemployment benefits withdrawn until they had been in the country for two years, and their entitlement to emergency welfare payments limited to severe criteria (“substantial change of circumstances beyond their control”) (Koller 1997). Thus they would have no income support in relation to job seeking or English language acquisition on arrival (Koller 1998).

Some Conclusions about White Australia White Australia remains a complex and contradictory idea. “White” refers to European, but some Europeans are whiter than others, for example British and northeastern Europeans as compared with southern Europeans. Yet all Europeans are white compared to East Asians and Indians, and sometimes Chinese people are “whiter” than Vietnamese. Australian Chinese may have very white values, identifying with Australian white history against Australian black history, or newer Asian arrivals. But what is white culture and history? Is one bound to a particular reading of the past because of skin color or assumed culture? Can one be antiracist and white? Or is white about culture rather than color? Is “white” a way of saying “racist?” Does “white” mean democratic and egalitarian and courageous? Or the reverse? There is a central disturbance in Australian political and cultural life which is generated by all these questions. In the face of rapid change, white becomes both the pigment on the brush and the canvas on which the images are painted. White civilization is under stress, in part because being white on the edge of Asia is becoming extremely uncomfortable, and there is no simple map of the path to be taken.

Notes 1. In Australia, the Liberal Party is the politically conservative party similar in position to the UK Conservative Party.

124 Andrew Jakubowicz 2. A protection visa is granted for a period of three years less one day to an asylum seeker who has met some refugee criteria. Neither a refugee visa nor an expulsion order, the protection visa prohibits the use of social services, refugee education services, and limits the holder’s rights to be reunited with family.

References Australia Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. 1999. Unauthorized arrivals by air and sea. Fact Sheet. Canberra: DIMA. Australian Council for Population and Ethnic Affairs (J. Zubrzycki, chair). 1982. Multiculturalism for all Australians: Our developing nationhood. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Betts, K. 1999. The great divide: Immigration politics in Australia. Sydney: Duffy and Snellgrove. Blainey, G. 1985. Minority groups steal the spotlight: The Mt. Eliza Uniting Church community lecture. Church and Nation 194: 12–14. Chipman, L. 1978. Multicultural myth. Quadrant March: 50–55. ———. 1980. The menace of multi-culturalism. Quadrant 24 (10): 3–6. ———. 1990. A case of equality equalling absurdity. Canberra Times November 20: 9. Goot, M. 1999. Migrant numbers, Asian immigration and multiculturalism: Trends in the polls, 1943–1998. In Australian multiculturalism for a new century: Part 2 statistical appendix. Canberra: National Multicultural Advisory Council. Grant, B., ed. 1997. Pauline Hanson: One Nation and Australian politics. Armidale, NSW: University of New England Press. Hage, G. 1998. White nation. Sydney: Pluto. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. 1998a. Asylum Seekers. http://www.hreoc.gov.au/human_rights/asylum/index.html. ———. 1998b. Those who’ve come across the seas: Detention of unauthorised arrivals. HREOC. http://www.hreoc.gov.au/human_rights/detention/index. html Jakubowicz, A. 1985. Racism, multiculturalism and the immigration debate in Australia: A bibliographic essay. Sage Race Relations Abstracts 10 (3): 1–15. ———. 1999. Making multicultural Australia: A multimedia documentary. Sydney: Board of Studies New South Wales. Koller, S. 1997. Unequal treatment for newly arrived migrants under the Social Security Act. Australian Journal of Human Rights 4 (1): 169–74. ———. 1998. Waiting for a fair go. Alternative Law Journal 23 (3): 136–38. Kristeva, J. 1993. Nations without nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Manne, R., ed. 1998. Two nations: The causes and effects of the rise of the One Nation Party in Australia. Melbourne: Bookman. National Multicultural Advisory Council 1999. Australian multiculturalism for a new century: Towards inclusiveness. Canberra: National Multicultural Advisory Council. Ruddock, P. 1998a. Immigration reform: The unfinished agenda. Address to National Press Club, Canberra, March 18. ———. 1999a. More illegals arrive as smugglers target Australia. Media release, Ministerial Press Statement (MPS) 91/99. ———. 1999b. Illegals cost taxpayers tens of millons in accommodation and legal costs. Media Release MPS 91/99. ———. 1999c. New initiatives to stop illegal boat arrivals wins Minister Ruddock’s approval. Media Release MPS 102/99. ———. 1999d. Minister rejects report’s claims on detention policy. Media Release MPS 104/99. ———. 1999e. Ruddock welcomes the Senate’s passing of people smuggling legislation. Media Release MPS 107/99. Sheehan, P. 1998. Among the barbarians: The dividing of Australia. Sydney: Random House. Stasiulis, D., and N. Yuval-Davis, eds. 1995. Unsettling settler societies: Articulations of gender, race, ethnicity and class. London: Sage.

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Part II Studies in Whiteness

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5 A Room without a View: Social Distance and the Structuring of Privileged Identity Michael Alan Sacks and Marika Lindholm

Introduction The last decade has witnessed a burgeoning of sociological analyses that focus on the social construction of race and ethnicity. A more recent strand of this research explores the social construction of whiteness (Frankenberg 1993; Mahony 1997; Gallagher 1998). Understanding why being white is a learned phenomenon (Simon 1998, 498) helps reveal the links between oppression and privileged identity, yet privilege is more than just an outcome of whiteness. This chapter takes the next step by examining the social construction of multiple layers of privilege for upper-middle-class white men. We argue that privilege is maintained by the social structure that protects dominant groups from the experience of oppression. We use the term “the social distance of privilege” to connote the structural reality of those who are advantaged along several dimensions. Our analysis focuses on three outcomes of social distance: symbolic and alternative identity formation, a disjuncture between philosophy and action, and cultural imperialism. Analyzing each outcome reveals that the structurally advantaged are less likely to recognize the existence of a system of stratification as well as their complicity in maintaining that system. The term “social distance” was first coined in the 1920s by Emory Bogardus (1928) to describe feelings of discomfort between whites and nonwhites. Analyzing whites’ willingness to interact with minorities in a variety of social situations, he generated a social distance scale that measured attitudes around social intimacy (Doob 1999, 18; Rothman 1999, 113). In contrast to Bogardus, who focused on attitudes about interpersonal detachment, we use the term “social distance” to describe a structural phenomenon associated with multiple layers of privilege. In all likelihood we would find feelings of social distance between the advantaged and disadvantaged; however, we argue that these attitudes 129

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are a result of the structural reality of social distance that is constructed by patterns of disparate experience dictated by identity. For the purposes of this analysis we focus on triple privilege1 a specific combination of identities that curry societal favor in terms of race, class, and gender. Triple privilege exemplifies the advantaged structural reality of the social distance of privilege since “for every oppressed group there is a group that is privileged in relation to that group” (Young 1990, 42). McIntosh metaphorically describes the privilege of white men as “an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (1992, 71). These “special provisions” protect white men from having to understand the plight of others. McIntosh further argues that even men who admit that they are privileged “may say that they will work to improve women’s status . . . but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s [privilege]” (72). Indeed, past research has noted that men typically have a more limited understanding of sexism as compared to women (Kimmel 1993). Similarly, whites are relatively unaware of racial injustice (Gerzon 1992) and the wealthy fail to comprehend the impact of economic oppression (Kozol 1991). Much like the double privilege that McIntosh discusses, triple privilege characterizes a significant outcome of social distance—its bearers have very few opportunities to experience and understand oppression. The term “triple privilege” does not imply that all three forms of privilege are necessarily equal or that we have a clear additive model in which each identity forms a specified layer of social distance. Rather, triple privilege is meant to convey a combination of identities that are congruent with and rewarded by the dominant culture. Additionally, we do not measure or analyze which of the three privileged identities reaps the most benefits or creates the most social distance. Our aim is to examine the impact of owning all three advantaged identities. Triple privilege is not a fixed construct; an individual’s experience is shaped by each identity, yet the particular form of identity preference and validation is in flux and contingent on social context. For example, gender privilege may not be salient for a man in a male-dominated environment; however, in the same environment, race or class may become the key delineator of status and experience. The specific benefits reaped due to identity are constantly contextualized and recontextualized based on the situation and the setting. We are interested in the overarching and combined impact of multiple layers of privilege instead of trying to determine a hierarchy of identity and privilege.2 Just as black feminists assert that separate analyses of gender and race often force women of color to fragment their experience

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in ways that do not reflect the reality of their lives (Spelman 1988; Collins 1993; Roberts 1995), and scholars of urban poverty recognize that the class/race debate in sociology is a false dichotomy (MacLeod 1995), layers of privilege are not analytically distinct. These layers are woven together to create a particular pattern of privilege that is more than the sum of its parts. Due to the structural reality of social distance, the social construction of privilege is decidedly different from that of ethnic identity formation. Although scholars (Mahoney 1997; Gallagher 1998) assert that whiteness is becoming increasingly visible, we find that identity patterns of white upper-middle-class men revolve primarily around privilege, rather than any specific identity group to which they belong. Additionally, privileged identity is constructed around recent threats to dominants’ privileged status. Identity struggles and discourse have not provided a prism through which the privileged can objectively view their place in the social structure. Rather, their identity is increasingly constructed around the misguided belief that they are losing out to women and minorities. Thus, we argue that the social construction of triple privilege is a process of defending and distancing that upholds the stratification system by attenuating the distance between the advantaged and disadvantaged. Following a description of our methods and data, this chapter is divided into analytic sections that focus on three outcomes of social distance. The first section describes the way in which the social distance of privilege leads to the formation of symbolic and alternative identities. The second section focuses on how social distance enables the privileged to hold egalitarian ideals while behaving in discriminatory ways. The third section examines how cultural imperialism universalizes the experiences of the privileged and differentially impacts dominant and nondominant identity formation. We conclude by addressing the practical and theoretical implications of our analysis, as well as providing suggestions for future research on the social construction of privilege.

Methods and Data Our analysis is based on two-hour interviews with sixteen white male undergraduates whom we interviewed at two prestigious universities— one in the Midwest and the other on the West Coast. The men were generally a homogenous group—identifying themselves as heterosexual, from upper-middle- to upper-class families, who had their college tuition paid for by their parents. The mean age was 20.5 years old, and all had parents who had earned at least a bachelor’s degree, while half had earned master’s degree’s, and 6 had earned doctorates. We chose to

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interview undergraduates on college campuses because one would be hard pressed to find a setting as laden with issues of identity and diversity. For many upper-middle-class white male undergrads, a university campus is in all likelihood the most diverse social environment they have ever negotiated, where they are confronting issues of race, class, and gender identity for the first time. Consequently, of all upper-middle-class white men, undergrads would be most likely to develop a consciousness of their own privilege. Focusing on issues of identity, we conducted semistructured interviews while encouraging our subjects to respond in a direction important to them. Open-ended questions served to avoid a rigid interview structure that could bias the way interviewees discussed their identity (Kvale 1988). This type of approach is especially effective for exploratory qualitative research around issues of identity since the parameters of a social setting are not readily apparent (Miles and Huberman 1994, 35). Internal validity was strengthened by conducting our interviews in a variety of locations over a year and a half time period. This reduced the possibility that factors unique to a particular setting or time period could bias the findings. The interviews were conducted by the first author, an upper-middle-class white male, which presented advantages and disadvantages in regard to the data collection process. On the one hand, we believed that there was a greater likelihood that the students would feel comfortable speaking to a white man due to the effect of homophily which enhances trust and ease of communication. On the other hand, we anticipated frequent responses such as “you know,” which assumed that further explanations weren’t necessary. We tried to minimize this concern by asking for explanation and clarification when such responses were elicited. We felt that sixteen interviews were appropriate because our aim was to conduct an original investigation of the experience of multiple layers of privilege. Our efforts were focused on developing theoretical constructs rather than on testing the representativeness of our findings. Our hope is that future research will build upon our initial theoretical framework.

Analysis Symbolic and Alternative Identity Formation among the Triply Privileged In this section, we argue that symbolic and alternative identity formation is a consequence of social distance for the triply privileged. Symbolic identity refers to identity that is voluntary in nature and

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only expressed when there is no real social cost to the individual (Gans 1979; Waters 1990). A weak identification with symbolic identities gives rise to the formation of alternative identities. This stands in sharp contrast to marginalized groups who, in reaction to the daily reality of oppression, form more “authentic identities” around their race, class, or gender (Yinger 1994, 148). As Aguirre and Turner explain, “The greater the level of discrimination and the more it is institutionalized across many social arenas, then the more likely is a subpopulation to retain a distinctive ethnic identity. . . . Conversely the less the discrimination practiced against an identifiable subpopulation, the less distinctive will be its ethnicity” (1995, 32). Social distance protects our sample from discrimination due to their race, class, or gender. Thus, as Waters (1990) points out, they have the option to form alternative identities and tap into their symbolic identity when it is not a “liability” In terms of symbolic identity, several of our interviewees expressed a weak identification with a specific white ethnic group. This finding concurs with the work of Lieberson and Waters, who argue that “there are a substantial number of people who recognize that they are white, but lack any clear-cut identification with, and/or knowledge of, a specific European origin” (1988, 264). Our sample tended to qualify their membership as “very removed” and “just Jewish, but only culturally, and not really strongly so.” Upon further probing, it was found that these men had very little contact with their white ethnic cultures, and knew little about them. Two of the students attended cultural events, but only occasionally and “more to meet people than celebrate being Jewish.” Gans (1979) asserts that for whites, identification with one’s white ethnic roots often represents nothing more than a faint desire to maintain a vestige of feeling for this background without a demonstrated effort to participate in ethnic behavior or the establishment and continuation of ethnic ties. These men openly stated no real effort to participate in ethnic behavior, and only two of the sixteen maintained ethnic ties, but “only from time to time.” We were not surprised that our sample formed symbolic identities around white ethnicity, rather than class or gender. Consider that most Americans label themselves as middle class regardless of their true location in the class structure and that our national consciousness denies the existence of class (Mantsios 1992; Domhoff 1998, 74). In all likelihood, similar interviews in a nation such as Britain with a higher level of class consciousness would reveal symbolic identification with class identity. Our sample’s symbolic attention to white ethnicity does not challenge our original premise that privilege is more than simply whiteness; our interviewees were only weakly associated with

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their symbolic identity and instead related more strongly with their alternative identities. It is in these alternative identities that we see the expression and reproduction of privilege most clearly. Alternative identity formation is a significant outcome of social distance since our sample’s identification with groups outside of class, gender, or race/ethnicity divisions leads to the reinforcement of privilege. For our respondents, alternative identities created in groups such as fraternities, sports teams, and clubs may even serve to shelter dominants from recognizing their location in the social structure since these groups are not framed around a reaction to an awareness of oppression. This is in stark contrast to marginalized groups that form solidarity around the identities in which they are oppressed (Yinger 1994). For example, many Latinos identify with their ethnic heritage, and these strongly held identities form a broader sense of community where members rally together to address common problems (Mürguîa 1975, 8–18). While elaborate rituals exist to maintain cohesion among dominants (Domhoff 1998), there isn’t a strong consciousness developed around race, class, or gender identity. One of our subjects illustrated this point by saying, “There’s really nothing to identify with as a white man— there’s no rally point, so you find other things.” An outcome of social distance for oppressed groups is that identity formation leads to a critique of the social system, while for our sample the construction of alternative identities further reduces the probability of understanding oppression. Thus, alternative identity formation is one of the ways in which the structural reality of social distance is self-perpetuating. For most of our respondents, sports teams, fraternities, and campus organizations became their primary identity group. Many of our interviewees spoke of these associations as intrinsic to who they were as individuals. Moreover, their day-to-day activities were often organized around their membership in these groups: Like I said, a lot of the guys from the team hang out together, so we’ll go to parties together, or go out for drinks or to eat. There’s usually something going on every weekend. The cool thing is that you don’t have to do these things if you don’t want to. We do try to spend a lot of time together as a team, but there’s no strong pressure like we’re being forced to. . . . My best friends are from the team.

Most of the sample shared similar strong associations with clubs, teams, and organizations. For example, another respondent who considers his fraternity brothers his best friends expressed a feeling of community and belonging in the fraternity: “This is the place where I can just hang out and be myself and know I’ll be accepted no matter what.” Interestingly,

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the goal of finding a place or a group where “I can be myself” is common to both the privileged and nonprivileged, yet the impetus is decidedly different. Additionally, several of the subjects professed that everyone should identity with a specific club or activity, stating that forming an identity around race or gender is “counterproductive.” Several defended these claims by asserting that when it comes down to it, “we’re all just Americans.” These normative assertions by the triply privileged reflect the disconnection between their identity formation and social structure as well as demonstrate the vast social distance between the advantaged and the disadvantaged.

The Disjuncture of Philosophy and Action In this section we discuss the fact that the social distance of privilege generates a disjuncture of philosophy and action for the triply privileged. Our interviewees seemed to have a genuine and at times deeplyfelt concern for social inequality and the plight of the oppressed. Upon further probing, it was revealed that this sentiment reflected a philosophical stance on social problems—one not based on personal experience. Their social distance from oppression leads them to promote equality while at the same time being discriminatory. At the heart of this disjuncture is the fact that our respondents generally believed in unbridled agency. They made statements illustrating an unawareness that other identity groups face formidable structures that inhibit agency. One interviewee demonstrated this point quite ably: “I mean, sure bad things happen, but anyone can make it if they just work hard enough. At some point you just have to stop whining and decide to better your own life and stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.” Others in our sample echoed this sense of agency by saying that everyone has the ability and power to achieve goals and enact change. This stands in sharp contrast to the sociological fact that agency is bounded in social structure (Skocpol 1979; Sewell 1992). Agency is a critical conceptual component of the social construction of identity, since nondominant groups generally construct identity in response to a lack of agency. Therefore, to reduce social distance, dominants must acknowledge that agency is linked to identity and recognize the disjuncture between their self-ascribed egalitarianism and their actual behavior. This disjuncture becomes particularly clear when idealistic statements conflict with important life decisions. One interviewee spoke philosophically about equal opportunities and fairness in American society. Yet, when we discussed family and work decisions, he said, “Well, I don’t want to give up my career” and then explained that his future wife should do most of the child care since “mothers do a lot of

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the nurturing that children need, so it’s important that they get enough time together.” This exemplifies the disjuncture between philosophy and action in that his egalitarian rhetoric disappeared when discussing a potential threat to his time and career, yet at the same time he seemed completely unaware of the incompatibility of his statements. We heard such contradictions repeatedly. We also observed that our sample tended to “blame the victim.” For example, the following statement was made about inequalities in the education system: I mean, if the quality of schools that some people attend aren’t adequately preparing them to go to college, then maybe by improving the schooling, we wouldn’t need to let people in who aren’t ready to go to college. . . . Also, I guess with some cultures there is a devaluing of education, and kids get disrespected if they work hard to learn a lot.

This particular respondent expressed deep concern that some people are not ready for college due to the quality of their schooling, yet in the same breath he blamed “cultures” for their educational failure—a very classist argument. Moreover, we found that most of our respondents ascribe to the American Dream ideology which states that everyone can succeed as long as they work hard enough. This kind of thinking reveals the conceptual framework in which the poor are denigrated. The social distance of privilege allows the financially secure to blame the poor and a larger “culture of poverty” (Moynihan 1968; Murray 1985), since dominants are structurally removed from understanding what it is like to work hard and get nowhere. An outcome of this thinking is that the privileged are absolved of any accountability for those who fare less well in the stratification system, since it is assumed that those who can’t make it are responsible for their own failure. Our sample’s belief that agency is ubiquitous also leads them to believe that policies geared towards correcting past injustices are no longer necessary and are inherently unfair. Most of the subjects, despite their philosophical belief in equality, were quite resistant to any policy that would threaten their own privilege. One interviewee, for example, expressed great frustration over affirmative action programs: It just gives them privilege over us; so any time a minority applies for a job I want, if I don’t totally impress them, the minority gets the job even if they’re not all that qualified. What good does it do our society to have less qualified people in an important job? We should be giving jobs and positions at universities to the people most ready to do well there, regardless of color.

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Interestingly, these strongly held beliefs belie the fact that at this early point in his life, this young man had never held, nor even applied for a job. Wellman argues that the anxiety of giving up some of the privileges of their position in the American racial hierarchy has whites nervous and frustrated. He asserts that “racism today remains essentially what it has always been: a defense of racial privilege” (1993, 58). Not surprisingly, our respondents, like most Americans, focus on race when discussing affirmative action. Jesse Jackson points out that “while we know that most Americans have benefited from affirmative action programs, current political rhetoric has forced a black face on the issue” (1995, 122). The highly racialized discourse over affirmative action ignores that women, the disabled, and veterans also benefit from these programs, and in fact white women have arguably reaped the most benefit from affirmative action policies (Jones 1994). Egalitarian rhetoric about fundamental fairness anchored our interviewees’ objectives to affirmative action, yet further discussion revealed a deep-seated concern about the potential loss of their own opportunities. These emotionally laden responses, coupled with egalitarian statements, provide further evidence of the disconnection between philosophy and action. In the discussions, we found a clear divide between objective and subjective responses, contingent upon whether the respondents felt their privilege was threatened. Our respondents could either speak rationally and objectively about issues of inequality, or become vehement and subjective—framing issues of inequality around their own losses. At the heart of the disjuncture between philosophy and action is “modern” racism. Modern racism is subtle and indirect in that an individual can discriminate without challenging his or her egalitarian selfimage (Gaertner and Dovidio 1986). Unlike the old-fashioned form, modern racism assimilates notions of fairness and justice with racist beliefs. Labeling this type of racism “aversive,” Dovidio explains how it occurs: “Because aversive racists endorse egalitarian values and regard themselves as racially tolerant, generally they will not discriminate against Blacks in situations in which norms prescribing appropriate behavior are clear and unambiguous. To discriminate against Blacks in these situations would directly threaten their egalitarian self-image. When the normative structure is weak, ambiguous, or conflicting, or if a white person can justify or rationalize a negative response on the basis of some factor other than race, negative feelings toward Blacks will be manifested” (1989, 86). Similarly, our research supports the contention that modern racism is common among well-intentioned whites.3 The interviewees expressed philosophical support for equality and believed themselves to be fair-minded, while simultaneously making statements that

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revealed underlying prejudice. A respondent extolled great concern for the need to “fix . . . those cultures that don’t seem to respect education and hard work as much as whites, and Asians of course.” Moreover, by displacing racist or sexist feelings onto more rationalizable abstract social and political issues, modern racists, such as those in our sample, are relatively unaware of their racist feelings (McConahay 1986). The 1997 Gallup Poll (Gallup Organization 1997) offers further evidence of the disjuncture of philosophy and action. Only 5.5 percent of whites responded that they are prejudiced towards members of other groups, while half of blacks reported experiencing at least one instance of discriminatory treatment from whites within the previous thirty days. As Doob explains, “In record numbers whites indicate that they are not racist, but evidence like that presented here suggests that a) they are much less inclined than blacks to consider that African Americans are subjected to discrimination and b) in some instances they are quite possibly overlooking or denying their own racist behavior” (1999, 17). Indeed, this finding reveals how social distance is exacerbated by the contradictory perceptions of dominants and nondominants. The disjuncture between genuinely felt philosophy and action is also a key source of white backlash and male resentment. Most of the interviewees revealed great frustration over being labeled “white and inherently insensitive.” One subject even suggested printing a T-shirt that would say, “I’m white and I’m sorry.” Another commented that “feminism in general is great, as long as it doesn’t go too far,” reflecting the common fear that efforts to rectify gender inequality “go too far.” This kind of backlash is not limited to our sample. A 1994 article in Business Week, “White, Male, and Worried,” reported on the anger of white males over losing their premier status in corporate America. Like our sample, men in the article claimed that corporate policies “went too far” in addressing discrimination and inequality. Our subjects resented the “preferential treatment” that some groups receive and were frustrated over apparent stereotyping of their race and gender: I mean, I’d do anything to end racism in this country. I wasn’t around when there was segregation, and how can I be responsible for that? People don’t even bother to get to know me, because they think I couldn’t possibly get it. They should know better than to do the same kind of crap that has been done to them.

Like many of the other subjects, this respondent exhibited sincere concern about social inequality, and wanted oppression to somehow go away. To some, these expressions and attitudes might be viewed as elitist. But the interviewees themselves felt genuinely concerned about

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social problems and felt slighted, stereotyped, and belittled by “minorities” in society who “see us as the enemy.” The decoupling of philosophy and action helps explain why policies such as affirmative action are perceived as individual attacks rather than attempts to rectify structural inequalities. Social distance limits the ability of our sample to acknowledge the difficulties of overcoming social structure. Thus the triply privileged can support the idea of equality yet do not grasp that a change in their behavior is essential to its attainment.

Cultural Imperialism and the Maintenance of Privilege In this final analytic section, we examine the most pernicious outcome of social distance: cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism universalizes the experience of the triply privileged and establishes it as the norm (Young 1990, 59). The structural reality of social distance enables the dominant group, who inhabit the apex of the stratification system, to ignore or simply not see the experience of nondominants. Moreover, the unique structural location of the multiply privileged gives them the power to render their own experience normative. The sense that other groups should be more like them was often expressed in subtle ways by our respondents. For example, one young man discussing the preponderance of nonintegrated groups on campus stated, “I think maybe clubs for women and students of color just reinforce the very isolation that causes these kinds of problems . . . Anyone is welcome in our fraternity—we don’t discriminate.” In the next sentence he revealed that his fraternity had only three students of color. Consider the subtext of this quote. He views the homogeneity of the other clubs as problematic and inherently divisive, and even suggests that other clubs should be more like his fraternity that “doesn’t discriminate.” Social distance, and the cultural imperialism it gives rise to, render our respondent incapable of recognizing the hypocrisy of his statement. The myopia of the privileged is self-perpetuating. We see this more clearly by comparing how cultural imperialism impacts identity formation for dominants and nondominants. We argue that both groups form their identities in response to threat—for nondominants it is the threat of marginalization, and for dominants it is the threat of losing privilege. This distinction serves to crystallize enduring patterns of privilege. In order to further interpret these patterns of privilege, we turn to a constructionist model of ethnic identity that has advanced our understanding of how oppression creates and solidifies ethnic identification. Nagel describes the construction of ethnicity as an ongoing, dynamic process that draws on the past and present. Specifically, she asserts, “An

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individual’s ethnic identity is a composite of the view one has of oneself and the opinions held by others about one’s ethnicity. The result is a volitional, if circumscribed model of ethnicity. Ethnic identity lies at the intersection of individual ethnic self-definition (who I am) and collective ethnic attribution (who they say I am). Ethnic identity is then a dialectic between internal identification and external ascription” (1996, 21). Ethnic identity and the meanings attached to it are constructed and strengthened by daily encounters with internal and external pressures. By applying the constructionist logic to our analysis of privilege, we begin to understand why the men in our sample revealed limited cultural and ethnic identity affiliation. We argue that, for those who are triply privileged, the dialectic process of self-definition and attribution is mediated by cultural imperialism that labels their experience as universal. The socially negotiated questions of “who I am” and “who they say I am” hold entirely different meanings for ethnic groups who are marked as other and stereotyped by cultural imperialism. Young stresses that “since only the dominant group’s cultural expressions receive wide dissemination, their cultural expressions become normal, or the universal, and thereby unremarkable” (1990, 59). However, for the privileged, whose experience is defined as universal and rarely challenged, the questions of self-definition and external attribution are rarely asked, and the answers remain abstract and seemingly removed from their personal experience. One respondent made this clear in expressing thanks for the interview: “Thank you too. It’s neat to talk about this stuff; I don’t get the chance very often.” For him, these topics were an isolated and unique discussion in an interview. In contrast to most Americans, his social world meant never having to experience oppression or become self-conscious of his identity. Lacking personal experience around oppression generates a situation by which the privileged do not form a self-consciously articulated identity. For example, Frankenberg’s analysis of white women reveals that whiteness is a set of cultural practices that locate white people in a structurally advantageous social position, yet these cultural practices are usually unnamed: “White people too often view themselves as nonracial or racially neutral” (1993, 1). We find that this neutrality needs to be qualified in terms of the social construction of privilege. While privileged identity, like whiteness, is generally transparent, “neutrality” fails to capture the dynamic yet subtle process by which privileged identity is constructed. Our respondents revealed a strong affiliation with dominant culture, particularly when confronted by challenges to the status quo. In fact, they viewed criticism of the system as challenges to who they are.

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While this identification remained masked in more general philosophical discussions around equality, it became quite salient in the context of criticism of the current condition. For example, one respondent flippantly stated, “It seems to me that things are working pretty good. I mean, there are definitely some problems, and we need to address them, but life isn’t the catastrophe that most people make it out to be.” This defense of the way things stand was typical among our interviewees. Additionally, the emotional tenor of the discussions revealed that our sample often felt personally affronted by such “attacks.” An implicit assumption in the statement above is that exaggerated claims of injustice by women, minorities, and the poor may place a smoothly functioning system in peril. Since privilege is constructed around a reified universal standard in which they are deeply entrenched, our interviewees fail to recognize that they may also suffer in a system that is oppressive. For example, hooks writes, “Men are not exploited or oppressed by sexism, but there are ways in which they suffer as a result of it” (1981, 564). Thus, cultural imperialism positions the triply privileged in opposition to all other groups since they can’t see the ways in which business as usual may hurt them, and any challenge to the system is viewed as an affront to their identity. Unlike the self-conscious and purposeful identity formation found among marginalized groups, identity around privilege only becomes salient when challenges are made to the “natural order of things.” Thus, like ethnic identity, privileged identity emerges in the face of challenge. Nevertheless, the social construction of privilege is decidedly different since the naming of racial communities “is also in part an effect of communities’ own collective struggles to claim or rearticulate identity” (Frankenberg 1993, 12). Thus, the interaction of internal and external ascription is dissimilar for dominant and nondominant groups. Here it is useful to consider social movement analyses that focus on identity politics. Recently, social movement theorists have begun to acknowledge the critical role of identity formation in sustaining a social movement. “New social movement theorists” augment the resource mobilization paradigm (Tilly 1978) by stressing that identity formation is crucial for understanding the ability of groups to articulate claims and push for change.4 Their work is instructive in regard to distinguishing between identity formation among those inside and outside the dominant culture. Applying new social movement concepts to privileged identity provides a clearer sense of its dynamic character. Gamson asserts that identity refers to the “process of defining ‘we’ typically in opposition to some ‘they’ who have different interests and

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values” (1992, 7). Considering that our sample is embedded in dominant culture that depicts their interests and values as the norm, it is not surprising that identity based on culture is weakly formed. Their race, class, and gender identities are the standard by which all other identities are measured and compared. Groups defined as “other” are more likely to generate a stronger identity—one based on opposition to the norm (Morris and Mueller 1992). Although identity politics in the national arena have forced the privileged to hear the attribution of “who they say I am,” we find that respondents did not internalize allegations that label the privileged as unfairly benefiting from the stratification system. Rather, a trend among our sample is to deny such privilege by asserting that the United States is egalitarian, and then to argue that it is in fact women and minorities who unfairly benefit in today’s society: “Anyone can make it if you just work hard enough; but artificial preferences around race or gender or anything else give them unjust advantages. I thought this kind of preferential treatment is what we’re trying to get rid of.” Our respondents’ claims that they face the short end of the stick in today’s society is similar to Gallagher’s analysis of white identity: “[F]inding a legitimate, positive narrative of one’s own whiteness was accomplished by constructing an identity that negated white oppressor charges and framed whiteness as a liability” (1998, 347). The “whiteness as liability” argument illustrates how social distance is supported. Not only is there denial of racial privilege on the part of whites, who may have never consciously thought about their whiteness, but there is also an assertion that nonwhites may be privileged due to unfair racial preferences. The denial and shift of advantage illustrates that privileged identity formation is not a passive or neutral process. Nor can we claim that oppositional politics are at its core. Instead, the construction of privileged identity entails a distancing from those who dare to challenge their social status and a revision of the social order. Thus, the social distance of privilege is self-perpetuating in that structurally distinct experiences reduce the probability of recognizing and understanding the larger system of stratification. New social movement theorists also stress the importance of an injustice frame in organizing a successful movement (Gamson 1992). An injustice frame is the recognition that an agent or group is responsible for the indignities and suffering of daily life (Tarrow 1994). Groups outside the dominant culture build strong identities around rejecting and/or changing the status quo. They realize that oppression benefits the dominant culture, and this sense of injustice generates a powerful feeling of solidarity and common identity. Structurally, multiple layers of privilege remove our sample from contact or connection with an injustice frame.

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For example, our respondents expressed sentiments such as “There are still people with bigoted attitudes, but I think they are rare.” Our sample did not understand and even doubted the legitimacy of other groups’ injustice frames while at the same time asserting their own. Currently, there is a developing injustice frame for white, upper-middle-class men who fear the impact of so called “reverse discrimination.” Despite very little evidence that white men are losing their place in the social hierarchy, our respondents express the rumblings of discontent over policies and changes that they perceive as unfairly benefiting everyone but them. Although these sentiments have yet to provide a springboard for collective action on the part of our respondents, organizing efforts such as the California Civil Rights Initiative reveal the power of an injustice frame for the collective defense of privilege. Just as modern racism obscures individuals’ awareness of their own discrimination, a subconscious identification with the system renders the privileged less likely to view the processes of oppression objectively. Thus, a first step in breaking down social distance must be the recognition of that privilege. Sadly, there are a myriad of macrostructural and microinteractional processes that keep the privileged embedded in a social world that does not challenge them to be introspective about their social position. Social distance enables the privileged to remain embedded in a system of cultural imperialism that labels them the legitimate norm by which others should be measured. For example, Simon describes how being white enabled him to ignore the social construction of race: “What I am saying is that ‘being white’ is a learned phenomenon, and until I started thinking about what kind of lessons I was learning (usually after a friend took the time to call me out on something), I didn’t even recognize that I was being taught, much less question its value or consider the possibility of change” (1998, 498). Indeed, the lessons of privilege gain their power precisely because cultural imperialism makes them so difficult to discern. Mahoney accurately asserts that privileged identity is predicated on protection against seeing the mechanisms that socially reproduce and maintain privilege (1997, 331). Social distance renders these mechanisms transparent to privileged individuals while they are totally apparent to the nonprivileged. McIntosh’s (1992) aforementioned concept of the “invisible weightless knapsack” of privilege speaks to the variety of daily encounters that separate the experience of the privileged and nonprivileged. By providing a compelling list of scenarios, situations, and labels that make the experience of ordinary life more difficult for people of color, McIntosh begins the critical project of making privilege apparent to those who own it. Without this recognition, the interactions of everyday life will continue to undergird the social distance of privilege.

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We would like to suggest that there is a flip side to the recognition process that must also be addressed. Namely, with privilege come innumerable positive encounters that not only improve quality of life, but also convince the bearers that they can accomplish whatever they want personally and professionally. The social construction of privilege and emergent sense of agency begins the moment an upper-middle-class white male child is born in American society. Countless lessons will tell the child that he is welcome and that the world takes him seriously. Numerous studies reveal that white middle-class boys benefit from teachers, guidance counselors, and coaches who expect more from them than students who are female, minorities, or poor.5 Just as the nonprivileged learn lessons about how they are perceived by American society, the privileged learn that society cares about their success. This contributes to social distance in that the privileged assume that like themselves, all members of American society have the opportunity to make it if they just work hard enough. For those with triple privilege, cultural imperialism gives rise to a daily scenario of entitlement. The issue of respect is a good example. The men in our survey are almost guaranteed a future in which they will, for the most part, be treated with automatic respect. Young addresses this issue by pointing out that professionals are generally afforded more respect than nonprofessionals in day-to-day activities such as banking and eating at restaurants: “The privilege of this professional respectability appears starkly in the dynamics of racism and sexism. In daily interchange women and men of color must prove their respectability. At first they are not treated by strangers with respectful distance or deference. Once people discover that this woman or that Puerto Rican man is a college teacher or business executive, however, they often behave more respectfully toward her or him” (Young 1990, 58). [T]heir lives are constantly dogged by such trials, which, though surely not absent from the lives of white men, are less regular” (141). If getting respect is affirming and empowering, what then is the cumulative impact of privileged identity? For those who are triply privileged, there is an expectation and a naturalness of respectful behavior by others that may or may not be linked to the job status or actions of the privileged. Because the expectation of respect has become a universalized cultural expression, the dominant culture views it as unremarkable while nonprivileged individuals see expectations of respect for what they are—indicators of stratification. The hierarchy of respect is simply one of the many outcomes of social distance. Young writes that “often without noticing they do so, the dominant groups project their own experience as representative of humanity as such” (1990, 59). Until people with multiple

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layers of privilege begin to see that their experience may be anomalous, little progress can be made in terms of reducing the distance between the privileged and the nonprivileged.

Conclusion By examining the social distance of privilege, we gain insight into persistent inequality and ongoing oppression. Distinguishing between the identity formation of nondominant and dominant groups, we provide further evidence that the complex issue of identity is at the core of social stratification in American society. More importantly, we argue that exploring the foundations of privileged identity formation provides a lens through which to view beliefs and actions that reinforce inequality. Contrary to recent research that describes the increased importance of white identity formation, we find that those who are triply privileged rarely form a self-conscious identity around their race, sex, or class. Rather, identity is generally expressed in response to threats to their privilege. We argue that the social distance of privilege—limited contact with experiences of inequality—allows those with triple privilege to hold philosophically egalitarian views while at the same time expressing discriminatory sentiments. Thus, the privileged feel guiltless about their place in the social hierarchy and fail to recognize that the maintenance of their status is unjust and goes against principles of equality. By recognizing the structural mechanisms behind the defense of entitlement, we begin the formidable task of unraveling how the social construction of privilege perpetuates social reproduction. Expanding our knowledge of privileged identity formation, this analysis paves new avenues for research and theory. First, future research should ascertain whether an increasing sense of white identity is truly a conscious recognition of a shared cultural heritage—or is whiteness simply a cue for privilege in a multicultural society? Our work suggests that an increased emphasis on multiculturalism may make more Americans cognizant of being white, yet this increased awareness does not translate into the formation of a distinct identity group. Rather, privileged identity formation, albeit rarely expressed or acknowledged, gives rise to beliefs and actions that unite the privileged in their opposition to challenges from other groups fighting for equality. Second, more comparative work needs to be done on the social construction of privilege versus identity formation around injustice. We believe that examining the distinctions between dominant and nondominant identity formation is quite instructive in terms of understanding the ideological gap between the two groups. Examining this ideological gap is not only

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of theoretical importance but also holds the potential to yield very real and practical strategies for fighting inequality. Though our study focuses on those with race, gender, and class privilege, we believe that our findings provide insight into the identity dynamics of heightened privilege in general. There are a host of ways in which oppression and privilege intersect, including sexual orientation, physical ability/disability, religion, body image, height, attractiveness, and so forth. We believe that people with multiple categories of privilege are likely to experience similar dynamics around identity. Future research can test the extent to which symbolic and alternative identity formation, a disjuncture between philosophy and action, and cultural imperialism give rise to an identity based primarily on privilege. In beginning to develop a more informed understanding of privileged identity, we reveal the complexity of building bridges between the experiences of the privileged and the rest of society. Our work suggests that those who inhabit the top of the American social hierarchy will continue to live out the contradiction of well-meaning philosophies and mean-spirited actions unless boundaries are spanned and social distance is reduced. Historically, boundary spanners have been nondominants who had no choice but to learn to communicate biculturally and tap into a vast repertoire of roles to negotiate the dominant culture (Steinberg 1981). Nevertheless, reducing social distance requires boundary spanning by both the privileged and nonprivileged. We argue that it isn’t enough to expect nondominants to span boundaries; social change requires that dominants span boundaries as well. As one of our interviewees expressed, “This PC [political correctness] crap doesn’t do any good. People will just memorize the ‘right’ thing to say but feel no differently underneath. . . . [To change this] I guess we have to stop just hanging out with our own kind and meet people who are different.” A prerequisite to dominant group boundary spanning is the recognition by privileged individuals that there is actually something to span. Cultural imperialism masks identity differences by projecting and universalizing the experiences of dominants onto the rest of society, thereby minimizing perceived social distance. As such, the privileged ideology that everyone should be like them is the most formidable barrier to boundary spanning. Cultural imperialism and our capitalist identity hierarchy provide very clear economic and social rewards to nondominants who effectively boundary span. However, for dominants who are already rewarded by their place in the social hierarchy, the benefits of boundary spanning are more obtuse. Our findings reveal that even the most well-intentioned boundary spanners confront structures and processes that may give rise to

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unintended outcomes that perpetuate asymmetry between social groups. We believe it is unrealistic to expect the privileged to boundary span simply because it is the right thing to do. Additionally, “do-gooder” attempts at boundary spanning often fail because they take on a paternalistic character and/or are based on false assumptions. An example of this was the white middle-class women’s movement of the 1970s that reached out and tried to recruit women of color, yet their platform reflected very little knowledge of minority women’s experiences. Moreover, the interactions between white feminists and recruits of color were tainted by an arrogant presumption that white feminists knew what was best for black women (hooks, 1981). The inherent asymmetry between diverse social groups is a formidable obstacle to any and all forms of boundary spanning, yet the project of building bridges between groups remains a critical tool in the fight against persistent inequality. True boundary spanning can be a vehicle for social change. Successful boundary spanners—those described as Integrationists by Thomas-Hunt and Gruenfeld (1998)—generally have a positive attitude towards both groups, confidence that one can interact effectively in both cultures without compromising the other, and a stable network in both cultures (LaFramboise, Coleman, and Gerton, 1993). Exposure, experience and a commitment to building bridges between identity groups can challenge structures that reproduce inequality. The methods for building these bridges are varied and complex, yet boundary spanning efforts are ongoing and need to be encouraged. For example, public schools can foster boundary spanning at early ages through cooperative learning techniques. These methods expose students to multiculturalism through working with others to solve common problems. For instance, placing students in situations of interdependence undermines the formation of privilege hierarchies based on race, class, and gender. For adults, diversity training programs have been widely adopted with varying degrees of success in the workplace. The more successful of these programs have been able to foster personal and professional links between diverse social groups, thereby reducing stereotyping and discrimination within the workplace. This project demonstrates that the reduction of social distance is essential for deconstructing privileged identity and improving social relations in our multicultural society. Persuading the privileged to traverse social distances is a critical yet often ignored step in the complicated project of breaking down our system of stratification. An unobstructed view of social structure can only be gained when the privileged come face to face with the fact that their experiences are unique and fundamentally a result of multiple layers of advantage.

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Notes Both authors contributed equally in writing this chapter. We thank Claire Buisseret, William Corrin, Katlyn Gao, Mike Lounsbury, Michelle Naffziger, Jennifer Reich, Amy Stein, and Brian Uzzi for helpful comments. 1. Indeed, we could speak of “quadruple privilege,” in that all of our interviewees identified themselves as heterosexual and obviously benefit from heterosexism. Unfortunately, the interviews did not unearth adequate information to capture their heterosexual privilege. This may be linked to the fact that, as Kirk and Madsen argue, “heterosexuals go about their lives as though the issue had no bearing on themselves or anyone they know” (1996, 401). 2. See Sandoval (1990) for a thorough discussion of the hierarchy of oppression framework. 3. See Dovidio et al. (1989) for a variety of experiments that demonstrate how covert racism is expressed and enacted. 4. See edited volume by Morris and Mueller (1992) for a useful introduction to new social movement theory. 5. See AAUW Foundation (1991) research about girls in school; Lips (1989) for differential gender-role socialization by parents, peers, and teachers; Rosenbaum’s (1976) classic article on economic and race tracking.

References Aguirre, A., and J. Turner. 1995. American ethnicity: The dynamics and consequences of discrimination. Boston, Mass.: McGraw Hill. American Association of University Women. 1991. Short changing girls, short changing America. Washington D.C.: Greenberg-Lake Analysis Group. Bogardus, E. 1928. Immigration and race attitudes. New York: D. C. Heath. Collins, P. H. 1993. Toward a new vision: Race, class, and gender as categories of analysis and connection. In The meaning of difference, eds. K. E. Rosenblum and T. C. Travis. New York: McGraw Hill. Coser, L. 1956. The functions of social conflict. New York: Free Press. Domhoff, G. W. 1998. Who rules America: Power and politics in the year 2000. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing Company. Doob, C. B. 1999. Racism: An American cauldron. New York: Longman. Dovidio, J. 1989. Resistance to affirmative action: The implications of aversive racism. In Affirmative action in perspective, ed. F. A. Blanchard and F. J. Crosby. New York: Springer-Verlag. Ferrante, J., and P. Brown, Jr. 1998. The social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States. New York: Longman. Frankenberg, R. 1993. The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. Gaertner, S., and J. Dovidio. 1986. Prejudice, discrimination, and racism. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press.

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Gallagher, C. 1997. White racial formation: Into the twenty-first century. In Critical white studies, ed. R. Delgado and J. Stefancic. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press. ———. 1998. White reconstruction in the university. In The social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States, ed. J. Ferrante and P. Brown, Jr. New York: Longman. Galen, M. and A. T. Palmer. 1994. White, male, and worried. Business Week January 31: 50–55. Gallup Organization. 1997. Black/white relations in the U.S. Gallup Poll, June. Gamson, W. 1992. Talking politics. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Gans, H. J. 1979. Symbolic ethnicity. Ethnic and Racial Studies 2: 1–20. Gerzon, M. 1992. A choice of heroes: The changing faces of American manhood. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin. hooks, bell. 1981. Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism. Boston, Mass.: South End Press. Jackson, J. 1995. Affirmative action: It benefits everyone. The World and I (November): 74–83. Jones, E. 1994. Racial difference in the workplace. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. Kimmel, M. S. 1993. Invisible masculinity. Society 30 (6): 29–30. Kirk, M., and H. Madsen. 1996. A field trip to straight America. In The meaning of difference, ed. K. E. Rosenblum and T. C. Travis. New York: McGraw Hill. Kitano, H. 1997. Race relations. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Kozol, J. 1991. Savage inequalities. New York: Harper Perennial. Kvale, S. 1988. Issues of validity in qualitative research. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur. LaFramboise, T., H. Coleman, and J. Gerton. 1993. Psychological impact of biculturalism: Evidence and theory. Psychological Bulletin 114 (3): 395–412. Lieberson, S., and M. Waters. 1988. From many strands: Ethnic and racial groups in contemporary America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lips, H. 1989. Gender-role socialization: Lessons in femininity. In Women: A feminist perspective, ed. J. Freeman. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing Company. MacLeod, J. 1995. Ain’t no makin’ it. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Mahoney, M. 1997. The social construction of whiteness. In Critical white studies, ed. R. Delgado and J. Stefancic. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press. Mantsios, G. 1992. Race, class, and gender in the United States. New York: St. Martin’s Press. McConahay, J. 1986. Modern racism. In Prejudice, discrimination, and racism, ed. J. Dovidio. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press.

150 Michael Alan Sacks and Marika Lindholm McIntosh, P. 1992. White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In Race, class, and gender, ed. A. Margaret and P. H. Collins. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Miles, M., and M. A. Huberman. 1994. Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications. Morris, A., and C. M. Mueller, eds. 1992. Frontiers in social movement theory. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Moynihan, D. P. 1968. On understanding poverty. New York: Basic Books. Mürguîa, E. 1975. Assimilation, colonialism, and the Mexican American people. Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press. Murray, C. 1985. Losing ground. New York: Basic Books. Nagel, J. 1996. American Indian ethnic renewal. New York: Oxford University Press. Roberts, D. 1995. Race, gender, and the value of mothers’ work. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State, and Society 2 (2): 195–207. Rosenbaum, J. E. 1976. Making inequality: The hidden curriculum of high school tracking. New York: John Wiley Press. Rothman, R. 1999. Inequality and stratification: Race, class, and gender. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Sandoval, C. 1990. Feminism and racism: A report on the 1981 National Women’s Studies Association Conference. In Making face, making soul: Creative and critical perspectives of women of color, ed. G. Anzaldua. San Francisco, Calif.: Aunt Lute Foundation. Sewell, W. 1992. A theory of structure: Duality, agency, and transformation. American Journal of Sociology 98:1–29. Simon, B. N. 1998. White-blindness. In The social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States, ed. J. Ferrante and P. Brown, Jr. New York: Longman. Skocpol, T. 1979. States and social revolutions. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Smith, D. 1987. The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Oxford, U.K.: University Press. Spelman, E. 1988. Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press. Steinberg, S. 1981. The ethnic myth. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press. Tarrow, S. 1994. Power in movement: Social movements, collective action and politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thomas-Hunt, M., and D. Gruenfeld. 1998. Strategies for working with a foot in two worlds: How demographic boundary spanners participate in work groups. In Research in managing groups and teams, ed. E. A. Mannix, M. A. Neale, and D. H. Gruenfeld. New York: JAI Press.

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Tilly, C. 1978. From mobilization to revolution. Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley. Waters, M. 1990. Ethnic options: Choosing identities in America. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Wellman, D. T. 1993. Portraits of white racism. London, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Yinger, J. M. 1994. Ethnicity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Young, I. 1990. Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

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6 Looking at the Invisible: A Q-Methodological Investigation of Young White Women’s Constructions of Whiteness Stephanie Kellington

Within the last ten years or so, critical antiracist work on whiteness has experienced an increase not only in quantity but also in cultural legitimacy and cachet. Kobena Mercer (1992, 20) has gone so far as to describe one of the key challenges of contemporary cultural politics as being that of rendering whiteness visible to white people. The task of enabling whites to see and understand the intimate interconnections between our race and our economic, social, and cultural privilege is being increasingly seen as a vital component of antiracist theorizing and politics. This chapter examines the contributions of experimental psychologists to the work necessary to accomplish this undertaking. It explores emerging trends in how whiteness is conceptualized in experimental psychology and uses a recently completed investigation of young white women’s subjectivities of whiteness as one example of directions in which the field might go. It is only very recently that experimental psychologists have begun to research the ways whites think, talk, and make sense of their lives as structured by, and integrally bound up with their whiteness. Historically, however, psychological work on race has tended to normalize, and hence render invisible the whiteness of both its samples and its theorizing and consequently to contribute to the perpetuation of racial inequality and white racial dominance (Graham 1992; Wong 1994). Work that does acknowledge or investigate whiteness as explicitly racialized usually falls into one of two main categories: comparative race research, in which whites are included to illustrate how blacks1 differ from an implicit (white) norm, or research on prejudice, which focuses on examining the factors which eliminate, perpetuate, or alter the expression of white prejudice and discrimination (Jones 1991). Research in this latter category was a considerable improvement over earlier theory that did not go so far as to name whites as the beneficiaries of an explicitly racist system but focused instead on generalized 153

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accounts of the cognitive processes believed to underpin anyone’s experiences of prejudice and discrimination (for example, Brown 1986; Tajfel and Turner 1986). However, it continued to share many of the same assumptions about race as these earlier theories. The conceptualization of race common to these traditions is mirrored in the writing of Jones, who describes a race as “a group of people who share biological features that come to signify group membership and the social meaning such membership has in society at large” (1991, 9). While making a concession to social constructionist theories of race in drawing attention to the process whereby social meaning is attached to physical features, the latent biologism of this theory is evidenced in the implicit assumption that distinguishable features exist to be given meaning in the first place. In fact, this has been shown to be untrue. Not only do physical features not correlate in the way racial stereotypes say they do, but no single phenotypical feature can consistently differentiate between racial groups (Zuckerman 1990; Howitt 1991). This biologizing of race leads to an implicit perceptualism (Wetherell and Potter 1992, 135) in which racial categories are understood to “naturally” result from the grouping of individuals based on physical features. As well as ignoring the fact that racial categories have historically exhibited great flexibility over both place and time (Britzman 1997; Frankenberg 1993; Michael 1990; Roediger, 1991), this view presents race as just another way to cognitively organize the world and ignores the role of power and ideology in creating racial categories (Potter 1988; Parker 1989; Michael 1990). Finally, by focusing on whites primarily as vehicles of prejudice, work in this tradition ignores the impact of race on other aspects of the lives and experiences of white people and contributes to the view of white lives as both unmarked and unremarkable as white. However, recent work emerging from within psychology seeks to investigate and understand whiteness in new ways. This literature (for example, Wetherell and Potter 1992; Tarver-Behring 1994; Billig 1997; Fine 1997; Phoenix 1997; Weis, Proweller and Centrie 1997) examines white lives as explicitly racialized and challenges the ascendant normalcy and invisibility accorded to whiteness in previous theory. In seeking to go beyond the relationally defined, empty discursive space which has traditionally constituted views of whiteness, these authors do not assume the a priori existence of racial categories, but rather examine the work that goes into the social construction of race, and in this case of white lives and white privilege. They problematize the construction of whiteness by analyzing the local relations of power and discourse which inform it. Some of this work even discards traditional notions of scientific objectivity (which hold that truly scientific work should

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remain distant from the so-called social world of politics) by creating explicitly political and politicized accounts of white power and dominance. Part of this problematization has also included calls to recognize and investigate the diversity of experience obscured under the label “white” and to address the intersections of race with other relations of power in producing multiple, and potentially contradictory, experiences of whiteness. The emergence of this new critical work in psychology has been an important step in making whiteness visible to whites by contributing to the creation of an antiracist theory and politics that goes beyond the more limited, superficial nature of theorizing when whiteness remained normalized and unquestioned. Theorists and practitioners in the field of counselling psychology have also been instrumental in fostering interest in the study of whiteness and have done trail-blazing work investigating how white people understand the racialized meanings of their lives. By far the most influential of these theories has been Helms’ (1990) work on white racial identity development and her corresponding measurement instrument, the White Racial Identity Attitude Scale (WRIAS). Helms initially derived her theory from an understanding of race as socially ascribed meanings based on biological distinctions. Furthermore, she saw white racial identity as moving in hierarchically arranged, permeable stages from relative unawareness of race and racial privilege to the achievement of a fully integrated consciousness of race coupled with a nonracist stance towards others.2 However, Helms came under considerable critique for various aspects of her theory ranging from problems with the statistical properties of the WRIAS (Behrens 1997), to an overemphasis on whites’ attitudes towards blacks as being constitutive of the whole of white identity (Rowe, Bennett and Atkinson 1994, 131), to the “surplus implications” associated with her use of the concept of identity (Choney and Behrens 1996, 226). She has since revised her original theory considerably, although, interestingly, she has not made changes to the WRIAS itself. Helms’ (1995, 1996) updated theory emphasizes even more clearly the role of differential access to resources and socialization processes in creating race. It also abandons her earlier view of racial identity as developmental in nature by focusing on the concept of identity statuses as opposed to identity stages. This shift recognizes that it is possible for many different statuses to influence an individual at any given time and that there is no necessary linear progression between them. In an attempt to address some of their other concerns with Helms’ work, Choney and Behrens (1996) and Rowe, Bennett and Atkinson (1994) have developed a theory of white racial consciousness and have,

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for some years, been working to develop the Oklahoma Racial Attitudes Scale (ORAS-P) which they envision as a measurement instrument for this theory. However, while the white racial consciousness theorists have abandoned a focus on identity per se, and have thus lost some of the problematic baggage that accompanies the term itself, their model remains rooted in a fundamental dichotomization of “individual” and “society” and thus does not deviate substantially from the underlying assumptions implicit in Helms’ theory. Aside from the focus on development (which Helms later abandoned), it is difficult to see the difference between a model which seeks to “explain how Whites develop attitudes towards racial-group membership” (Carter and Helms 1990, 105) and one which investigates the “characteristic attitudes held by persons regarding the significance of being White” (Bennett, Atkinson, and Rowe 1993, 3). One of the clearest similarities between these two models is a shared focus on attitudes. The concept of attitudes has been critiqued in the critical psychological literature for reifying the phenomenon about which the attitude is held, for ignoring the role that discourse, discipline, and social relations play in the regulation and production of individuals’ attitudes (Malson 1998), and for the assumption that attitudes are more or less enduring ideas located within self-contained, rational, and bounded individuals (Potter and Wetherell 1987). This image of a self-contained, rational, and autonomous individual has been theorized as a social construction linked to Western post-Enlightenment visions of human rationality and unity (Foucault 1978; Rose 1989, 1995) and has been held at least partly accountable for the binary framing of concepts of “the individual” and “the social” that have accompanied it (Henriques et al. 1984). Rather than relying on humanist philosophical assumptions which regard individuals as rational, unitary, and fixed, some psychologists (for example, Henriques et al. 1984; Hollway 1989; Mama 1995; Malson 1998) have turned instead to poststructuralist concepts of subjectivity to explain human experience. Subjectivity theorists reject dualistic notions of interior/psychological and exterior/social and instead view individual consciousness as produced by society at the same time that it, in turn, produces and enables social relations (Henriques et al.). It thus becomes necessary to theorize experience in a way which accounts for the individual and the sociohistorical at the same time and as continuously informing each other (Henriques et al.; Mama). Subjectivity is understood by these psychological theorists as created and organized by discourse and through social relations (Mama 1995; Stenner and Watts 1997/1998). Since humans become social primarily

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through the use and appropriation of language, subjectivities are unbounded and dispersed through language within the social realm. Dichotomization of the individual and the social is thus shown to be an illusion (Malson 1998). Furthermore, because subjectivities encompass the realm of the social they are historically, culturally, and contextually dependent and inextricably linked to relations of power and control. Therefore, like relations of power, subjectivities are dynamic and potentially contradictory, shifting and multiply positioned. An exploration of white subjectivities, rather than white identities, thus seems particularly appropriate to the study of whiteness precisely because whiteness is not a thing (Frankenberg 1997, 1) which exists outside of the ways it is thought and talked about. It is, however, a constantly shifting and evolving process of becoming and defining oneself and one’s racial group as white (Frankenberg 1993, 6). An exploration of white subjectivities allows for the examination of whiteness as a set of evolving, multiply layered and potentially contradictory discourses rather than as a set of attitudes towards a unified, stable “thing” called whiteness. Furthermore, this approach works against attempts to secure whiteness in place and against the assumption of a fixed, unified white essence, which is implicit in models of whiteness as an attitudinally defined identity.3 Addressing questions of whiteness through the lens of subjectivity theory also allows for the incorporation of theory regarding the relational nature of whiteness which emerges as a result of the empty discursive space that whiteness has historically occupied. Being white has often been defined not in terms of what whites actually are, but rather by what Others are and what whites by implication are not (Said 1978; Dyer 1988; Roediger 1991; Russo 1991; Ware 1992; Gabriel 1996; Montag 1997; Phoenix 1997). Furthermore, this relationship between whites and people of color has been constructed hierarchically as one of white racial dominance and control (Billig 1997; Fine 1997; Frankenberg 1997; McIntyre 1997b). These relational definitions are created through discourses which position individuals as similar or different to each other through the transmission of culture, as well as through the establishment of relations of oppression, subordination, and resistance (Mama 1995). By highlighting the role of discourse in these constructions, the study of white subjectivities not only points to the very real material effects of discourse but also leads further away from an intra-psychic, identity-based understanding of whiteness, towards one based on discourse and economic and political relations of power. However, theories of subjectivity do not ignore or neglect what has traditionally been thought of as the realm of the individual. Subjectivities

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encompass conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of individuals, their sense of themselves and their ways of understanding the world (Weedon 1987, 32–3). Furthermore, determining who one is and what one is like is a form of subjectivity established through discursive acts (Wetherell and Potter 1992). Thus, as well as effecting the social and material world, discourses produce both the individual subject positions from which a person can speak and think through or about themselves (Henriques et. al. 1984; Malson 1998). Discourse is the means through which subjectivity is both constituted by and constitutive of social and psychological processes. It bridges the gap between the individual and the social by grounding individuals’ ideas and attitudes about whiteness in social talk and communication about race at the same time that it illustrates how socially current ideas of whiteness are influenced and formed by individuals’ talk and ideas about race. Finally, looking at subjectivities of whiteness, rather than white identities, also helps explain why there are many ways of understanding and talking about whiteness and what it means to be white (Frankenberg 1993; Phoenix 1997; McIntyre 1997a). These varying and varied subjectivities result from differences in individuals’ “positionalities” (Stenner and Marshall 1995, 624), including those of class, gender, and sexuality, which intersect with race to create white subjectivities as hybrid, multiple, contradictory, and conflicting (Wray and Newitz 1997). They also result from alterations in the constitutive circumstances of the phenomenon (Stenner and Marshall 1995, 625), in this case, historical and social changes in the definitional boundaries of whiteness. Thus, the goal in studying subjectivities of whiteness is not to find the truth about white subjectivity but to highlight the multiplicity of truths about it. Whiteness and white womanhood are not to be viewed as eternal true and asocial categories but as sets of varying and malleable subject positions. One way in which this can be conceptualized is to understand the subject positions everyone inhabits as “empty, discursive space[s]” (Malson 1998, 28) which take shape only within historically and contextually specific discourses. The discursive space to which this study addresses itself is that which informs the subjectivities of contemporary young white womanhood. It does so by studying the discourses, the language, and the ways of thinking and understanding that some young white women are currently using to color in the spaces of their racialized lives and experiences. One research tool which has been used to investigate subjectivity is Q-methodology (Brown 1980; McKeown and Thomas 1990). A Q study involves the presentation of a set of statements to the participants who are then requested to rank order the statements along a continuum of personal meaning. For my study, fifty young white

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women were presented with a group of sixty-one statements which tapped their views on both the social implications and structure of race in Canada as well as the more highly personalized meanings associated with their own white subjectivities. The women were all selfidentified white women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-one, living in the Greater Vancouver Regional District at the time of the study. They laid claim to a variety of experiences in terms of sexual orientation, class background, and religious background and practice, though they were predominantly, but not exclusively, able bodied. All of the participants had at least some postsecondary education. Participants were asked to arrange the sixty-one statements along a continuum ranging from -5 (most disagree) to +5 (most agree) with zero representing the neutral or personally irrelevant middle category. Once all fifty women had completed the sorting task a principal components factor analysis was performed using an established Qmethodology statistical package (PQMethod 2.0). This statistical procedure grouped the participants into factors according to similarities in their ranking of the statements. It identified three factors, which I am interpreting as three discourses of whiteness. This method of interpretation follows a small but growing trend within the Q-methodological literature towards narratological or discursive analyses of Q studies (for example, Kitzinger and Stainton-Rogers 1985; Stenner and Marshall 1995; Stenner and Watts 1997/1998) and carries with it some important implications. The first of these implications is that the factors (from here on to be referred to as “discourses”) do not point to the existence of fixed, underlying essences and thus do not represent types or categories of people. Rather, they represent contemporary ways of thinking and talking in this locale which are being drawn on, to varying degrees of exclusivity, by this particular group of women. While some participants may draw on one particular discourse with a greater frequency than others, other participants drew on the three discourses with almost equal frequency and even those who drew most preferentially on one in particular occasionally found themselves positioned within ways of talking or thinking that were related to a discourse other than the one they usually allied themselves with. Given that subjectivities are understood to be structured and formed by discourse (Mama 1995; Stenner and Watts 1997/1998) this multiplicity of discursive positioning partly accounts for the fluid, unbounded, and potentially contradictory nature of subjectivity itself. A second implication of using a discursive analytic framework is that the particular discourses identified in the study are themselves subject to fluctuations. Due to the nature of Q-methodology, these

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kinds of fluctuations are not reflected in the study which provides merely a snapshot of a moment in time. Theoretically, however, it would be expected both that other discourses could be identified at other places and times and that the discourses identified in this study would themselves shift and alter their boundaries with time. The discourses identified by the study are the following:

Discourse 1: Individualism Eight women statistically defined this discourse. Women who defined this discourse were strongly individualistic in their thinking and believed that personality variables are more meaningful than factors such as race, class, religion, and sexual orientation in shaping both their own lives and those of people in Canada generally. They claimed their whiteness felt like “nothing in particular” to them and that they rarely thought about what it might mean to them or about any effect it might have on their lives. To the extent that they did think about it, they felt that their race had neither privileged nor disadvantaged them but strongly rejected the possibility they might deserve to be privileged because of their race. They believed strongly in the inner psychological similarity of all people and felt that any racial differences which did exist were probably of biological origin, but nevertheless had negligible impact on people’s lives. Due to their strong beliefs in the fundamental equality of peoples they opposed racism and believed whites could play an important role in helping to create a more antiracist society. Their definition of racism focused on individual expressions of prejudice and acts of discrimination rather than larger systemic issues however. Thus, they had not generally been active in antiracist groups or organizations.

Discourse 2: Antiracist Racial Consciousness Eleven women defined this discourse; seven of these were active with antiracist organizations either prior to or at the time of the study. This action orientation, combined with the strong belief that race does impact people’s lives in Canada today on both personal and societal levels, and that racism is a systemic, structural problem, not one of individual prejudice and discrimination, were the defining features of this discourse. Women positioned within it believed that they had been privileged because of their race and that this privilege was undeserved. Further, they felt that both they and other white people had a responsibility to use that privilege to work towards ending racism and racial privileging. They expressed a recognition of and desire to work against their own racism. Women defining this discourse also strongly

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supported an increased multicultural focus in school curriculums, as well as the creation of “safe” spaces for people of color only. They understood race to be a social construction and saw it producing their own experiences of whiteness in intersection with other aspects of identity such as gender, religion, class, ability, and sexual orientation. Although women within this discourse did sometimes think about what it meant to them to be white, they did so mainly in relation to questions of racism and racial privilege and their sense of themselves as white could carry with it occasional twinges of guilt or shame.

Discourse 3: Defensive Whiteness Three women defined this discourse. 4 Although these women felt that generally race was not an important part of their own lives or an important determinant of the lives of people in Canada generally, they did feel that it impacted people’s lives in some ways. The ways in which they saw it having an impact included the ideas that whites are suffering as a result of concessions to other racial groups and that whites are becoming the new minority in Canada. Although they did not feel as though they themselves had been privileged because of their race, they did have some sense that any privileges white people might have in Canada today in fact might be deservedly theirs. Women within this discourse were distinguished by their sense of pride in being white as well as by their strong connection to their ethnic background, which they tended to identify as “Canadian.” They believed race is learned from one’s environment and saw other factors, particularly class, as interacting with race in the formation of individuals’ understandings of themselves. Once interim descriptions of the three discourses had been developed, two women who were strongly associated with each factor were contacted and asked to participate in follow-up interviews which were held between October of 1998 and February of 1999.5 During this interview the women were read the descriptions of the three discourses and asked to indicate which one they felt most closely mirrored their own beliefs. In all cases they chose the one that they were statistically most associated with. They were also asked to elaborate on and clarify their views on themes I saw as important to the discourse they were representative of and explain why they had placed certain statements where they had in the initial sorting task. The interviews were semistructured and lasted between forty-five minutes and an hour and a half. These interviews build on the aggregate Q-sort data while providing a more detailed look at individual women’s racialized subjectivities and hence constitute a rich opportunity to explore the contradictory,6

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multiple, and hybrid nature of subjectivity. Three themes that emerged as areas of either contestation or agreement between the discourses are examined here in greater detail in order to further explore the natures of white subjectivities.

Normalizing Whiteness One of the most common arguments in both theoretical and empirical work on whiteness is that being white has been normalized and neutralized so that, to those positioned within its boundaries, it is both unremarkable and unremarked upon (Apple 1997; Chambers 1997; (charles) 1992; Dyer 1988; Frankenberg 1993; McIntyre 1997b; Phoenix 1997; Wetherell and Potter 1992). As a result of this unremarkability it becomes invisible and is thus experienced as invisibly normative: it simply is. This feeling of normativity is such a central part of what it has come to mean to be white in contemporary North American cultures that Twine (1997) found it was both a precursor and a necessary condition for the mixed-race women in her study to identify themselves as white.7 A normative view of whiteness was one of the defining features of the discourse of individualism. Women positioned in this discourse claimed not to have given much thought to the experience of being white and hence had difficulty either defining whiteness or articulating the meaning that it brought to their lives. Thus, Jessica,8 having responded to an earlier question about the definition of white culture with the statement “I guess I kinda think of white culture as being my own culture. The culture I was brought up to be . . .,” struggles to delineate the defining features of that bringing up: uh [long pause], um, maybe just in terms of um, our [long pause] like just maybe our values, our religion. But I can’t really say that, it’s not really religion. I don’t know. I just get a sense of the way we were brought up. [pause] It’s very hard to define what that difference is. It’s actually giving me a headache trying to figure out.

Jessica’s response here resonates quite closely with those of McIntyre’s (1997a) participants prior to their engagement with her Participatory Action Research (PAR) project on white identity. Amongst their early responses to questions regarding the meaning of white identity she quotes, “Mmm, I don’t really know. I mean it’s kind of an odd thought. It’s not something that usually I would think about. Um, I can’t really say” (100). Quite clearly then, both of these women were discursively positioned within a framework in which whiteness is

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established as relatively unexamined and hence relatively unspeakable; they simply had no words to describe what being white might mean to them or even what it actually is. The other interesting aspect of Jessica’s struggles as exemplified in this quotation is that in searching to define the parameters of whiteness, she seeks to do so relationally, in terms of difference (“It’s very hard to define what that difference is”). She is seeking to answer the question “how are whites different from other races?” rather than “what are whites like as a group?” Here we see the intersection of discourses of white normativity with those that construct and envision whiteness only in relation to other groups. As Weis, Proweller, and Centrie discuss, colonial discourse rendered the category “white” normative (average, neutral) at the same time that it was rendered empty, and thus definable only in relation to others (1997, 213). What this has come to mean for some white people is that at the same time that whiteness functions as the norm, it is simultaneously invisible (not noticed) and hence experienced as “not there” and certainly not important. Whiteness becomes an empty center.9 There is a splitting which can occur in white subjectivities as a result of this “empty center” status. Whiteness comes to be defined primarily through racial difference while at the same time there is a refusal to acknowledge or “see” racial difference. This denial of difference is exemplified in the following statement from Mairi: M: I’m really not aware of being white, and like I have friends and they’re all shapes and colors and everything and even when I’m around them and I might be the only white person there I don’t think of myself as white. S: How do you think of yourself? M: I just think we’re all the same, right? We’re all friends, we’re all hanging out.

Here, although Mairi has been sufficently aware of her whiteness to notice that she is the “only white person there,” she almost simultaneously denies noticing or “seeing” racial difference between herself and her friends. This process results in another kind of splitting of white racial subjectivity, this time into that which is noticed but not seen, or noticed but denied. This is a phenomenon which is strikingly similar to that experienced by women positioned within Frankenberg’s (1993) discourse of color and power evasion who simultaneously spoke about, but denied noticing, racial difference. It illustrates quite clearly the multiple, potentially contradictory, and fractured nature of subjectivity, while also pointing to the difficulties

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inherent in seeking to understand racial identity as unified or integrated experience. One implication of denying racial difference within a larger discourse of white normativity and neutrality is that for women positioned in this discourse, who experience their own race as invisibly normative and hence unimportant, it became difficult to understand how and why racial difference could matter for others. Thus, blacks who are antiracist activists are seen as, in Mairi’s words “dwell[ing] in the past.” Women defining the discourse of individualism generally denied both receiving racial privilege themselves and the possibility that members of other races are oppressed in Canada. Discourses of the invisibility and normativity of whiteness, therefore, can become enabling conditions of white racial privilege (Wray and Newitz 1997, 3) due to the positioning of whiteness as an invisible norm coupled with the denial that race matters or has actual material impacts on people’s lives. Although this vision of whiteness as normal, uncontested, and hence invisible was one of the key positions structuring the subjectivity of the women representative of the individualism discourse, women representative of the discourse of defensive whiteness resisted this positioning and created discourses and subjectivities in which whiteness was both contested and visible. Women positioned within the discourse of defensive whiteness, who felt that whites were suffering and whiteness was under attack, were also those who felt most strongly that their whiteness carried with it meaning and value. In Samantha’s words, “I don’t feel like [white values and ideas] are nothing, that what I have is nothing.” Winant’s (1997) analysis, that in places and times where whiteness is contested or seen as under attack it is less normalized, seems relevant here. What is interesting to note, however, is that these two discourses—of individualism and defensive whiteness—exist side by side in the same sociohistorical conditions. This suggests that the perception of contestation may be as important as the material reality of it. Samantha too, however, had a difficult time articulating exactly what form this “not nothing” took: “For me, hmm . . . It’s hard to explain, ’cause it’s just sort of who you are. [Being white] is what I am used to, that’s all I know.” Her apparently dichotomous positioning, wherein being white is just what “I am used to” but also more than nothing with regard to the question of a normalized vision of whiteness, illustrates well the multiplicity associated with the experience of subjectivity. Samantha, while being most strongly associated with the discourse of defensive whiteness, is also to a small degree associated with the discourse of individualism—that which is defined by a normalized vision of whiteness. Thus, her own subjectivity is influenced by

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both of these discourses and they play off of and occasionally resist each other in her talk and ideas.

White Culture In challenging normalized visions of whiteness Frankenberg has written compellingly that “rather than viewing white culture as ‘no culture,’ we need to analyze the social and political contexts in which, like race privilege, white cultural practices mark out a normative space and set of identities, which those who inhabit them, however, frequently cannot see or name” (1993, 192). Part of the process in enabling that seeing and naming is giving voice to and studying those cultural practices. Frankenberg (1997) is clear, however, that studies of white cultural practices should not and must not devolve into attempts to reify white culture or present it as a single “thing.” Rather, in her view, the study of white cultures should be the study of sets of practices and processes, intertwined with an explicit analysis of whiteness as a site of social, economic, and political dominance. Who is allowed admittance to this site is largely determined by who is included in the definition of white culture. Thus, a central part of understanding whiteness and white culture as a process and set of practices is analyzing the ways in which the boundaries are drawn around this definition. One way in which the boundaries of white culture have been drawn is through the association of whiteness with consumerism and a certain (privileged) place within the capitalist hierarchy. As a result of this association whiteness has become almost a code for “wealth” (Wray and Newitz 1997, 8). The very existence of labels like “white trash” points to the gradations of white belonging implied by a marking off of boundaries around that which is simply “white” and that which must be qualified by the addendum of “trash” (Davy 1997; Wray and Newitz 1997; Samagh, Rajiva and Elliott 1998). The material strength of this symbolic association is empirically evidenced in the work of Twine (1997) who found that access to the symbols of capitalist accumulation via consumer culture, coupled with the achievement of a certain socioeconomic status within this culture, were central components to mixed-race women’s constructions of a white racial identity. In my study women positioned within the discourse of anti-racist racial consciousness were most explicitly cognizant of this representation, as illustrated by Alise’s characterization of white culture as “materialistic.” They also, however, maintained a critical distance from this characterization, which allowed them to recognize the problems and limitations inherent in it. Lucie described her understanding as follows: “I think that a lot of what we call white culture is white commercial

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culture right? So it’s not . . . authentic’s not the right word, but it’s commercial, right? It’s about money and not about connection to family or other things that aren’t commercial” (emphasis added). Here, Lucie seeks to trouble the association between whiteness and consumer accumulation by pointing to the circumscribed vision of whiteness presented by such an image. Another limitation of this image is that it reserves membership in the category of whiteness for those who can literally afford it, by drawing boundaries of racial inclusion and exclusion based on the ability to consume commercial goods. As Gabriel puts it, “Whiteness is not something white-skinned people automatically possess” (1996, 151); rather it is something they must both literally and figuratively buy. Women representative of the discourse of defensive whiteness were also engaged in the process of drawing boundaries around white culture, but in a way which drew on strongly nationalist discourses of Canadian culture and identity. These women, with varying degrees of explicitness, understood Canadian culture as both necessitating and implying white culture. To them whites are the “real Canadians” and real Canadians are white. As Antonia said, “It’s almost like the white people are, you know, the pure Canadians and they’re the ones who really, you know, feel Canadian. I don’t know; regardless of where they come from [inaudible] they just feel strong about being Canadian.” So strong were the ties that held this association that, for Antonia, the image of a pure-as-the-driven-snow whiteness implicit in Canadian nationality and culture transcended the genetic/biological boundaries often drawn in popular discourses of race.10 This meant that a brownskinned woman, such as herself, who strongly identified as Canadian became white, if she chose to so identify, as a result of her association with Canadianness: You can’t deny that there are groups who have similar facial features and stuff but, yeah, I think you can alter [your race] a bit, yeah. Especially depending on where you live, ’cause like I’m half Middle Eastern but since I grew up here with a white family I’m more white.

Within Antonia’s subjectivity, a strong nationalist discourse intersected with notions of racial identity to alter the boundaries of a traditionally genetically determined vision of racialization in order to maintain an alternate vision of a “purely” white Canadian national identity. As a result, her position denies the possibility and desirability of a multicultural national identity and instead positions Canadian culture as prototypically white. Assimilation for women associated with this discourse was devoid of any negative associations and

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instead represented a necessary “courtesy” and precursor to the attainment of full participation in Canadian culture. Subjectivities are created at the intersection of many different discourses of belonging and occlusion which can either struggle against or support each other in sometimes unexpected ways. By developing an understanding of race as largely socially chosen, not biologically determined, the position put forward by women representative of this discourse supports Twine’s (1997) conceptualization of the phenomenon of “brown-skinned white girls” and provides further justification for her assertion that researchers studying the social construction of whiteness must widen their scope of study to include more than those who meet the (mythical) biological requirements for membership in this group. Furthermore, in the present study, the recognition of race as a social construct was by no means a guarantee of an explicitly antiracist stance, as has sometimes been assumed by the antiracist literature. Rather, this recognition was picked up on and incorporated in radically divergent ways in different and sometimes contradictory discourses.

Privilege and Power The issue of white privilege and social power was that which most clearly distinguished the three discourses as women took up positions which initially seemed orthogonally opposed to each other. Women representative of discourse one, who saw race as largely irrelevant in shaping people’s lives in Canada today, were perhaps best represented by Mairi’s comment that, when it comes to matters of race, “I think for the most part people are fair.” Women representative of discourse two, on the other hand, were acutely aware of their privileges as white people and of the power and dominance of white cultural practices in contemporary Canada, as illustrated by Alise’s comment that “It [white culture] is the dominant culture generally [and] holds a lot of power in the institutional spaces.” Women representative of discourse three, in direct opposition to this stance, agreed strongly with the statements that whites are suffering in Canada today because of concessions to people of color and that whites are becoming the new minority. Antonia described her feeling that whites are suffering by explaining that “they feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick and they’re constantly being called racist and, you know, like they have their own problems but they feel like they’re not going to get looked after cause they’re not a minority.” This statement illustrates nicely the phenomenon McIntyre called “privileged affect” (1997a, 69) whereby the affective responses of white people are given precedence over the lived experiences of people of color so that, in this example,

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white people’s experiences of feeling “bad” due to being called racist are seen as more valid and more important than people of colour being able to name and talk about their experiences of racial oppression. This position also supports Billig’s observation that discussions of racism are often understood, by whites, as accusations against themselves rather than as pointing out injuries to people of color (1997, 153). Concurrent to these assertions however, women representative of the discourse of defensive whiteness also recognized the continuing dominance of white culture generally in contemporary Canada. As Antonia said, “Even though [white people] are less dominant, they’re still dominant. Generally. Well, not necessarily them as people but their ways are.” Here Antonia bifurcates the experience of individual white people and the experience of white people as a group, allowing her to affirm the dominance of white culture while denying that this results in the privileging of individual white people. The resulting tension within this discourse reflects that noted by McIntyre (1997a), who found that some of her participants, while recognizing that white people and white culture were generally dominant, refused to acknowledge or denied how white people have dominated people of color both currently and historically to achieve this position. This refusal to examine the subtext of privilege and dominance that underscores racialized experience in Canada is exemplified by Samantha’s comment: If [Asian] people are going to come to Canada, and there’s nothing wrong with that, they need to accept that there is . . . a Canadian culture, and they . . . have to accept that they’re going to have to comply to that culture and . . . they have to give up a lot more maybe, in their opinion, to fit into this culture and I don’t think it’s assimilation so much as a courtesy that needs to happen.

Her position implicitly races Canadian culture as white (or at the very least “not Asian”) while also ignoring the racialized inequalities that exist between (Asian) immigrants and mainstream (white) Canadian culture. It also demonstrates the layering of subjectivity necessary for, as Thompson notes, white people to continue to benefit from racial privilege while having been trained not to see the power inequalities on which this privilege depends (1996, 106). Inherent within this discourse was a multilayered subjectivity which was predicated on the splitting of the white self from the social experience of whiteness—a phenomenon which illustrates further the nonunitary and nonlinear nature of racialized subjectivities.

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Women also created nonunitary subjectivities by drawing on multiple discourses as they constructed individualized meanings of whiteness. Jessica demonstrated just a such a moment of hybridity with regard to the question of white privilege when, after having staunchly defended a highly individualistic position which saw race as largely irrelevant to either individual or group experience for most of the interview, she later said, with some reluctance, I recognize the fact that being white does make it easier sometimes. I know that going through school being white does make it a lot easier. It’s not necessarily a good thing but it’s true and especially living in Canada you are, or I am, glad to, you know, be the majority. Because you don’t have to worry about . . . being discriminated against really.

Jessica is statistically most associated with the discourse of individualism and yet, in making sense of this particular aspect of her whiteness, she is clearly drawing on the kinds of ideas and beliefs expressed by women representative of the discourse of antiracist racial consciousness. For a moment, she steps outside of her preferred way of making sense of her whiteness and draws instead on the ideas which constitute the discourse of antiracism. In doing so she creates a location of hybridity in her subjectivity that sees her positioned in multiple and contradictory ways with regard to this aspect of her racialized experience.

Concluding Comments This investigation has provided an examination of some of the ways young white women in Vancouver are currently looking at that which has previously been invisible to all too many white people—the meaning and implications of their whiteness. The identification of the three discourses of individualism, antiracist racial consciousness, and defensive whiteness attests to the existence of multiple frames of reference for understanding and constructing whiteness among these women. This multiplicity illustrates that whiteness is not just a thing or an identity; rather it is many things and many subjectivities. Studying whiteness from a framework of subjectivity theory involves working from a process-based understanding of race which takes seriously the idea that whiteness is not a given, a priori, biologically based identity, but rather a socially constructed, multiply determined process. This framework enables the researcher to locate whiteness as constructed through discourse in the totality of the individual/social relationship

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illustrated by the following process. As individual women engage in the process of making meaning of their whiteness, they both create and perpetuate the boundaries of racial discourses at the same time that they are created and made into white women within them. Through this process, discourse creates the possible conditions of women’s lives as they come to be raced “white.” At the same time, individual women can and do push against, subvert, and take up different positions within and between these discourses. This can be understood as a form of agency, which often relies on and results from the existence of different competing and contradictory discourses. As white women negotiate their own racialized meanings within the socially available discursive texts provided for them to do so, they create individual subjectivities with clear commonalities that are deeply embedded and intertwined with local and historically specific discourses of race. As Stenner and Watts (1997/1998) write, “[S]ubjectivity (how we feel, what we perceive, the way we think, the nature of our experiences) is constituted in and through discourse (that is the talk and texts in and through which we find meaning and significance always-already articulated and organized)” (emphasis in original). An understanding of white subjectivity, with its inherent grounding in localized and historically contingent discourses of race, as well as individual engagement with these discourses, is thus a particularly appropriate and useful tool for the analysis of individual positioning and participation in the social construction of whiteness. These processes of meaning making are also inherently politicized and political. This is because, as Fiske agues, they are “centrally involved in the distribution and possible redistribution of various forms of social power” (1989, 1). Thus, who we understand ourselves to be and the meaning we give to this understanding help create the political conditions within which we all live. It is to understand this connection between individualized subjectivities and the perpetuation of systemic white racial dominance in Canada that the study of individual processes of meaning making are an important and necessary part of antiracist scholarship (McIntyre 1997a; 136). While the parameters of this project were designed to include only a portion of this process (being exclusively focused on talk and discourse at the expense of action and practice), it nevertheless contributes one of the many steps currently being undertaken to problematize and investigate whiteness and its relation to racist systems. In doing so it has argued that part of that investigation must be to question the unitary, fixed, and essential nature that has been associated with concepts of white identity and to understand whiteness instead as multiple, nonunitary and unbounded subjectivities. Only by doing so will we be

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able to fuse an analysis of the multiplicity of meaning associated with subjectivities of whiteness with a desire to disrupt the whole of the ongoing system of racism. The white racial supremacy dominating the contemporary Canadian landscape may thus give way to an effective and useful antiracist politics and theory.

Notes 1. Although there has been some move of late to include other people of color, to the extent that comparative race research is done in psychology it has been primarily interested in black-white differences. 2. Although not commonly commented on in critiques originating in the psychological literature, Helms’ (1990) belief in the possibility of white nonracism is problematic for a number of reasons. Frye (1983) was amongst the first to note the logical impossibility of whites, positioned as the beneficiaries of unasked for and undeserved institutional and systemic racism, to ever free themselves as individuals from this system; the most they can ever hope for is to be antiracist in their politics and theory. 3. The notion of essences has been problematized in the poststructuralist literature, most notably by Foucault, who claims that not only does discourse not reflect some core deeper underlying reality (1978), but that objects (such as white identity) do not exist waiting to be found behind discourses (1972). 4. The inspiration for the label given to this discourse comes from the work of Leslie Roman (1993a, 1993b) who has written extensively about the subject of what she calls “white defensiveness.” In Roman’s work, this concept is used to theorize the phenomenon of white people’s undermining anti-racist efforts toward social change by claiming racial oppression themselves—a stance which characterizes the subjectivity of women associated with this discourse. The subjectiveness of the women in this study and those that Roman describes differ, however, according to national differences in racialized practice and structures. Roman’s work in the southern United States found evidence of an explicitness and directness in the views of the women with whom she worked. Although present in subtle ways in the words of my participants, it was couched more in assurances that, of course, “true equality” is everyone’s real goal. The famous “polite racism” of Canadian society strongly influenced by participants’ presentations of their views. 5. In one case, the woman most associated with a discourse had been a participant in a prior “informal conversation” stage of the research and had been promised that no further demands would be made on her time. For this factor the second and third most strongly associated women were interviewed. 6. Stenner and Marshall (1995) are quite critical of the concept of contradiction being applied to individuals’ experiences of their subjectivities, arguing that individuals’ views are probably not experienced by themselves as

172 Stephanie Kellington contradictory. While I take this as a valid point I have continued to employ the term “contradictory” not to imply a critique of or shortcoming in the rational thinking processes of the individual in question, but rather to underscore the fact that human thought is often not as internally consistent or linear as theories of rational, unitary identities would have us believe. 7. Twine (1997) conducted a study with a group of young mixed-race women, all of whom had identified, at one point in their lives, as white. I draw on her work to illustrate certain points from this study because I feel her work, in demonstrating the tools and devices these women drew on to “opt into” whiteness, says much about what the defining features of whiteness are seen to be in contemporary North American cultures. 8. All of the participants are referred to by pseudonyms except for one who specifically requested that I use her real name. 9. See Cohen (1997) for a much more detailed discussion of the status of whiteness as an “empty center.” 10. An example of the kind of thinking that draws genetic boundaries around racial categories was seen earlier in the quotation from Jones (1991). Despite having been thoroughly debunked in the academic literature for quite some time (see, for example, Rose, Lewontin, and Kamin 1984; Torbach and Rosoff 1994), an understanding of race as being based, in some way, on biological differences remains embedded in popular North American discourses of race. The pervasiveness of this association is evidenced, in this study, by the views of women representative of the discourse of individualism. I have also found that when I lecture on the topic of psychological visions of race and racism the concept which engenders the most resistance and hostility from students is the idea that racial differences are not based on biological differences.

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McKeown, B., and D. Thomas. 1990. Q-Methodology. Sage University Paper Series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, series # 07-066. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications. Mercer, K. 1992. Skin head sex thing. New Formations 16: 1–25. Michael, M. 1990. Intergroup theory and deconstruction. In Deconstructing social psychology, ed. I. Parker and J. Shotter, 170–182. London: Routledge. Montag, W. 1997. The universalization of whiteness: Racism and enlightenment. In Whiteness: A critical reader, ed. M. Hill, 281–293. New York: New York University Press. Parker, I. 1989. The crisis in modern social psychology—and how to end it. London: Routledge. Phoenix, A. 1997. “I’m white! So what?” The construction of whiteness for young Londoners. In Off White, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, L. Powell, and L. M. Wong, 187–197. New York: Routledge. Potter, J. 1998. Cutting cakes: A study of psychologists’ social categorizations. Philosophical Psychology 1: 17–33. Potter, J., and M. Wetherell. 1987. Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. London: Sage. Roediger, D. 1991. The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working-class. New York: Verso. Roman, L. 1993a. On the ground with anti-racist pedagogy and Raymond Williams’s unfinished project to articulate a socially transformative critical realism. In Views beyond the border country: Raymond Williams and cultural politics, ed. D. Dworkin and L. Roman, 158–214. New York: Routledge. ———. 1993b. White is a color! White defensiveness, postmodernism and antiracist pedagogy. In Race, identity and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow, 71–88. New York: Routledge. Rose, N. 1989. Individualizing psychology. In Texts of identity, ed. J. Shotter and K. Gergen. London: Sage. ———. 1995. Identity, genealogy and history. In Questions of cultural identity, ed. S. Hall and P. du Gay, 128–150. London: Sage. Rose, S., R. C. Lewontin, and L. Kamin. 1984. Not in our genes: Biology, ideology and human nature. London: Penguin Books. Rowe, W., S. Bennett, and D. Atkinson. 1994. White racial identity models: A critique and alternative proposal. The Counselling Psychologist 22 (1): 129–146. Russo, A. 1991. We cannot live without our lives: White women, anti-racism and feminism. In Third world women and the politics of feminism, ed. C. Mohanty, A. Russo, and L. Tourdes. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Press.

176 Stephanie Kellington Samagh, S., M. Rajiva, and K. Elliott. 1998. Invisible ink: Reading the gendered markings of whiteness. Paper presented at symposium, Interrogating Whiteness II. Canadian Sociology Anthropology Association conference. Senn, C. 1996. Q-Methodology as feminist methodology: Women’s views and experiences of pornography. In Feminist social psychologies, ed. S. Wilkinson, 201–217. Buckingham, U.K.: Open University Press. Stenner, P., and H. Marshall. 1995. A Q-methodological study of rebelliousness. European Journal of Social Psychology 25: 621–636. Stenner, P., and S. Watts. 1997/1998. [Re]searching for love: Subjectivity and the ontology of the Q factor. Operant Subjectivity 21 (1/2): 27–48. Tajfel, H., and J. Turner. 1986. The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In Psychology of intergroup relations, ed. S. Worchel and W. Austin, 7–24. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Tarver-Behring, S. 1994. White women’s identity and diversity: Awareness from the inside out. In Shifting identities, shifting racisms, ed. A. Phoenix and K. Bhavnani, 206–208. London: Sage. Thompson, B. 1996. Time traveling and border crossing: Reflections on white identity. In Names we call home: Autobiography on racial identity, ed. B. Thompson and S. Tyagi, 93–110. New York: Routledge. Torbach, E., and B. Rosoff. 1994. Challenging racism and sexism: Alternatives to genetic explanations. New York: The Feminist Press. Twine, F. W. 1997. Brown-skinned white girls: Class, culture, and the construction of white identity in suburban communities. In Displacing whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism, ed. R. Frankenberg, 214–243. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Ware, V. 1992. Beyond the pale: White women, racism and history. London: Verso. Weedon, C. 1987. Feminist practice and post-structuralist theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell. Weis, L., A. Proweller, and C. Centrie. 1997. Re-examining “A moment in history”: Loss of privilege inside working-class masculinity in the 1990s. In Off White, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, L. Powell, and L. M. Wong, 210–226. New York: Routledge. Wetherell, M., and J. Potter. 1992. Mapping the language of racism. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Winant, H. 1997. Behind blue eyes: Whiteness and contemporary U.S. racial politics. In Off White, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, L. Powell, and L. M. Wong, 40–53. New York: Routledge. Wong, L. M., 1994. Di(s)-secting and Dis(s)-closing “whiteness”: Two tales about psychology. In Shifting identities shifting racisms, ed. A. Phoenix and K. Bhavnani, 133–153. London: Sage.

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Wray, M. and A. Newitz, eds. 1997. White trash: Race and class in America. New York: Routledge. Zuckerman, M. 1990. Some dubious premises in research and theory on racial differences. American Psychologist 45:1 297–303.

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7 Building a Home on a Border: How Single White Women Raising Multiracial Children Construct Racial Meaning Jennifer A. Reich

A variety of works have emerged to explore contemporary meanings of race in the United States and other highly integrated yet racially stratified societies. However, few works address the complex choices and strategies used by individuals who are involved in interpersonal interracial relationships. Nor do these works address how race operates within families and between family members. This chapter considers the lives and choices of white women who mother multiracial children. Under the current paradigm, being black provides a fundamental knowledge of racism that black children must learn for survival. White parents are not similarly trained to perceive racial inequity; they are the passive beneficiaries of systems of unspoken racial privilege and are therefore unequipped to successfully raise black children. White women raising multiracial children lie in direct contradiction to these assumptions. By using data collected in interviews with nine single mothers of multi-racial children, I examine the ways in which white women understand and approach race and how these views change how they and their children experience race. I do this by exploring how white women racially identify themselves and their children and interact with racial categories, how white women educate their children to deal with racism, and how white women negotiate racialized interactions with others. Engaging with literatures on interracial relationships, transracial adoption, black parenting, and the theoretical works on white privilege, this chapter argues for a new framework for thinking about the ways race and racialization operate within families and between family members. This chapter also considers how race is not a fixed system of categorization, but rather a fluid process of strategy and construction. It is shown that racial identity and racial socialization strategies are subjectively

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constructed and that race operates not only between families and society, but also between family members.

Existing Literature Some works on the black family point to how race operates within families, although the family is envisioned as monoracial. These writings show the central role black parents play as buffers between their children and societal racism (Thornton 1997; Dickerson 1995; Lorde 1992; Hill Collins 1991). Most notably, the writings about black parenting, especially from a black feminist tradition, lay out the ways race operates within families and between family members. The goal, not just of self-confidence and pride in one’s heritage or culture, but in fact, of survival is common in many of these works. This body of work illustrates the ways black parents must become “a filter of societal information and a primary interpreter of the social structure for their children” (Thornton 1997, 201). Each of these works posits that black parents have special skills for unpacking racism and arming their children for combat in what Lorde calls “the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon” (254). This theory raises the question of whether white parents can prepare children of color for survival. These questions have been central to debates over transracial adoption. Most books and articles on transracial adoption tend to focus on whether or not children of color, often African American, should be placed in the homes of white parents (for example Simon, Altstein, and Melli 1994, Simon 1974; McRoy and Zurcher 1983; Ladner 1977). The historical position of the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) illustrates this controversy. This organization, at its first annual convention in 1972, passed a resolution vehemently opposing transracial adoption. That resolution stated, “Black children should be placed only with black families whether in foster care or adoption. Black children belong physically, psychologically and culturally in black families in order that they receive the total sense of themselves and develop a sound projection of their future. . . . Black children in white homes are cut off from the healthy development of themselves as black people. . . . We have committed ourselves to go back to our communities and work to end this particular form of genocide” (Silverman 1993, 106). This resolution dramatically altered rates of transracial adoptions during the last twenty-five years. It has also set the frame for debate on this issue and led to the Adoption Anti-Discrimination Act of 1995.1 While the issues of parenting are similar, biological white mothers of children of color are not subjected to the same debates over whether they should have their children. Since they are the biological parents,

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the issue is legally settled. Yet questions remain about whether white mothers can adequately prepare their children to face racism. Much of the current work on whiteness points to the ways in which white people in American society are unaware of the significance of race or how they benefit from racial stratification. Works of recent popularity have considered these notions of whiteness and white privilege (Wellman 1993; Frankenberg 1993, 1997; hooks 1984, 1990, 1997; McIntosh 1992). These writings critically analyze racialized power dynamics from the standpoint of the privileged. By this measure, whites are highly invested in protecting privilege gained by racial caste. As McIntosh writes, “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in every day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious” (1992, 71). By this logic, whites in the United States work their way through complex social interactions, including those of parenting, without becoming cognizant of race. In that same article’s widely read list of privileges she notes, “I did not have to educate our children to be aware of systematic racism for their own daily physical protection” (74). This chapter will explore the question of how white parents, who are not sensitized to racialized meaning, assist their own children of color.

Methodology and Sampling This chapter is based on in-depth interviews with nine women contacted through a snowball sampling, a technique in which interview participants referred me, through their social networks, to other potential subjects. Interviews usually lasted between ninety minutes and three hours. Six of the nine interviews were one-time meetings. For the purposes of this study, I deliberately sought out women who gave birth to children of part African American descent. The intent of this was in no way to privilege biological parenthood over social parenthood. First, I hoped to avoid the debate over transracial adoption and whether these women should have these children. Secondly, by concentrating on biologically related mothers and children, I hoped to examine the complexities of multi-racialism for the women themselves, the ways in which the women accounted for their genetic and racial heritage, as well as that of their children, and the ways in which their children serve as a marker of their interracial sexual relations (if in fact at all). Finally, by looking at women who gave birth to their children, I hoped to avoid the possibly easier escape or “out” adoption might provide in terms of identity politics and racial identity transformation. As one respondent, thirty-six year-old Sheila, said, “No, I’m not one of those do-gooder white women,” explaining how people sometimes presume her child

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must be adopted and that she had not necessarily been intimate with a black man.2 All the women were unmarried at the time of the interview; this was also deliberate. Many psychological models suggest that the parent of color often becomes responsible for racial socialization (Poston 1990; Root 1990; Wardle 1987), while the white parent presumably remains “unmarked,” and therefore passive in processes of racial formation. This study deliberately sought out single white women who are primarily or solely responsible for communicating a racial identity to their children. Respondents ranged in age from twenty-one to forty-seven.3 Eight women have only one child and one has three. Children range in age from six months to twenty-three years old.4 The children in all but two families are boys. Therefore, seven of the families are composed of a woman and her son, an only child.5 Four of the nine women were married at one point to the fathers of their children. The children of three women see their fathers about twice a month, although in two cases, contact was established only in the last few years—after the children were older than three. Four women’s children see or interact with their fathers about twice a year. Two women have had no contact with the father of their child since their child was under a year old. All are white and U.S. citizens. None are immigrants or the children of immigrants. All participants self-identified as heterosexual. Three women either obtained a GED after leaving high school or graduated from high school. Four are in the process of working towards a bachelor’s degree. Two women are college educated with a bachelor’s degree.6 None are enrolled in or have completed any postgraduate study, although two expressed an interest in eventually attending graduate school. Education, however, does not correlate with understandings of racial meaning, as discussed later. The most common features among these women involved their families of origin. All were from working-class or poor backgrounds. None of their parents were college educated.7 Seven women’s parents are married or remarried. One woman’s mother was never married and her daughter Carrie comments that she is “a fourth generation single mother.” Eight of the women grew up in California: one in southern California, the others in northern California. One is from the Midwest.

White Women Constructing Racial Meaning Wellman asserts that “racism today remains what it has always been: a defense of racial privilege” (1993, 4). He writes, “[I]nstead of assuming

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that racism manifests itself as prejudice, I will explore another possibility: that racist beliefs are culturally sanctioned, rational responses to struggles over scarce resources; that they are sentiments which, regardless of intentions, defend the advantages that whites gain from the presence of blacks in America” (29). The white mothers of multiracial children in this study make strategic choices about race, not necessarily as a way to protect white privilege, but from the standpoint of possessing it. All women interviewed are white and all identify as Caucasian, at least racially. Yet, many do not feel vested in protecting that position. Instead, the various strategies employed by the participants illustrate the more complex ways racial choice making operates, both reproducing and resisting racial categories and hierarchies. The stories the women offered during the interviews were motivated by a profound desire to present themselves as nonracist, even if they used dominant paradigms of privilege to do so. Writings about privilege and standpoint work well in stratified and segregated arenas on a macro level, but break down in more intimate arrangements. While all the women interviewed in this chapter have a similar “claim” to whiteness, how they approach race is not monolithic. To capture this variation, I use a Weberian descriptive type analysis (Weber 1949; Giddens 1971). Responses fell into three categories or types which I refer to as “racial strategies” as they are tools used to negotiate racialized interaction in daily life in conscientious and deliberate ways. These types are color-blind, liberal humanist, and race traitor. By looking at they ways in which the women interviewed describe their efforts to maneuver around racialized interactions and identities, we can examine the significant ways racial meaning is subjective and varied. In the next three sections, the three strategies will be fleshed out.

Color-Blind Thinking The effort to sound color-blind is perhaps one of the most common approaches to antiracism in the United States today. The three women (April, Kirsten, and Nina) who expressed a commitment to color-blindness often went to lengths to explain that not only do they consider race insignificant but that, in fact, they do not even see race. Kirsten, for example, commenting on her first impressions of her husband, explains, “I was not raised to be prejudiced. I didn’t even see color.” Consideration of race in terms of power and privilege in an institutional structure was uncommon and uncomfortable for these women. However, contradictions lie in the ways in which they would use race as an explanatory device, while simultaneously denying its significance.

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April seemed extremely vested in presenting herself as color-blind. The effort to construct herself that way though is laden with contradictions, as the following passages illustrate. A: More black people seem to be racist that I know. JR: Like more judgmental of whites you mean? Or each other? A: They’re more racist against themselves. But like this one woman when I was pregnant. I forgot she was standing there because she was standing behind a display at the counter and I turned around and just happened to notice her or something and she said, “Well! I was beginning to wonder if you waited on black people or not!” And I said, “Oh. Whoa.” I said, “I forgot you were there. I’m sorry because I was dealing with the other girl that was going to lunch.” . . . Then I said, “I’m not prejudiced. That’s not it.” I said, “My baby is black.” Ha! I told my mom, “If she could turn red, she would have!” [laughs] Stuff like that, they seem to be more prejudiced against themselves, more expecting for you to be prejudiced than, you know, me actually being prejudiced. They seem to think that that’s the reason first. You know, like the only reason is with habit and it’s not! JR: Yeah. Why do you think that is, that they are like that? A: I guess that they’re so used to that, it is why, that they just expect it . . . I had worked at Carl’s Jr. kinda steady for a couple of weeks and they hired this other guy and when I came back in, he was counting the money wrong . . . and he was trying to tell me how to count wrong. And I had been working there longer than he had; he had just never met me. And then he went in and told the boss that I didn’t like him because he was black. So the boss called me back in the office and I went back there and he says, “Matt says you don’t like him ’cuz he’s black.” I opened the door and looked again. I said, “Oh yeah, he is, isn’t he!” I hadn’t even noticed. I said, “I hadn’t even noticed he was black. I just noticed he was stupid.” [laughs] So he called him back there and said, “She didn’t notice you were white. She didn’t even notice you were black. She just knew you were counting the money wrong. This is how you count it.” And after that he was alright.

April’s stories reveal several complexities. In the first passage she explains that she did not even see the customer at the counter, much less her blackness. And yet, in telling her mother the story later, she was aware enough of the woman’s race to think about her capacity to “turn red.” In the second story, she explains how she worked an entire shift with a fellow employee without ever noticing his race. She is then able to gain the manager’s support for this strategy, when he reiterates to the black employee that she hadn’t perceived his race and thus, could not

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have possibly treated him differently as a result. Further, her explanation of black people’s racism against themselves illustrates her perception that racism exists among those, in this case, blacks, who can observe race and then apply significance to it. In other words, racism is simply a consciousness that recognizes race; freedom from racial prejudice within this perspective involves “refusing to typecast, hobble, or restrict individuals on the basis of race” (Cose 1997, 210). This approach is problematic. As Cose argues, “Color-blindness, as it is most commonly practiced, is not a racial equalizer but a silencer—a way of quashing questions about the continuing stratification of the society. . . . It becomes, in short, a way of justifying the very inequality for which it claims to be the antidote” (210). The following passage illustrates Nina’s contradictory racialized thinking. Nina explains why her sisters-in-law disliked her and objected to her marriage to their brother by noting that they never liked anyone with whom he was romantically involved (who were all white, although she doesn’t make the connection that there might have been a racial component to their objections). Her explanation comes to rest on a cultural understanding of family dynamics for which she unwittingly uses anthropological terms and visualizations: [His family was] very, very, very female oriented. You could tell. The females have a lot of control over the family. You could really see the cultural bias. Not just the racial bias but the culture that goes along with a matriarchal society, with the girls having a lot of say, a lot of impact.

Nina’s reliance on cultural explanations uses existing tropes about black families to explain a racialized experience while simultaneously denying the importance of race. Nina, who is invested in the discourse of race as insignificant or unobservable, reiterates her own lack of racism by describing her appreciation of the nonwhite as culturally distinct, even as exotic, rather than questioning the perceived centrality of her whiteness. This contradiction in Nina’s thinking illustrates the ways in which strategies about race are ways of presenting self, separate from the more core hegemonic ways racialized thinking operates. Her effort to separate “racial bias” from “culture” shows her consistent denial of race as observable as well as her effort to demonstrate that she herself was not referring to race. As Westie writes, “The society that builds normative contradictions into itself simultaneously socializes its oncoming generations to culturally shared rationalizations of its moral contradictions,” (1993, 273). The color-blind approach is laden with such contradictions which each illustrate an awareness and simultaneous denial of racial meaning.

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In summary, color-blind thinking involves a discomfort with awareness of racial difference. As Nina explains, “I don’t really think about it. Race just isn’t that important to me.” Further, color-blind respondents insist race is unobservable whenever possible or actively deny the significance of race. To color-blind thinkers, racism is the awareness of race, regardless of context.

The Liberal Humanist Strategy Four women embraced the liberal humanist perspective: Carrie, Catherine, Sheila, and Tiffany. This approach to race is characterized by awareness of and even concern about the existence of racism, but there is a core conceptualization of race and racism as an individual problem and process. Race is part of personal identity or one’s culture. Racists are seen as ignorant individuals who probably have racist parents and have not yet been educated about race and diversity. This approach accompanied a strong conviction that all people are the same inside; therefore outward features (especially skin color) are not very important. Catherine, when asked what being white means to her, said, “I see being white as being human. Being black as being human. Being Asian as being human.” Catherine, who thinks a great deal about racism, still constructs race as being human and thereby equates all races as not just fundamentally equal but rather, fundamentally the same. The discourse of race and racial difference as present, yet unimportant, was very common among the women interviewed. Unlike color-blind women, who deny that color is even perceivable or insist it should not be perceivable, liberal humanist women acknowledge that race exists but do not consider it to be any more important than any other characteristic, except when racist individuals treat it as such. Sheila, the mother of a ten-year-old boy, provides an example of this rhetoric as she struggles to make sense of racist comments made by her schoolmates in rural Minnesota. Here she tries to fit racist remarks from white children into experiences with a black woman who lived above her when she was a child: I mean because that’s what their parents taught them and that’s what they were cultured into being. And I would get into arguments with them because you couldn’t tell me that the lady I lived down below who I loved dearly was bad just because of the color of her skin because I didn’t know, though. My parents were always one, that “people are people, that we all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time. And we all bleed and that’s just the way it is.”

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Other interviewees echoed her description of growing up to think of all people as the same. The individualized idea, that it is what’s on the inside not the outside, is a recognition that race does exist and is perceivable, combined with a view that it shouldn’t carry any larger significance. This view remained intact even as many women, including Sheila, were ostracized and disowned by family, friends, or employers because of the race of their child or partner. Focusing on race as an individual process removes any recognition of the ways in which whites participate in and benefit from racism. As McIntosh points out, “Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, average, and also ideal” (1992, 73). By never questioning race as a system of stratification, these women can look at race at an individualized interpersonal level where it is idealized as irrelevant or insignificant. For both the color-blind and liberal humanist white women, the descriptions of how race doesn’t matter mask important differences that do matter. The following passage from Tiffany, who explains that she doesn’t have many problems when going out with her six-month-old baby, illustrates the common strategy of downplaying racial significance. When I go out with her, the only people who when they look at her who think she’s even mixed are black people . . . or maybe people of minority background. Most people who look at her don’t even realize. They go, “Oh what pretty curly hair, what pretty eyes,” ‘cuz she’s light, she’s got blue eyes, you know, her hair is curly, but kinda straight. People don’t know . . . people are so attracted to babies that it doesn’t matter. The baby could be pink and purple with yellow polka dots. So long as it’s a baby, it’s okay. Until she starts to get older and starts to get darker and starts growing up and isn’t this cute baby smiling at everybody, I mean I could answer that question differently. When she starts not looking so much like me. He [her baby’s father] gets questions more because she doesn’t look like him.

Tiffany, to some extent, answered questions about people’s reactions in terms of whether passersby could tell that her daughter was multiracial. While she explains that she doesn’t get reactions because her baby still looks like her, she does recognize that later, if her daughter gets darker, race may be more significant. Further, “use of the phrase ‘Black, green, yellow, or pink’ is . . . a euphemism or strategy for avoiding race: it shifts attention away from color differences that make a political difference by embedding meaningful difference among nonmeaningful ones” (Frankenberg 1993, 38). This strategy was common in the responses of many women I interviewed.

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Race-Critical/Race Traitor Strategy A third approach to race is the race traitor perspective. Noel Ignatiev of Race Traitor magazine explains, “A traitor to the white race is someone who is nominally classified as white, but who defies the rules of whiteness so flagrantly as to jeopardize his or her ability to draw upon the privileges of the white skin” (Utne Reader, 1994, 82). There are significant epistemological questions about racial treason; yet it is useful as a descriptive type concept for discussing the responses of Natalie and Lisa. Of all the women interviewed, Natalie, a college student and mother of a five-year-old boy, had the most clearly articulated view of race and of the role it has historically played. Here she explains what she hates about race: It’s all about when did race come into concept. Where did that whole definition of race, when did race become necessary? And just where did that whole definition of race come from? And just that whole history of race. Race is used on a superficial level to divide society for what our government wants to say. Yeah, right! “We need to see how to divide the money,” but when you come down to it, it’s to divide and conquer. If you divide us then you create tension between us and if you create tension between us we will never become allies and work against you. I think that dividing by race is to help them in oppression, to keep people oppressed.

Lisa, an assembly technician and mother of an eleven-year-old boy, explains her view on race and whiteness: I’m kinda racist against white people to tell you the truth. Because I just can’t see, it does goes back to slavery and all that. Now it’s coming out what’s been going on and what’s happening and they can’t even acknowledge that they did anything wrong and they have all this hate in them and what they did and put people through. And still they have the nerve, the audacity, to put blacks down. That really makes me sick to my stomach. Just every day. If black people or black girls come in or are walking around or something and I’m in a crowd with white people or something . . . . white people kind of look at them like, “Ugh,” you know? There’s just so much, and there are a lot of white people who say they aren’t prejudice and they are. Because they wouldn’t do those things if they weren’t.

Race traitors apply a more structural understanding to racial matters. Race is not individualistic. Both women identified an external unnamed “they” to represent the white power structure. The two women in this study who used this strategy were more critical of whites than were any of the other women.

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Both women described instances where they were scrutinized or rejected by groups of blacks that they did not know, illustrating that they are not able to gain absolute acceptance. Race traitors are also not able to ever fully relinquish the white privilege they receive simply from their racial membership. In terms of active strategies though, race traitors work to distance themselves from dominant meanings of whiteness. I lay out these three dominant strategies of race as a way to discuss how white mothers of multiracial children negotiate a variety of racialized situations. These three approaches provide a lens through which to see variation in worldview and beliefs. In the following sections, I will show how these strategies are deployed to construct racial meaning.

Racially Identifying Themselves It is important to understand how the women interviewed understood their own racial position. Identifying themselves racially was a more conscientious process for Lisa and Natalie, the race traitors, than any of the other women. Lisa defines herself as peripherally white, but identifies strongly with how her friends, all black, perceive her: L:

They always say I’m black. I’m white on the outside and black on the inside. JR: Is that a compliment? L: Uh, I dunno. I guess it is if we’re here. If we don’t hate each other and we’re friends. Yeah, I guess it’s a compliment. . . . Because white people, the majority are racist. And they found one who’s not. So it’s positive. It’s a positive thing. Saying to them maybe there are more cool white people out there that don’t think bad about us.

Here, Lisa recognizes herself as an exception to most whites, a white who isn’t racist. The approval of her primary reference group, black women, serves to grant her entrance into the black community and a pardon from dominant whiteness. Natalie’s self-identification is more clearly crafted politically. Natalie, who does not relate to being white, racially identifies herself in ways that are oppositional to constructions of race: I’m Caucasian but my ethnicity, my culture I’d say I’m black. That’s just the way I was raised or any close friend I have ever had has been black or nonwhite . . . and that’s just what I believe, our ideologies, and the way we view the world. So that’s my race. And like growing up, little kids who didn’t know me would call me a wannabe—She wants to be black, she wannabe, wannabe.” And that comes into, look how we’ve even brainwashed our children. If you look a certain way you have to act a certain

190 Jennifer A. Reich way. And because the way I act, the activities I chose to be in or whatever or my friends didn’t fit it the way I was supposed to do because of what I looked like, therefore I wanted to be something other than what I was. But who is anyone else to tell me what I am?

The implication of this last passage is that Natalie sees race as a constructed system of stratification and is indignant when it is imposed upon her. She instead disentangles her own racial, ethnic, and cultural identities while rejecting how others might define her. Natalie related a story about a young black woman coming to her door to ask her to settle a bet about whether or not she is biracial. Natalie has dark blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, but her dress style, frequently donned large hoop earrings, speech intonation pattern, and the braid into which she tightly pulls her hair back could perhaps lend themselves to speculation. Further, word that she had “black pictures” in her apartment traveled. She notes, Now that I have grown older, now that I still don’t fit what people have in their mind that I should be, they want to justify it. Where they used to justify it was “wannabe.” Now they justify it as they want to know if I’m biracial. And now that’s interesting because it’s still that thought process. But now even as, okay, maybe if she’s biracial I’ll accept the way she acts and the way she looks as one. . . . or her ideologies.

Natalie and Lisa both position themselves in opposition to what they perceive to be whiteness as dominance and in many ways try to relinquish their own whiteness. Neither felt any affinity with other whites and both were critical of white hegemonic culture in which they feel no membership. By contrast, among the color-blind and the liberal humanist respondents, only one noted any awareness of membership in a racial group with other whites. Catherine, a liberal humanist, expressed a sense of amazement that whites would assume that she would agree with them, solely because she too was white. Catherine’s experience with business associates of her then husband speaks to this. This really blew me away when these people—this is when we were first together—a group of [Harry’s] investors . . . they’d come out . . . and I’d go pick them up at the airport and it was a family, a father and a couple of his sons. And these people were very open to making racist remarks to me about Harry in front of me. It was so bizarre. And I don’t know what they thought was up . . . .I mean I may be white but I’m married to this guy. It’s like, “Where do you think my loyalties lie?” and they were totally oblivious to that . . . They would never say this in front of him.

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Catherine was shocked that whites would assume she would share their views or at least tolerate their racism because of her racial membership. The remainder of the respondents explained that they simply don’t think about what it means to be white. For example, Carrie, when asked what it means to her to be white, responded laughingly, “Its fine.” She then elaborated, “Whatever race, everyone’s the same inside. It doesn’t matter what package you come in. And it doesn’t matter if you’re blue, purple, or green, that we’re all the same inside,” using a rhetoric similar to liberal humanist Tiffany’s. As with other liberal humanists, Carrie does not deny the observability of race, the way a color-blind respondent might, but is still unwilling to apply any significance to it. Rather than conceiving of themselves in terms of racial membership, many women discussed their own racial identity in terms of national ethnic background, such as Irish or German. As color-blind Nina explained, I think I identify [as Irish] more strongly than [my parents] do . . . [because of] my temper, my fiery personality [laughs]. My father was an American and that’s all there is to it. Heritage, I would have to say that I identify more with Irish. I would say I’m more Californian than an American; I mean I’m not real into the nationalism scene.

Nina identifies ethnically in terms of national characteristics of both sides of her family’s country of origin over three generations ago. Simultaneously, she comments on disliking nationalism. This is an excellent example of how she understands ethnicity in terms of individual characteristics. Her heritage of being Irish is thought of as the equivalent of her ex-husband’s African American ethnicity. She never considers race, as seen in the next passage when Nina discusses her eight-year-old son’s racial identity: He’s brown if you ask him. He’s light brown. He’s not really that into race. In fact he’s just started, and he said, “I think my Dad looks like he came from Africa,” and I said, “Actually, your dad was born in California. But his family, way way back in his history, were from Africa so he can be called African American. But he’s not from Africa.” And to me he’s just as much heritage from me. He’s just as Irish as he is African American.

How these women racially identify themselves illustrates their beliefs about race. The race traitor women clearly attempted to distance themselves from whiteness because of the privilege it holds. The liberal humanists engaged with racial meaning solely at an individualistic level, refusing

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to think of race more structurally. Color-blind women, like Nina, treat race as no more visible than national origin or family genealogy. These women are actively constructing racial meaning for their children through the same lens they use to construct racial meaning for themselves. The following section explores the ways women help to construct their children’s racial identity.

Racially Identifying Their Children Because much of the writings about parenting underscore the importance of creating a positive self-concept for children, the ways in which white women choose to inform the racial identities of their children is important. For color-blind women, the best way to deal with race was to downplay its importance whenever possible. April, one of the participants most vested in color-blindness, explains her son’s racioethnic identity in the following way: He came home and said, “My teacher says I’m black.” And I’m like, “Excuse me.” You know. So I explained to him that you are this, this, this, and this [pointing to a hand-drawn grid with many squares]. So you can’t really say you are black and you can’t really say you are white. You’re just Conrad. If anyone asks you, you are just a boy.

Nina, another woman invested in color-blind thinking, continues describing the ways in which she counters racialized thinking about others with her son: I’ve tried to expose him to a lot of different things. He’s real intrigued by piercings right now. And he, my son’s kinda shy and will sit back and I’ve made a point of getting him up and talking to somebody instead of just staring at them. “Let’s go talk to them and see if the piercing hurt,” and really working with him to see the person inside and not the outside and that’s just very important to me in any way, shape, or form. And he has been exposed in a number of ways, [like] with me dating people with handicaps.

Nina equates racial difference to physical difference and mutable qualities like piercings to immutable ones like race. She returns to the “it’s what’s on the inside that matters” ethos and refuses to examine levels of status and stigma associated with different kinds of physical differences. Women from all descriptive type categories expressed dismay about others questioning their child’s racial membership. Several women, mostly liberal humanist, explained that one of the hardest things to

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deal with is when people ask about their child’s background in awkward and what they find to be offensive ways. For example, liberal humanist Carrie, mother of a three-year-old son, notes, “People ask, ‘What is he?’ That’s the hardest question. It just seems so insensitive.” Catherine, mother of a now seventeen-year-old high school senior remembers being at grocery stores with her son in the early 1980s when people would ask, “What nationality is he?” She recalls, “I’d say American and walk away.” Race traitor Natalie’s experiences with this are quite similar. In the discussion below she describes how she deals with this and teaches her son to as well: You will very very rarely have somebody who is bold enough to come to your face and if they do it’s, “What is he?” He’s a boy. But it comes down to that “I’m not comfortable with him as he is. I want to put a label on him. So give me a label so I can put it to him so I can feel comfortable.” And that’s what I’m teaching him. I teach him, yeah, we do Kwanza Week. With him, I teach him, “You’re German and African. But if someone asks you, you tell them you’re human, you’re a boy. Tell them you’re Johnny,” to not allow people to put labels on him.

While Natalie’s response sounds similar to other women’s, although they are in different descriptive type categories, her motives illustrate the glaring difference. Her frustration with putting a label on her son ties directly with her challenge of the system of racial categorization as a way to structure inequality. The recognition of the larger meanings of categories that Natalie points out is different from Carrie’s irritation that people insensitively comment on race at all since race should, in her view, remain irrelevant. Respondents struggled to racially identify their children for others. In the passage below, Nina expresses her discomfort with having to publicly define a racial identity for her child. Once forced to discuss race though, she resorts to what she sees as technical, neutral terms, struggling to keep race individualized and ahistorical. It was real amazing to me when I had to choose a race for my son to get his Social Security card. And the thinking of the time, I definitely chose black because I felt there would be advantages to it. Now the climate is changing. But seven years ago there were some distinct advantages to being minority . . . [like] Affirmative Action. And people would pursue that. And working in the public sector, I am well aware of how much Affirmative Action is. But that, if I had to classify him, I’d say “mulatto” because I

194 Jennifer A. Reich don’t see him as black; I don’t see him as white. And I’ve had this conversation with his dad. He cut his hair one time kinda in this gang-banger type thing. And I said, “Why would you do that? He lives in Cedar Creek. The kids don’t do that.” And he said, “You have to accept that he’s black.” And I said “No. You need to accept the fact that he’s not white and he’s not black. He’s something you and I can’t understand.” So I’m more adamant about him being a mixture than . . . and that he’s him. And when people ask, he’s mulatto as far as I’m concerned—and that’s the technical term for a black and white mix. He’s a mix. And most people don’t know it. And our society is very much, if you have any black in you you’re black.

How to officially racially identify their children, as mentioned above by Nina, exposed a fascinating intersection of issues for most of the respondents. At least seven of the women reported feeling a sense of frustration with having to “pick a box” for Social Security applications and school registration forms. This decision provides a tangible example for what can otherwise seem a more passive or unspoken process. Many women were impassioned in their discussion of this seemingly bureaucratic detail. Most women from all descriptive types objected to being forced to participate in the system of categorization and racialization; however, few women were able to articulate what the process meant to them. Here race traitor Lisa discusses the way she “checks boxes.” She explains, “I put black and white. And if they have a problem with it, I fight with them. [They usually say] ‘You have to check one.’ I’ll say, ‘No, I’m not checking one, I’m checking two. . . . ’ So no, he’s black and white.” As scholars have shown, the state actively constructs racial meaning (Omi and Winant, 1994; Dominguez, 1994; Goldberg, 1997). More personally, by choosing one racial or ethnic category, white women may risk erasing themselves from their children’s racial history, a particularly daunting possibility for single women, who are in many cases struggling to raise their children alone. So the choice is not always a vested interest in protecting whiteness for themselves or their children, but rather in preserving their own contribution to their child’s history. Racial identities are shaped not simply through identification, but also through interaction. Part of constructing racial meaning for children involves actively strategizing for potentially racist encounters. Predictably, the varied understandings of race altered how these questions were addressed.

Teaching Their Children to Survive Many of the writings on the black family discuss how black parents must teach their child coping strategies for their lifetime of interactions

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with an inherently racist society. As Lorde writes, “Raising Black children—female and male—in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. And in order to survive, they must let go. This is what mothers teach—love, survival—that is, self-definition and letting go. . . . I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine” (1992, 254). The public education system is often where many children first encounter institutional and systematic racism and barriers (hooks 1994; Holmes 1995, Wardle 1987). Many theorists argue that living in an integrated area, having teachers of various racioethnic backgrounds, and even prioritizing a progressive curriculum are essential for the survival and development of children of color and the education of all children. As Holmes notes, citing the works of Cook (1984) and Aronson (1986), “[T]he failure to create cooperative, pleasant interactions in schools has hindered the development of interracial relations” (1995, 26). Because many educational and institutional structures do not offer progressive ways in which to deal with race, parents must often insist on it. From small level interactions to large-scale curriculum issues, the centrality of Anglo-American culture has denied all children a meaningful education about race and diversity. While damaging to all children, this can be devastating to children of color. Given the role black parents play in facing institutional racism, most particularly in the school system, the core question of white women raising children of color remains, Can white women who are rarely taught to even notice race protect their children or prepare them for such encounters? Responses and strategies varied. Predictably, race traitor women presented the most conscientious effort to prepare children for racism. Natalie discusses her role in preparing her son: I’ve taught him, it’s an ongoing process. And you teach him a little about slavery. And the whole, “White people may not like you because you have brown in your skin.” And how you have to build that up within them. Their own self-confidence. Their self-esteem. It a continual thing and they’re going to get something at every level they’re on.

Natalie has also confronted teachers and tries to continually learn about manifestations of racism, particularly as her son attends a school without any racial diversity. She explains, There got to be one point where it was three time-outs in one day for bullshit stuff—this is kindergarten. And I’m not calling racism on [the

196 Jennifer A. Reich teacher] at all but just having a child of color you are aware, or you need to be aware. Not everyone is aware, especially white folks that have children of color. But you need to be aware. So I went to her and said, “I don’t think you are doing this on a conscious level but I think you have become hypersensitive to my son.”

Natalie’s specific goal is to help Johnny develop a positive sense of self, underscored by a political identity. The attention to a consciousness in addition to an understanding that racism exists differentiate her strategy from that of other women. As she explains, “It makes me sad to see these children raised by Uncle Tom sorts and a white mother.” Lisa also concentrates on how to prepare her son for racialized encounters. During her year and a half at a community college, she would read to him from her African American studies books. Lisa also notes, “I talk to him. And I just tell him that there are people in the world that won’t accept him but it really doesn’t matter anyway because he’s a good person. I always tell him he’s beautiful, always. And he’s always in the mirror [laughs].” Of the liberal humanist women, two had strongly considered the prospect of their child encountering racism. Carrie explains, I’ve thought about it a lot. And I feel, am I gonna be prepared? Am I gonna be prepared to deal with race because I don’t know it first hand? And how am I gonna, because I don’t know it first hand; I try to be more sensitive than I would normally. Like, I made a conscious effort to consider what, how would I be . . . [if he came home and told me someone attacked him because of race]. . . . And hopefully, I mean all I can do is try and be sensitive and try and provide good role models.

Carrie mentioned calling her child’s aunt and trying to establish a relationship with her, in an effort to provide a role model. Kirsten adopted a similar strategy, although less conscientiously. Her children are extremely close to her ex-husband’s family and spend a great deal of time with them. Racial matters are unofficially delegated to them and thus she has not more proactively considered her role. Several women, mostly from a liberal humanist perspective, felt educating their children about race was the best strategy. Catherine, for example, asked her ex-husband to send their son Peter a book that she had heard about but couldn’t afford at the time. Since then he has been sending books to Peter regularly, including the writings of W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and many African American writers. Catherine also insisted on living in diverse places (and bemoaned her

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current inability to do so). For others, most particularly the color-blind women, the concern was minimal. While race traitor Natalie hates the lack of diversity in the school where her son is enrolled, color-blind Nina had a dramatically different view of the same elementary school where her son also attends, three years ahead of Natalie’s. I asked Nina if attending an elementary school that is not very racially or ethnically diverse had been problematic for her eight-year-old son Riley. She claimed that it has not been an issue for him: You know, its not. And I don’t know if part of that is that he’s being raised by a white mom. I mean he’s being raised white middle-class. And I don’t know if part of it is that he’s young, you know. He’s never come home and had people call him names. Because they don’t really see his dad, you know, so I don’t know how much of that is because they just associate him with me. So I don’t know if at his age there’s some cognition and I really think that’s because the kids see me, they really don’t see his dad.

In the first part, Nina insinuates that her whiteness covers her son by association. Because Riley’s father is not visible to schoolmates, she explains that perhaps they don’t think of him as being of an ethnic minority. Nina did acknowledge that her son will most likely experience racism while growing up, explaining, “Yeah. I just hope he has a strong enough sense of self to not let it [affect him], and I think he will. He’s a cool kid.” Several women adopted this strategy of relying on the child’s sense of self worth, not considering how that is affected or altered by racism. The home is often written of as a haven from racist conflict in the public sphere. As bell hooks writes of her own experience, “Despite the brutal reality of racial apartheid, of domination, one’s homeplace was the one site where one could freely confront the issue of humanization, where one could resist. Black women resisted by making homes where all black people could strive to be subjects, not objects, where we could be affirmed in our minds and hearts, . . . where we could restore to ourselves the dignity denied us on the outside in the public world” (1990, 42). Of the women interviewed, only the race traitor women mentioned a conscientious effort to make the home safe from racism. Natalie spoke a great deal about the art and decor of her house as well as who she’ll have over. For Lisa, even choices of who she dates are ways of protecting her son:

198 Jennifer A. Reich [I date] all black men. . . . I’m scared that—I did date one guy. He was Indian or Mexican or something like that, and every chance he got mad at me he would say the N-word and all this stuff and I just don’t want to take a chance with anybody other than black men. Black men I know are safe, you know, around my son.

Lisa conscientiously chooses to protect her son from potential racist attacks from intimate friends. These choices about how to negotiate racially loaded interpersonal interactions illustrate that all white women of all strategies are confronted with race. The various ways in which the women interviewed took account of racialized interactions help to again show how white women construct racial meaning for themselves and their children.

Raced-Relations The women I interviewed did experience significant losses in their personal lives, particularly with their natal families, by their residence on the color line. Seven women described their parents as either racists or as having racist reactions to their relationships with black men. In five instances, the woman’s family disowned her or ceased to communicate with her when she established a relationship with an African American man or when she had her child with him. For example, Nina’s father, who, according to her, hated anyone nonnativist or non-Anglo, verbally abused her before disowning her. She describes how she would receive “lots of taunts, lots of verbal abuse over it. My father actually said to me that he would rather that I married someone who was white who would beat me and run around on me than marry someone outside my race. He was that bigoted.” Kirsten’s mother did not break off relations but clearly objected to her daughter’s relationship and attempted to sabotage it. (Other women also mentioned attempts at sabotage). Only two women, Carrie and Natalie, reported that their parents did not actively voice their disapproval of their daughters’ involvement with black men or childbearing from an interracial sexual relationship. While the use of racial strategy did not determine which women experienced problems with their families, strategies did alter how they reacted.8 Lisa, a race traitor, moved out of her home at age fourteen and into her fifteen-year-old boyfriend Michael’s family home to escape her alcoholic mother and abusive father: My family was angry because they were black, or African American, and they didn’t agree with that. I would just hear things from my little sisters about how they didn’t want me around or how I’ve ruined my life. . . . But

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they didn’t want to have anything to do with me at first. And then my mom would call sometimes and she would be drunk, cussing me out, say . . . saying, “Don’t ever ask for any money or anything; you’re on your own now.”

As Lisa explains further, “They . . . believe that whites should stay with whites and blacks should stay with blacks. And they’d like me to find a nice white man to marry. But that’s not going to happen.” Many women noted sincere surprise that their parents, who never seemed racist to them before, had a problem with their daughter dating interracially. Often, parents’ responses were triggered by the recognition that their daughters were romantically and/or sexually involved with black men. Liberal humanist Tiffany discusses the impact her interracial relationships had on her family. My friends were all different backgrounds and then I had a boyfriend in high school who . . . was black. Everybody just thought I was crazy in high school. But it never occurred to me. I was so sheltered, so naive . . . about the whole race issue, I didn’t know anything about it. So the fact that my parents freaked out, especially my father freaked out, when I had a boyfriend who was black—it just like blew my mind. I was totally shocked. I never thought about it and then my father freaked out and wow, just to think that my parents could have been racist was just a total shock . . . because they never taught me that.

Looking at the differences between Lisa’s and Tiffany’s narratives illustrates how women with different strategies make sense of these clearly racist reactions. Tiffany constructs herself as shocked and surprised, having never understood “where that came from.” Her selfidentification as “naive” may be self-insightful or may serve as a way of seeing herself as individualistically non-racist and therefore unconcerned with the importance of race. In the next passage she explains, “I never thought about it. I was dumb I guess. I was really naive.” But for her to have been cognizant of others’ reactions to her relationship was indeed to be aware of its racial significance. By describing herself as unaware, she is able to present herself as a person for whom race is “not an issue” and then preserve her presentation of self as a liberal humanist. By contrast, race traitor Lisa, who would never self-identify as naive, keeps responsibility for the problems with her parents, rather than trying to explain their reaction or internalize it. Lisa did not presume that her family was ignorant or excusably mistaken about race, due to their own (in)experience. By contrast, Tiffany attempted to explain why her father reacted so fiercely, having threatened “to drive” her boyfriend’s “family out of town.”

200 Jennifer A. Reich I think he displaced a lot of his feeling because he used to work for the prison and the warden of the prison was black and he had a lot of negative feelings toward this person and I think seeing the bad side of people all the time, he really displaced a lot of his anger and stuff on me, I think, and my relationship instead of looking at it.

Her surprise at her father’s reaction and her subsequent efforts to understand it as a process of displacement show her desire to rationally understand racist thought and to simultaneously look for a way to dismiss it. Similarly, most of the other women, all liberal humanists or color-blind thinkers, voiced disbelief at the realization that their parents were racist. Some outrage was simply about their parents’ attention to race when race “doesn’t matter.” Others, like Tiffany, were more likely to rationalize individual racism as flaws of their generation or socialization. For example, color-blind April describes her father in the following way: (laughs) My dad’s just my dad! He’s just like that. You know. That’s the way they were raised. They were raised in a world like that. And like Brazil nuts, when they were growing up they called them “nigger toes.” Because, have you seen them in a shell? They were black and that’s just what they called them when they were growing up.

This effort to rationalize racist behavior reifies racism as an individual process by ignorant or confused people, consistent with the beliefs of the liberal humanists and the color-blind respondents. The women who offered rationalizations for their parents’ behavior did not communicate a need to sever relations between their parents and their child but usually just warned their parents to avoid speaking that way in front of the child. The experiences of being shunned, judged, or disowned by their families are no doubt hurtful to the women and deeply significant. Yet these experiences did not dramatically change their beliefs about how race should be treated, nor did these ordeals change how they mediated interactions between their children and others. The color-blind and liberal humanist women still see racism as a flaw in the racist individual or, like April, are likely to accept such thoughts as individual errors. These stories, above all, demonstrate the depth and persistence of racial strategies. Outside of intimate interactions, most liberal-humanist and colorblind thinkers couldn’t recall receiving disapproval from people in public places (although several relied on a black partner to notice and advise appropriately). For example, Kirsten, a color-blind thinker,

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describes a lack of awareness of stares and reactions: “Not comments, but looks. My husband used to get angry at people for looking at us when we were together. . . . And I don’t know if I was just naive or something, but I just didn’t notice. I didn’t pay attention to them and he’d get mad.” Kirsten denied noticing reactions from teachers, health practitioners, or other people in the public sphere for much of the interview. After a long pause she recalled, I really liked this one doctor I had, Dr. Baskin. . . . [H]e made me go in the hospital the night before Thanksgiving because he thought I had a tubal pregnancy. And when Jamal showed up there he didn’t flinch. You know what I mean? He didn’t have that look. So yeah, I guess I do get a lot of it because that just stands out in my mind that it was so cool that he didn’t even flinch. That it didn’t even faze him that my husband was black. I guess you get immune to it after a while.

Kirsten does not recall receiving disapproval in public, but has a clear memory of an interaction that didn’t have “that look.” This dynamic illustrates the way racially charged encounters become so routinized as to be naturalized. It also shows that white women with multiracial children, from all strategies, do experience racism; how they make sense of it varies. Race traitor women were more likely to perceive race as omnipresent and were prepared to confront it. Liberal humanist and color-blind women who insist that racist individuals are simply misinformed, ignorant, or morally damaged applied less significance to these interactions and most likely communicated this to their children. Each of these interactions provided another opportunity to communicate racial meaning. While women from all perspectives experienced racist attacks, their strategy for making sense of them remained intact. For example, one might imagine that Nina’s experience of being disowned by her father might have inspired her to question race at a more structural level; yet her insistence that race is invisible remained strong. If anything, this speaks to the persistence with which these women held on to these racial strategies.

Conclusion Winddance Twine notes from her research on “Brown-Skinned White Girls,” “A white identity is available . . . to a segment of the economically privileged and residentially segregated African-descent female community . . . .[This] also suggests that despite the persistence of overt

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antiblack racism in the contemporary United States, Asian American and European American mothers may play a pivotal role in transferring a racially neutral identity to their daughters” (1997, 238–40). This study moves toward answering Twine’s speculation about the roles mothers play in helping their children learn racial meaning. But unlike Twine’s sample, it also shows the multiple strategies that can be constructed by mothers who are raising children of mixed-race parentage. A descriptive type analysis was used, with three types constructed as a way to show variation in response. White women invested in color-blind thinking denied the significance of race, even when confronted with racism from family members or friends. Their own beliefs about the invisibility of race trickled down into their decisions about race with their children. Liberal humanist women were able to think about race at a purely individualistic level. This strategy enabled them to focus energies on educating their children about difference and equality while not evaluating the larger sociopolitical processes in which they and their children are engaged. White women who are race traitors approached complex race questions from a more structural perspective than many other women and were engaged critically with racial meanings. The term “race traitor” is admittedly problematic as it suggests the ability to relinquish whiteness. But as bell hooks describes a conversation she had with a black woman, she writes, “We talked about the way people who shift locations, as her companion has done, begin to see the world differently. Understanding how racism works, he can see the way in which whiteness acts to terrorize without seeing himself as bad, or all white people as bad, and black people as good” (1997, 177). Indeed, the potential for people to “shift locations” is one needing serious epistemological consideration. While capturing the subjective meanings of race is important, it cannot stand alone. Inarguably, race is still largely about externally applied meaning. White women, regardless of subjective identity, are still treated with the privileges of membership in a dominant group, although this privilege is clearly mitigated by a multiracial child who marks racial transgression. But even while accepting the external privilege white women possess, we must acknowledge that their constructed strategies alter the way they prepare their children. This study shows that individuals interact with systems of categorization in dynamic and fluid ways. On a theoretical level, we need to consider the choices individuals make within social structures. The meanings of race and racism both shape and constrain based on individual and structural understandings of them. Individuals within those structures are not simply bound by historical meanings; they are interacting with them. By looking at race in terms of subjective strategies, we can examine the meanings of racial socialization and indoctrination

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which are not passive processes but are actively constructed through interaction. Daily interactions with strangers at the grocery store or decisions about who to date are racially informed. Natalie remarked, “A lot of times within society, you’re black if you’ve got a biracial child; that puts you in the black category. And that doesn’t mean you are accepted on either side.” The inability to be accepted on “either side” illustrates the visibility of the border on which these families live. While few of the women (only the race traitors) perceive themselves as black, it is unlikely that any of them have remained unaffected by the presence of their children. The color-blind and the liberal humanist respondents who insist that color, including that of their children, is either invisible or only marginally significant utilize these approaches as part of a larger strategy to deal with race. The elaborate presentations of selves through specific conceptual strategies illustrate the daily process of decisions and choices that are made. They are not simply protecting a privileged white position but believe themselves to be deeply committed to nonracism. To dismiss white women as simply protecting a system of privilege ignores the more complex and painful processes of racialized social interaction. Additionally, we should not assume that race only operates between family members of different races, but also, is strategically and deliberately maneuvered between family members who identify as being of the same race. These processes too should be considered equally significant in the reproduction of racial meanings. They should be examined in any empirical study that tries to understand how race works in intimate relationships. Doing so would begin to remove the assumption of race as a system of set categories with fixed meanings. We can then question the wisdom of expecting persons to think as they look. Clearly, not all white parents are suited to raise children of color. There are indeed legitimate concerns of neocolonialist and racist attitudes that may be conveyed to children by white parents, expressed for example in the NABSW position. But as Macey explains about adoption policy in the United Kingdom (and the United States until recently), “the portrayal of black and white people in monolithic terms rests on racist stereotyping and is a distortion of the reality of social relations” (1995, 473). To address the concerns of both the NABSW and Macey, the questions we need to ask about parenting and socializing children of color are not just ones of external categorical membership, but about political identity and racial strategies. Indeed, we may no longer be able to so easily conflate racial appearance and racial identity. Finally, by thinking of race as also a process of strategic construction, we can have more meaningful conversations about what sorts of socialization we want for children of color (and all children). As family

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members are decreasingly all of the same racial category,9 we need to consider the complex mechanisms by which race is deployed among family members and between families and social institutions.

Notes This research was supported by a grant from the University of California, Davis Pro Femina Research Consortium. I am indebted to Carole Joffe, John Stanfield, Ryken Grattet, Judy Stacey, Dave Scudamore, Daniela Kraiem, Susan Schroeder, Rosemary Powers, Stuart Henderson, Jeni Cross, and Melinda Milligan, who all offered comments and advice on earlier drafts of this chapter. 1. The Adoption Anti-Discrimination Act of 1995 (S.637) was signed into law by President Clinton and codified a color-blind national adoption policy to expedite the placement of children of color into foster and adoptive homes. The bills states that it “will prevent discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in the placement of children with adoptive families.” This bill clearly engages with the historical position of the NABSW. As the bill’s author, Senator McCain stated, “In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, over 10,000 children were adopted by families of a different race. This was before many adoption officials decided, without any empirical evidence, that it is essential for children to be matched with families of the same race, even if they have to wait for long periods for such a family to come along. The forces of political correctness declared interracial adoptions the equivalent of cultural genocide. This was, and continues to be, nonsense” (CR4726-4727). 2. In the process of proactively creating categories as ways to employ, explore, and potentially explode other categories, there are strategic choices and risks. While family relations of adoption, other-mothering, and of nonbiological ties are equally important, I have chosen not to explore those relationships in this study. 3. Ages of participants: 21, 24, 24, 26, 31, 35, 36, 42, 47. 4. Girls are six months, 16 and 23. Boys are 3, 6, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 17. 5. The gendered dynamics occurring within these families are worthy of further consideration beyond this study. 6. Of the four women working on degrees, all four have transferred to a large public university from a community college, as did one of the two women who completed a B.A. 7. These commonalities are most likely the product of a snowball sampling technique, initiated in several communities surrounding a public university. Simultaneously, I have no way to know how closely these women resemble other single mothers of multiracial children. As this study is not designed to be a representative sample and has a small number of participants, it would be difficult to discuss the importance of these background features.

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8. Ladner, in her detailed study of transracial adoption, found that at least one couple who was disowned explained that “had they known it was going to destroy their relationship with her husband’s parents, they never would have adopted” (1977, 191). No similar regret was implied or stated by any of the biological mothers in my study, most of whom described their children as a blessing or “dream come true.” 9. According to Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook, a compilation of U.S. Bureau of Census reports, in 1980, there were 651,000 interracially married couples. In 1994, that number increased to 1,283,000. In 1980, 167,000 were black-white marriages, with 122,000 representing white wives with black husbands. In 1994, there were 296,000 black-white marriages, with 196,000 representing white wives with black husbands (Hornor 1996, 19, 36–38). For a discussion of these changes, see Taylor, Jackson, and Chatters (1997, 56–58).

References Acock, A., and D. H. Demo. 1994. Family diversity and well-being. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Alibhai-Brown, Y., and A. Brown. 1992. The colour of love: Mixed race relations. London, U.K.: Virago Press. Aronson, E. 1986. Applications of social psychology. Communicating with the public. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Tempe, AZ. Banton, M. 1994. Racial theories. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Press. Billingsley, A. 1992. Climbing Jacob’s ladder: The enduring legacy of AfricanAmerican families. New York: Touchstone Press. Bode, J. 1989. Different worlds: Interracial and cross-cultural dating. New York: Franklin Watts. Collins, P. H. 1991. Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge Press. Cook, S. 1984. Cooperative interaction in multiethnic contexts. In Groups in contact, eds. N. Miller and M. Brewer, pp. 156–186. New York: Academic Press. Cose, E. 1997. Color-blind: Seeing beyond race in a race-obsessed world. New York: Harper Collins Publishing. Cox, T. 1990. Problems with research by organizational scholars on issues of race and ethnicity. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 26 (1): 5–23. Crohn, J. 1995. Mixed matches: How to create successful interracial, interethnic, and interfaith relationships. New York: Fawcett Columbine Press. Cross, W. 1981. Black families and black identity development: Rediscovering the distinction between self-esteem and reference group orientation. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 12 (1): 19–49. Davis, A. 1981. Women, race and class. New York: Random House.

206 Jennifer A. Reich Dickerson, B., ed. 1995. African American single mothers: Understanding their lives and families. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Dominguez, V. 1994. White by definition: Social classification in Creole Louisiana. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Dublin, T., ed. 1996. Becoming American, becoming ethnic: College students explore their roots. Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple University Press. Feagin, J., and V. Hernan. 1995. White racism: The basics. New York: Routledge. Fine, M., A. Schwebel, and L. Myers. 1985. The effects of world views on adaptation to single parenthood among middle class adult women. Journal of Family Issues 6 (1): 107–127. Frankenberg, R. 1993. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. ———, ed. 1997. Displacing whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Funderburg, L. 1994. Black, white, other: Biracial Americans talk about race and identity. New York, NY: William Morrow and Co. Giddens, A. 1971. Capitalism and modern social theory: An analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim, and Max Weber. London, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books Doubleday. Goldberg, D. T. 1997. Racial subjects: Writing on race in America. New York: Routledge Press. Gordon, A. 1964. Intermarriage. Toronto, Canada: Beacon Press. Gossett, T. 1997. Race: The history of an idea in America. London, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Hernton, C. 1965. Sex and racism in America. New York: Grover Press. Hodes, M. 1997. White women, black men: Illicit sex in the nineteenth century South. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press . Holmes, R. M. 1995. How young children perceive race. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. hooks, b., 1990. Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston, Mass.: South End Press. ———. 1994. Teaching to transgress. New York: Routledge Press. ———. 1997. Representing whiteness in the black imagination. In Displacing whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism, ed. R. Frankenberg. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press Hornor, L., ed. 1996. Black Americans: A statistical sourcebook. Palo Alto, Calif.: Information Publications. Hurtado, A. 1989. Relating to privilege: Seduction and rejection in the subordination of white women and women of color. Signs 14 (4): 833–855. Johnson, W. R. and M. Warren, eds. 1994. Inside the mixed marriage. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America

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Ladner, J. 1977. Mixed families: Adopting across racial boundaries. New York, NY: Anchor Press Landau, E. 1993. Interracial dating and marriage. New York: Julian Messner Publishing. Larsson, C. 1965. Marriage across the color line. Chicago, Ill.: Johnson Publishing. Lazarre, J. 1996. Beyond the whiteness of whiteness: Memoir of a white mother of black sons. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Leftkowitz H. H. and K. Peiss, eds. 1996. Love across the color-line: The letters of Alice Hanley to Channing Lewis. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press. Lorde, A. 1992. Man child: A black lesbian feminist’s response. In Race, class, and gender, ed. M. Andersen and P. Hill Collins. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Press. Macey, M. 1995. “Same race” adoption policy: Anti-racism or racism? Journal of Social Policy 24: 473-491. Mathabane, M., and G. Mathabane. 1992. Love in black and white: The triumph of love over prejudice and taboo. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. McBride, J. 1996. The color of water: A black man’s tribute to his white mother. New York: Riverhead Books. McIntosh, P. 1992. White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies. In Race, class, and gender, ed. M. Andersen and P. Hill Collins. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Press. McRoy, R., and L. Zurcher, Jr. 1983. Transracial and inracial adoptees: The adolescent years. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas Publisher. Montagu, A. 1964. The concept of race. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe. ———. 1965. The idea of race. Lincoln, Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press. Omi, M., and H. Winant. 1994. Racial formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge Press. Piatt, B. 1997. Black and brown in America. New York: New York University Press. Poston, W. S. 1990. The biracial identity development model: A needed addition. Journal of Counseling and Development 69 (2): 152–155. Reddy, M. 1997. Crossing the color line: Race, parenting, and culture. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Rogers, J. A. 1944. Sex and race. New York: Helga Rogers. Root, M. 1990. Resolving “other” status: Identity development of biracial individuals. In Complexity and diversity in feminist theory and therapy, ed. M. Root and L. Brown. New York: Hayworth. Rose, A. 1948. The Negro in America (condensation of Gunnar Myrdal’s The American dilemma). Boston, Mass.: Harper & Brothers/Beacon Press. Rosenblatt, P., T. Karis, and R. Powell. 1995. Multiracial couples: Black and white voices. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

208 Jennifer A. Reich Schutte, G. 1995. What racists believe: Race relations in South Africa and the United States. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Silverman, A. 1993. Outcomes of transracial adoption. In The future of children: Adoption. Los Altos, Calif.: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Simon, R. J. 1974. An assessment of racial awareness, preference, and self-identity among white and adopted non-white children. Social Problems 22: 43–57. Simon, R., H. Altstein, and M. Melli. 1994. The case for transracial adoption. Washington, D.C.: American University Press. Staples, R. 1991. The black family: Essays and studies. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Stuart, I., and L. E. Abt, eds. 1973. Interracial marriage: Expectations and realities. New York: Grossman Publishing Taylor, R. J., J. S. Jackson, and L. M. Chatters, eds. 1997. Family life in black America. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Thornton, M. 1997. Strategies of racial socialization among black parents: Mainstream, minority, and cultural messages. In Family life in black America, ed. R. J. Taylor, J. S. Jackson, and L. M. Chatters. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Twine, F. W. 1997. Brown-skinned white girls: Class, culture, and the construction of white identities in suburban communities. In Displacing whiteness: Essays in social and cultural criticism, ed. R. Frankenberg. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Verna, G., and C. Bagley. 1979. Race, education and identity. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Wardle, F. 1987. Are you sensitive to interracial children’s special identity needs? Young Children 43: 53–39. Ware, V. 1992. Beyond the pale: White women, racism and history. London, U.K.: Verso Press. Weber, M. 1949. The methodology of the social sciences. Blacklick, Ohio.: Glencoe Press. ———. 1978. Economy and society. Vol 1, ed. G. Roth and C. Wittich. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. Wellman, D. 1993. Portraits of white racism. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press. Westie, F. R. 1993. Race stratification and the culture of legitimation. In History of race relations research,. ed. J. H. Stanfield. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage. Williams, G. H. 1995. Life on the color line. New York: Plume/Penguin Books. Winant, H. 1994. Racial conditions. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. Utne Reader. 1994. Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity. Utne Reader 9 (66): 82–86.

8 The Impact of Whiteness on the Culture of Law: From Theory to Practice L. A. Visano

Introduction: The Context of Color Whiteness, as a resource, is integrally related to the process of designating difference. The phenomenology of whiteness formulates and formats exclusionary practices that marginalize and negate the identity of others. In so doing, whiteness constructs and commodifies racial discourses. Traditional and contemporary white reactions to both racism and antiracism are rooted deeply within seemingly innocuous traditions of liberal conscience that, in turn, inform the rhetoric of convenient juridic chatter. The purpose of this chapter is to critically assess the role of the dominant culture in mediating the relationship between color and law. In theorizing about the nexus of law and culture, this chapter highlights the contexts and consequences of whiteness. Specifically, the criminal law and the culture of liberalism reproduce an insidious hegemony of white privilege. Hegemony at the everyday level is examined in terms of the relational nature of white identity. We aim to show through a case study of the criminal justice system that a commonsense nature of whiteness saturates discourses and images of law. That is, in everyday law talk, the whiteness of one’s skin is equated with the naturalness of authority. Further, this chapter provides a praxis, a transformative action-based counterhegemonic orientation for working through whiteness and for rethinking law as a racialized discourse. Whiteness is a complexly articulated plurality of discourses that are never static but rather ongoing accomplishments of cultural processes. Whiteness is not a monolithic, homogeneous, nor absolutist category (Delgado 1995). Rather, whiteness, as a social construct, acquires meaning in reference to its active relatedness or forms of dynamic embeddedness. Whiteness is a fragmentary set of assumptions about privilege rooted well within structures of dominance (Gates 1985). As an ideology, however, whiteness universalizes identities and common 209

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sense notions of rightness. The prevailing ideology of whiteness incorporates assimilation as a moral project. The social meanings attributed to whiteness articulate a liberal ethos that appropriates common sense or “naturalized” assumptions about differences, defiance, and danger. The display of a contrived consensus is evident in law and the banter of liberalism, which purport to ignore color differences. The cultural practices of law recognize all too well the politics of identity differences as routine responses to domination, that is, as people live out their respective subject positions. Law is a set of spectacular and performative moments that promote a neutral response to racial injustices, thereby escaping its complicities (Fitzpatrick 1990, 259). Equally, by also providing “universalistic” protections, the law seeks to transcend material conditions and unequal life chances. The liberal legal appeal of “equality” and the cultural talk of “freedoms” are powerful ideological tools which ostensibly disguise structural stratifications and promote a mask of a cultural mosaic. While retaining a formidable loyalty to traditional Canadian, British, or American white values, the proliferation of chatter regarding entitlements provides a panoply of legal discourses about competing values replete with convenient and inclusive rituals. To reiterate, liberalism and its concomitant appeal to “civil society” echo the majesty of law in ensuring equal justice. This relentless belief in the “imminence of the law” (Boorstin 1971, 87) is enshrined in lofty, nostalgic, and mystifying mythologies. In practice however, the law is a disembodied spectacle (O’Neill 1985), decontextualized from socioeconomic differences or, as Ericson argues, “[T]hose who seek equality in social structure and social relations and the justice this promises, should look more often to means other than the law” (1984, 3). Well respected due process mythologies transform history into nature; thereby giving a historical intention a natural justification (Barthes 1977). Legal illusions pacify and legitimate the articulation of a culture of whiteness that guides the everyday behavior of law. Legitimation exercises deconscientize the legal system. From state-sponsored crime research to the dissemination of ideas in published form, there is an incredible preponderance of sophisticated legitimation performances acting within so-called objective frames of reference that justify professional practices and protect privilege. In Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, royal commissions, senate hearings, and congressional reports tend to silence oppositional currents; valorize white male supremacy; exclude feminist and antielitist discourses; maintain the misrepresentations of women, people of color, the disadvantaged, and so forth; and demonstrate the behavior of an untouchable center and the invisibility of the

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margins. Throughout modernity there has been considerable energy spent on sociolegal rhetoric. Historically, governments have appropriated the law to distract from the discontent and focus on well orchestrated public relations campaigns. In other words, government commissions, government-sponsored conferences and governmentfunded research institutes are methods of “policing the crisis.” Notwithstanding their appearance, public dialogue, commissions, studies, and committees on equality are shallow gestures designed to placate only for the turbulent moment the curiosity of a general public that is periodically aroused and continually manipulated by the crass media and privileged politicians. Law, therefore, is not just an instrumental object of study but a matrix of discursive possibilities that connect culture and experience.

The Narrative of White Privilege: The Texts of Law Moreover, law is viewed here as a heterogeneous and potentially transgressive zone wherein specific realities are reproduced. Law, as a set of institutional practices and discourses, allows particular understandings of whiteness to materialize. It is for us to question how law is used, negotiated, and enacted through cultural forms. Law, as a form of cultural practice, affords us a way to interrogate race, gender, class, and sexual orientation as it is experienced by the communities affected. As a text, law is an ideological expression of whiteness which should be examined in terms of its production, distribution, and consumption of meanings, that is, its practices of encoding and decoding. Law as a protective cocoon filters trouble, funnels interpretations, and marginalizes differences according to convoluted experiences and inoculated reflexivities (Giddens 1992, 3). That is, law, as a culturally produced object or social practice, is a text of privilege that is both written and symbolic. Informed by Derrida (1981)) and Lacan (1977), we further argue that the law is a “subversion of the subject;” the subject is defined and undermined in the chain of signifiers. Caught up in the legal labyrinth of images and rituals, a disoriented identity of color emerges. As a priori conditioning, law incites intolerance and as a text, law symbolizes differential identities and experiences. Individual and communal experiences are articulated in diverse and dynamic forms that interact within ongoing, permeable, symbolic systems that reflect, enable, and constrain cultural meanings, realities, and identities. As noted previously, law and culture are structurally embedded. This intertextuality refers to this process whereby one text (legal) plays upon other texts (cultural), referring endlessly to further elements within the realm of cultural production (Barthes 1977). The power of

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law resides in its continual deferral of meaning (Derrida 1981) to achieve an unmediated knowledge that explains the world. Law as an authoritative body claims to speak certain truths. Behind these truth claims is the Anglo-American culture that not only perpetuates a white ethos but also defies differences.This culture perceives itself as a specific race only in contrast to others. The superiority of the white culture is not only heavily ingrained and inherited but demands deference. Whiteness is not as every dictionary suggests, pure, blameless, and without color. Whiteness distorts race relations given its privileged connections to legitimacy, legality, and loyalty to possessive individualism. The distance and formality of whiteness need to be deconstructed in order to appreciate the politics of privilege. Historically, the hybridity of Anglo-American culture and liberal law defines itself as both a specific race as well as a defender of tradition (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). The concept of whiteness has become increasingly problematic given the assumptions of the prevailing culture about a common or popular identity. Clearly, the concept of color exists as a discursive practice that is socially or relationally situated. That is, an identity is simultaneously a product and a process linked to situationally relevant contextual codes. The white culture relies on stereotypic classifications and mental images that corroborate beliefs in the superiority of a particular Eurocentric society and history. White views reflect wider sociocultural conditioning that are institutionally sanctioned. Irrespective of whether the spatiotemporal loci are the colonial missionary-military “explorations” or the CNN-multinational corporate interventions, the dominant ethos has conveniently justified inferiority on the basis of skin color. Since “all others” were simply considered inferior (Fanon 1976, 189), repression is justified. The culture of superiority is so well refined and protected to enable the extension of limited profit and privilege to those “willing junior partners in the business of colonial rule” (Institute of Race Relations 1982, 37). Images of whiteness predominate as cultural markers designed to mirror a generic deference to the authority. Legal definitions are convenient intrusions into the lives of “those others,” Specifically, criminalization is a staged performance that manipulates sanctions by defining disturbances as local accommodations to contests or as totalizing narratives of trouble that warrant closure, containment, and coercion. This criminal subject or the so-called other is not only essentialized as inferior but remains the consequence of structured inequalities. When layered with color, class, and gender, the criminalized other reflects a dramatic threat framed within the logic of challenge and resistance. As Zatz (1987, 85) and Balbus (1973) discuss, the legal

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system serves to represent the interests of a few, to institutionalize bias and to reinforce inequalities. According to Levi and Walker (1990), the language of law is exclusionary. Law language, as an integral part of culture of criminal justice, embodies hegemonic relations. Language imposes social control by transmitting sentiments of the collective conscience, however contrived. The legal lexicon supplies a simplistic taxonomy of binary oppositions—good and evil, guilt and innocence—while expressing multiple values deemed important in the culture. While the grammar of law does not limit individual thoughts and outlook, the lack of an inclusionary vocabulary serves to circumscribe communication and dissemination (Bourdieu 1977; Habermas 1976). The structure of legal language or legalese, replete with rules and rituals, inculcates desired norms and socializes into conformity. Law as symbolic power designates the domination of the groups which impose their linguistic reference point on others. Linguistic competence is more than the technical capacity to speak with the right accent, intonation, and word choices. Hall (1992) and de Saussure (1986) note that language supplies the conceptual framework for the analysis of reality and that concepts are creations of language established as an inherently social enterprise. The specificity of a culture is transmitted through language. As Bakhtin describes, “[A]ll words have the taste of a profession, a genre, a tendency, a party, a particular work, a particular person, a generation, an age group” (1981, 293). To define oneself as white linguistically places one in a set of communicative relationships, whereby the parties to the interaction share a history and parlance that define a mutuality of interest. These rituals are political tools used to control outsiders. Outsiders, especially the poor, are disempowered. A shared linguistic framework exists only in mythologies, fiction, and hyperbolic niceties of a culture. In this regard, lawyers, as technical interlocutors, are habituated to its deception, and its attendant social roles and communicative rules. The content and structure of their skills are extralocal, reflective of and consistent with well established precedence. Whiteness is a cultural weapon sustained by both the inertia of law and the reluctance of legal agents to effect structural changes. The color of law is too frequently examined in isolation at the local level without inquiring into interrelated global trends, historical (colonialism and slavery) or current (corporate imperialism, immigration and labor supply). Additionally, the nature of white privilege is located in the struggle for ideological and coercive resources, such as the law. Anglo-American societies are stratified according to race, gender, and class. The roots of inequality within and outside interactive relations of production (Li 1992) must be problematized. Capitalism

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encourages avarice, a sense of success that is exploitative. The source of the problem, therefore, lies in the structure of society—the nature of the economic order. Capitalism is inimical to legislation that enhances equality. According to the liberal prophet John Stuart Mill the foundations of liberalism consist of an unquestioned acceptance of the compatibility of capitalism with democracy (Simon 1988). Clearly, individualism, competition, and materialism have become interchangeable projects, thereby generating widespread inequalities. In this regard, individuals, groups, and communities are treated as commodities to be rented, sold, and discarded. As Weber (1969) argued, capitalism relies primarily on a legal system that is predictable, bureaucratic, and rational in guiding the everyday conduct of people. Inequality based on color is socially generated as a response to economic and social challenges (Locke 1992). Indeed, capitalism and racism are symbiotic (Fitzpatrick 1990, 248). Economically, racism, colonialism, and imperialism operate to exploit labor and resources (Bolaria and Li 1988). Privilege thrives on this uneven distribution of resources. Economic superiority is justified according to ethnocentric claims of merit which are propagated to inferiorize groups, communities, and countries. Differences among groups, communities, and countries are deliberately exaggerated in order to justify practices which enable the unequal distribution of rewards (Merger 1985, 17). A more prudent discussion of the role of law in mediating color and inequality, however, summons a more substantive analysis of the influences of whiteness in the law. In the following section we examine the criminal justice system as a set of institutions that legitimates authority and discrimination. This exclusionary practice is characteristic of a racially demarcated system, as Fukurai, Butler, and Krooth argue: “In a racially demarcated society, oppressive institutions use restrained power and regimented administrations to benefit one group at the expense of others. The racially demarcated society can be based on overt violence such as slavery, or on covert structures that brandish the symbols of freedom but establish conditions for subjugation. The institutions of the greatest legitimation of authority and discrimination are the systems of laws and courts” (1994, 91-92, emphasis added). We move beyond a demonstration of the blatant racism in the system to analyze the conditions and articulation of white privilege. Having noted the socioeconomic benefits enjoyed by whites at the expense of racialized groups, let us now examine how the law functions to serve the interests of whiteness by galvanizing power, by criminalizing others. How, for example, does whiteness influence legal decisions? As the previous sections on the law indicated, the phenomenon of whiteness, the violence of privilege, leads to racist behaviors, decisions,

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routines, and treatment in the criminal justice system. In addressing the quintessential problematic of a colored criminal justice system, Canada’s foremost community activist, lawyer Charles Roach, astutely reminds us that behind the protection of unspoken symbols, there are different kinds of law—public and private, visible and invisible, white and black, rich and poor (personal communication, July 17, 1995).

A Case Study of Whiteness: Criminal Justice as Contests Whiteness reduces law to a monolithic, totalised, and essentialist privilege. Despite its theoretic closure, law is an enabling mechanism of both social consensus and conflict. On the one hand, law may forge social consensus, but the consensus may perpetuate hidden inequalities as is apparent in the criminal justice system. On the other hand, law is the most coercive capacity of a prevailing culture that routinely violates social justice. Within the specific site of the criminal justice system, the state exercises a legal and legitimate monopoly over violence. In this section we take specific notice of how the whiteness of law socially constructs “dangerous classes.” Within these particular criminal formations, the dialectics of crime, and the political economy of color, whiteness disfigures the consciousness of justice. By conditioning the behaviour of law, whiteness dislocates and relocates a multiplicity of insidious dependencies. Both the meanings of law and lived legal experiences are filtered through a series of complementary and seemingly contradictory strategies. To illustrate, persuasion and coercion, conscience and convenience, individual property rights and state regulation, the majesty of symbols and the mythology of due process reveal and conceal underlying white duplicities. The criminal justice system perpetuates a pathology of trouble by problematizing race. This system amplifies threats and popularizes criminal mythologies (Hall et al. 1978; Solomos 1988). This ubiquitous framework of inequality governs situational roles and identities and grounds criteria which maintain a sense of cultural continuity. The authority of law is layered; that is, power is differentially dispersed among the various elements of the criminal justice system from the arresting police officer to the supervising parole officer. Irrespective of what different public masks are worn on different occasions by various officials, the criminal justice system is designed fundamentally to criminalize—to discipline those who fail to fit cultural standards. Despite their obvious differences and relative independence, officials within the criminal justice system are required to be accountable, prospectively and/or retrospectively, to the rule of law. The legal culture is a complex

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amalgam of canonical texts—the corpus of substantive and procedural conventions, formal professional training and informal occupational rules, pragmatics and politics of the office, administrative or bureaucratic recipes, decisions of other elements in the system, and the currents of contemporary culture, and historical processes, to name only a few ingredients. The activities of the criminal justice system reflect wider cultural characteristics that are also protected legally and organizationally. The relationship between all actors in the criminal justice system and society are mediated by institutions that are structured politically and economically to perpetuate inequalities. In this section, the practices (behavior) of law are juxtaposed against basic principles of justice by raising a fundamental concern: justice for whom? This section surveys the institutional practices of legal officials in an effort to demonstrate that at every stage of the criminal justice process whites receive preferential treatment. We argue that white authorities, rooted historically in the Anglocentric assumptions of superiority, equate color with crime. In this discussion we make no distinctions among the political environments of Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom vis-à-vis racism in the criminal justice system. Their similarities override their differences. Typically, in these three jurisdictions black law-breaking is used conveniently as evidence of the legal rightness of whiteness. The policing of white communities is qualitatively different, especially since formal social control is a reflection of historical and colonial preferences of whites. As Davis notes, “[T]he spectre of the black criminal underclass has begun to augment, even replace the Red Menace as the Satanic other which in turn justifies the trampling of civil liberties.” (1992, 289–290). In other words, as Brake identified, “[T]he ongoing problem of policing the blacks has become, for all practical purposes, synonymous with the wider problem of policing the crisis” (1985, 142). Since arrest statistics are high in these areas, crime in turn becomes a justification for racist attitudes. Policing strategies that regard blacks as intrinsically criminal and a potential threat to law and order pave the way for increased police violence reaction (Institute of Race Relations 1987, 12). Stopping a black motorist often on a flimsy pretext is one of the most frequent ways stops and searches are executed. Police stereotypes assume that blacks cannot own cars or must be up to “no good” when driving in white areas (Ferenc 1993, A13). Once stopped, these suspects are questioned in a rude, hostile, and provocative manner. Frequent stops and searches cause considerable anger and frustration. This frustration is, in turn, translated by the police as a sign of guilt or suspicion. These random stops tend to initiate

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lengthy processes of confrontation. In addition to these convenient forms of humiliation, there are also strip searches. Arbitrary arrests characterize many of these encounters. Blacks are seldom told why they are stopped or searched. When they resist these arbitrary arrests, they are subjected to unfair interferences, including charges of assault police. Violence or excessive police force, therefore, is presented as an inevitable aspect of arrest (Ferenc 1993, A13). Ultimately, victims are blamed. In addition to stops and searches of individuals, the police seek to contain or control certain communities through surveillance or intelligence gathering. According to York University law professor Alan Young, Metro Toronto police may have infringed on the constitutional rights of black activists when they decided to probe black community groups in the wake of the 1988 fatal shooting of Wade Lawson. Lawson, a Toronto area teenager wanted by the police for auto theft, attempted to leave his relative’s driveway when he was met by police gunfire. According to Young. “[T]he collection of political dossiers by a domestic police force is the hallmark of tyranny” (Swainson 1994, A7). Throughout its history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, especially under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, was committed to bringing all the resources of the government against the struggle for equality. Since every black dissident was considered a subversive or a threat to white America, for decades the FBI engaged in widespread counter intelligence activities that included surveillance, harassment, wholesale violations of civil rights, infiltration of civil rights movements, dirty tricks, entrapment, bugging, and tapping (O’Reilly 1989, 355). Likewise, the precursor to the RCMP in Canada, the North West Mounted Police, engaged in lengthy battles with the aboriginal peoples of Canada (Mann and Lee 1979). Note the following excerpts which capture official responses connecting crime to color, thereby perpetuating and naturalizing white superiority: •

In Canada, the following comprise a partial list of fatal police shootings of people of color: Albert Johnson, 1979; Andrew Buddy Evans, 1978; Marcelle François, 1991; Michael Sargeant, 1979; Lester Donaldson, 1988; Michael Wade Lawson, 1988; sixteenyear-old Marlon Neal, 1990; Vincent Gardner, 1991; Raymond Lawrence, 1992; Trevor Kelly, 1993; Luis Vega, 1992; Sheed Sahadeth, 1993; Ian Coley, 1993; Albert Moses, 1994; Tommy Barnett, 1996; Faraz Suleman, 1996; Andrew Bramwell, 1996; Wayne Williams, 1996; Edmund Yu, 1997; Hugh Dawson, 1997 (Baker 1999, 187–188).

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When asked about the racial slurs, a Metro Toronto police traffic officer allegedly responded, “Well, it is your accent and the colour of your skin . . . I am Canadian born, you are not. I am white, you are not” (Gombu 1991, A9). According to a board of inquiry, Metro Toronto police officers uttered racial slurs against blacks during a 1988 raid by eleven police officers. An unidentified officer said one of the black men present was like “a monkey swinging on a vine.” Another officer commented, “Look at the coon, we should have brought a gun to go hunting” (Seller 1992, B4). A similar comment was made by an officer in the United Kingdom: “I freely admit that I hate, loathe and despise niggers. I can’t stand them. I don’t let it affect my job” (Gray and Smith 1985, 403). In her sworn deposition to the court Kathleen Bell, a producer working on a project on police cultures, recalled a conversation she had with police officer Mark Fuhrman, a key investigator of the O.J. Simpson case: “During our conversation Mark Fuhrman stated that he would pull over any vehicle that was occupied by a black man and a white woman . . . I then asked him, “What if you don’t have a good reason to pull them over?” Mr Fuhrman then stated, “I’d make one up,” Bell’s declaration read. (Stewart 1994, 3a). In the 1973 fatal shooting in New York City of Clifford Glover, a ten-year-old black youth, the acquitted white police officer Thomas Shea responded in his defense, “All I saw was the color of his skin” (Wright 1990, 177–178) On October 29, 1989, Eleanor Bumpurs, a 270-pound, arthritic, sixty-seven-year-old woman was shot to death while resisting eviction from her apartment in the Bronx. She was $98.85 or one month behind in her rent (Williams 1994, 147). In New York City where 28.7 percent of the population is black (Wright 1993, 181), 60.4 percent of the victims of police shootings are black (Jennings 1993, 50; NAACP 1993, 24). In the United Kingdom, racial tensions are equally high. The public was understandably outraged with the August, 1993, death of a forty-year-old Jamaican woman, Joy Gardner, who struggled with the police trying to deport her. According to Gardner’s mother, “They taped her mouth. They taped her legs and her feet. They sat on her stomach and damaged her kidneys, her liver and her brain . . . . The police went into Joy’s flat and killed her” (Ferenc 1993, A13). Just two weeks prior to this incident a Nigerian woman who was deported was bound and gagged and dragged onto the plane. Earlier an inquest jury in July, 1993, decided that asylum seeker

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Omasase Lumumba, a nephew of former Zairean President Patrice Lumumba, was unlawfully killed in a British prison while being forcibly restrained and stripped by up to seven prison officers (Ferenc 1993, A13). In the United Kingdom, the Institute of Race Relations has documented numerous cases of police racism and abuse of power. For example, in April, 1983, an Instant Response Unit arrested a black youth, Emile Foalkes, who was sitting on a wall near his home in Waltham Forest, East London, and accused him of taunting a group of white youths. According to Foalkes, the police grabbed him and called him a “black nigger.” When his mother, Mrs. Esme Baker, tried to intervene, she was forced into the van, her dress was torn open, and her breasts exposed. An officer prodded her in the breasts with his truncheon and said: “I didn’t know a nigger woman had breasts.” Both Emile and his mother were later acquitted of charges (Institute of Race Relations 1987, 17).

The judicial process is not self-contained; it is embedded in social and political realities. Like the police, judges operate within reactive institutions that demonstrate very little appreciation of how whiteness influences their decisions. How can individuals judge impartially given their lack of knowledge about the history of oppression? Why do they seldom reflect on why so many black defendants appear before them? Judges maintain certain myths, fictions, and illusions about justice. Their legal training is conservative, refusing to make the law more progressive, relevant, and accountable (Magee 1993). For judges, objectivity requires a loyalty to traditional texts and the logic of precedence. In this regard, Magee (1993) notes that the court is a pathological institution. For Spann (1993, 2), the discrepancy between the traditional model and actual Supreme Court performance is sufficient to preclude any meaningful difference between Supreme Court adjudication and ordinary politics. In this regard, McCormick’s (1994, 197) thesis remains daunting—the law has become too important to leave to the lawyers and the judges, and only an informed public can navigate effectively within this new reality. Note the following examples of judicial behavior: •

Judge Anthony Charlton explaining why he was sending a firsttime offender to prison for a relatively minor offence of improperly storing a firearm, said on September 4, 1990, “I lay out some severe sentences that perhaps wouldn’t apply in the same set of facts with someone who’d been in Canada 20 or 30 years.” (Moloney 1993, A26).

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In 1994 the Quebec Judicial Council dismissed a complaint of religious intolerance against Judge Richard Alery. Judge Alery had asked a Muslim woman to leave his courtroom in November, 1993, because she was wearing a headscarf (Vienneau 1994, A13). Mr. Justice Thomas Agresta, while sitting in the Queens branch of New York’s Supreme Court in 1983, chastised a black defendant and accused him of having an accomplice, saying that there had to be “another nigger in the woodpile” (Wright 1990, 6). A judge in Kentucky awarded worker’s compensation to a white man based on his “fear of working with black people” (Wright 1990, 214).

Juries are no different; they in large measure act politically. Using data from mock trials, interviews with numerous jurors, and statistical analyses, Levine (1992) demonstrated that the social, economic, and political values that jurors bring with them to court are important in the way they filter and process information given to them and the overall political climate of the times affects the way jurors render decisions. The structured embeddedness of juries in the legal system renders them susceptible to the excessively legalistic jargon, convoluted logic, and ambiguous roles (Lee and Visano 1981). They are often held hostage to the selfish manipulations of courtroom actors who are fundamentally concerned with winning the case regardless of ethics and principles of social justice. Deference to the law, however constituted by and for self serving practitioners, violates principles of justice. Ideally, the jury system is premised on notions of impartiality, independence, and representativeness. At all stages, from jury selection to the actual sequestered deliberation of a case, considerable discretion exists. Guided by the judge’s charge and interpretation of the law, the jury is required to assess the facts or evidence. At no point is the jury asked to account for its decision to convict or acquit. Decisions are made in camera, and with no public accountability whatsoever. Note the following instances of jury behavior: •

In The Queen v. Carlton Parks, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned a manslaughter conviction of a black man in the death of a white man, saying the former’s lawyers should have had the chance to challenge jurors for racial bias before trial. The court broke with Canadian legal tradition and said that in light of the pervasive racism in our society, lawyers should be allowed to question prospective jurors about racial attitudes (Tyler 1994, C1). The court ordered a new trial for Parks on a charge of manslaughter.

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Mr. Justice David Doherty of the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that jurors should be questioned: “Racism is a part of our community psyche. A significant segment of our community holds overtly racist views. A much larger segment subconsciously operates on the base of negative racial stereotypes. The criminal justice system reflects and perpetuates those negative stereotypes. Blacks are among the primary victim groups” (Ruby 1994, A23). Law professor Allan Hutchinson adds, “Despite the rhetoric of Canadian society, black Jamaicans and other racial minorities remain a distinct underclass in Canada. . . . It is the race of the accused that is determinative. Restricting questioning of jurors to interracial incidents will not prevent racist jurors from presiding at trials where black accused sit” (Ruby 1994, A23). Commenting on his trial, wrongfully convicted Rubin “Hurricane” Carter noted, “That left us with a totally white jury to decide if two black men had killed three white people—with the accusation coming from two white convicts, a white prosecutor, and a white judge who did just about everything but to tell the jury straight out not to believe the black witnesses” (Carter 1991, 307).

The nature of white authoritarianism inherent in the criminal justice system typically denies civil rights. Justice is traded for a white normative order. For Flemming, Nardulli and Eisenstein (1992), prosecutors are probably the least scrutinized actors in the criminal courts. These researchers maintain that prosecutors purposefully organize their offices and deploy their resources in order to enhance their status vis-à-vis judges and other lawyers. Kritzer’s (1991, 120) analysis of bargaining demonstrated that the negotiation is geared not toward achieving the best outcome possible but toward achieving an appropriate outcome by arriving at some consensus with the opposing party concerning the parameters of the case. Pro forma negotiations also occur where costs are very high relative to probable return, and where there may be little concern about optimal results in individual cases (Kritzer 1991, 125). The concept of race determines the construction of the severity of the penalty (Keil and Vito, 1989, 527). According to Spann, the court “functions to perpetuate the subordination of racial minorities in the United States (1993, 50). That is, principled adjudication is weak or absent. Since judges represent extant elite political structures, any concessions gained must be seen as mere accommodations made by repressive institutions. Racial disparities in sentencing have also been well documented. These disparities are especially common for offences like theft and

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burglary (Hudson 1989, 31; Denney 1992, 7). Typically, judges stereotype black defendants, as the following comments from a judge signify: “[B]lacks are more likely to have an extensive history, and are more likely to come to court for crimes of violence involving weapons” (Bridges, Crutchfield, and Simpson 1987, 356). With reference to murder in the United States, blacks accused of killing whites have a higher than average probability of being charged with a capital crime and sentenced to death than do other homicide offenders. Early criminological inquiries into the death sentence consistently demonstrated that whites are more likely to have their death sentences commuted to a lesser sentence (Johnson 1957; Wolfgang et al. 1962). Keil and Vito (1990, 204) concluded that race influences not only who is to be charged with a capital offence but also who is to be sentenced to death. Prosecutors are inclined to believe that it is easier to secure a conviction when the victim is white and the accused is black. Other studies elaborate upon capital sentencing practices by demonstrating that blacks charged with murder of whites have a greater risk of receiving a death sentence than whites who kill blacks, whites who kill whites, or blacks who kill blacks (Radelet 1994; Staples 1994). Invariably, prosecutors upgrade a case to a capital crime when it involves a black who kills a white (Paternoster 1984). The imposition of a death sentence follows a two-step process—the prosecutor charges the accused with a capital offense and the jury deliberates over the death sentence (Keil and Vito 1990, 200). Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court conceded in a note to Thurgood Marshall that prosecutorial and jury decisions are influenced by “the unconscious operation of irrational sympathies and antipathies, including racial” (Time Magazine 1994, 35). Whites are overrepresented in noncustodial institutions (Bynum and Paternoster 1994; Crow 1994). Mair (1986), controlling for crimes, discovered that white defendants are more likely to receive the more lenient community service or probation order than their black counterparts. Zatz (1987) argued that sanctioning disparities are due to the rich resources available to white defendants. Irrespective of the many statesponsored commissions and studies on sentencing guidelines, judges act with impunity in enforcing the culture of white superiority. The consequence of whiteness—the overrepresentation of blacks as both victims and offenders—is seen in the following examples: •

According to the Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System in 1994, racist language and attitudes plague the environments of many Ontario prisons; the disregard, silence, and the failure of managers to take preventive action contribute to

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the maintenance of racially poisoned environments; racism is tolerated as an assumed price that must be paid in order to maintain peace and order; some prisons tolerate and encourage racial segregation in the allocation of prisoners among living units; the rehabilitation services available to black and other racial minority prisoners are inadequate; the Ontario prison system principally caters to white, Euro-Canadian norms and many of the service needs of black and other racial minority prisoners remain unacknowledged or dismissed; and many institutions fail to recognize the “inherent dignity and worth” of prisoners or to “treat prisoners as individuals.” This report noted that intensive policing of low income areas in which blacks live produces arrests of a large and disproportionate number of black males (Commission 1996, 36). In the United States, over 60 percent of the 1.7 million prisoners are from racial and ethnic minorities; half of them (30 percent) are African Americans (Toronto Star, 1998, A20). Citing recent statistics, Thornton notes that in California, five black men are behind bars for each one in university. One out of every twenty black Americans born this year will serve time in prison, according to a Justice Department study (Thornton 1999). Mandatory minimums are invoked more often with black defendants than white ones. Blacks make up 28.2 percent of the federal prison population and 38.5 percent of the mandatory minimum defendants (Steiberg 1994, 33). Blacks constitute only 13 percent of the U.S. population, and yet account for 50 percent of violent crime arrests and over 30 percent of property crime arrests (Beirne and Messerschmidt 1991, 558). These high arrest rates are attributable not only to a racist criminal justice system but more generally to racial inequality that creates discriminatory conditions. In general, not only do whites enjoy lower victimization rates, they also feel more protected by the police (Masotti and Bowen 1968, 391; Delgado 1995). In 1993, African Americans suffered incarceration rates of over 3,000 per 100,000, six times the national average. South Africa was able to maintain apartheid at a much lower rate of 729 per 100,000 (Weinstein and Cummins 1993, 42)! Gordon (1986) cites the British Home Office Report monitoring the ethnic origin of prisoners. About 8 percent of the male prison population and 12 percent of the female prison population were of West Indian or African origin, whereas they make up only between 1 and 2 percent of the general population. The average sentence length of black prisoners, according to Gordon’s British statistics, was also longer than that of white prisoners.

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Not only are blacks more likely to be arrested (Landau and Nathan 1983), they are also discriminated against in probation reports (Herbert, 1986). Probation officers exercise power in a subjective manner through judgements given to the courts and in presentence reports or social enquiry reports (Denney 1992, 5). Traditionally, custodial recommendations subscribe to a black pathology model. Blacks in general do not receive probation recommendations. White offenders make up a majority of all clients and yet black offenders are disproportionately represented in the more punitive areas of probation supervision. Probation officers are more inclined to subscribe to rehabilitative models with white probationaries while adopting a punitive/ social control perspective with black adult offenders (Klein 1979). Unlike their white counterparts, black offenders are routinely assessed according to their mental state, nationality, and place of birth, (Denney 1992, 24). Race was often related to blameworthiness. On the basis of his review of a large number of empirical studies, Denney concludes that probation officers perceive black offenders in a manner incorporating varying degrees of prejudice and racism; probation officers include irrelevant material in their respective social enquiry reports; and there are different styles in report writing (1992, 38–39). According to probation officers white offending is attributable to alcoholism and dysfunctional families while antiauthority attitudes and a tendency to rebel accounted for black offending (Denney 1992, 41, 62). Probation officers cite irresponsibility, peer pressure, and depression as contributing to white crimes, whereas provocation, pragmatics, anger, and lifestyle are emphasized in their talk about black offenders (Denney 1992, 61–77). The above overview demonstrates that the police officers, judges or jurors, and correctional staff are loyal to their respective offices, which are replete with their legal duties, informal norms, organizational pressures, professional customs, codes of collegiality, symbols of official institutional membership, and so forth that defer to the legitimacy and authority of the existing white order. The criminal justice system resonates in ecstasy to the seductions of punitive practices, eagerly embracing the expansion of criminal definitions to incorporate color. Together, the “civility” of whiteness and the mythology of law weave the fabric of whiteness. The phenomenal realm, as a lived medium of meaning and value, configures relations of domination. Racism in criminal justice is not simply conspiratorial but rather is the project of legal, political, and economic rationalizations which maintain the status quo. In summary, this section has detailed ideas about the behavior of the criminal justice system in order to demonstrate that the whiteness of laws functions to promote group solidarity and generate a common morality. Crime maintains boundaries that confine tolerable behavior

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to a particular radius. Erikson notes, “[E]ach community draws a symbolic set of parentheses around a certain segment of that range and limits its own activities within that narrower zone” (1966, 10). The white community declares how much variability will be tolerated and defines the nature of the appropriate confrontations. The details above demonstrate how legal communities set up their boundaries and their identities. Boundaries of crime and identities of color have become interchangeable to secure extant realignments of power. Whiteness pervades the criminal justice system, as Mann argued: “When the more flagrant, systemic means of economic and political control of minorities in the past were no longer feasible or morally acceptable . . . criminal law began to be used to warehouse . . . minorities and maintain their unequal status” (Mann 1993, 127). The image of blackness is exploited to muster support, mobilize resources and justify cleanup operations. Coloring crime facilitates the return to ethnocentric, or more euphemistically, patriotic values which implicate an impressionable public in supporting white political interests. The pragmatic interests of the powerful are buried in the language of fear and insecurity rehearsed in crime dramas. In turn, public perceptions frame, inform, and fan further state intrusions.

Working through Whiteness Although the dominant culture abhors messages of violence, it suffers from selective amnesia, refusing to admit, let alone acknowledge its own monopoly over violence. That is, violence is only appropriate if controlled by the powerful. The ethos of violence, a characteristic feature of the larger social order, is acclaimed and rewarded once it is linked to national security, patriotism, and a general defense of dominant values. Racism, as Robeson notes (Duberman 1989, 172), can no longer stand in the path of freedom, just as solutions can no longer be left in the hands of the self-interested powerful. The onus of racism, as Spike Lee comments, is on whites. “It’s not up to the black folks to eradicate racism” (Dunphy, 1992, A32). That is, cultural contradictions and racism are white problems. As former Black Panther Party leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad stated, “[R]acism is not a problem black people have. It’s a problem that white people have” (Lines 1992b, 26). First, whites have significant roles to play in coming to terms with their own whiteness, in realizing their privileges, their limitations in understanding the experiences of racism, and their standpoint of power. As agents of change they too must resist prevailing reactionary ideologies of multiculturalism. Likewise, activists Stokely Carmichael and

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Charles Hamilton (Lines 1992, 27) argue, “One of the most disturbing things about almost all white supporters has been that they are reluctant to go into their own communities—which is where racism exists— and work to get rid of it . . . Only whites can mobilize and organize those communities along the lines necessary and possible for effective alliances with black communities. . . . [P]olitical modernization process must involve the white community as well as the black” (Lines 1992, 27; emphasis added). Rapper Sister Souljah notes the importance of risk in resistance: “[A] good white person” must be prepared to “sacrifice and lose something” (Jennings 1992, C1). By heeding the admonitions of Angela Davis (1989, 5), we as a society need to “lift as we climb.” In this regard, whites also need to move beyond the celebration of liberal chatter or the anaesthetizing gestures of conformity and interrogate ideologies that profitably reward the reproduction of social control. Whites have refused to accept alternative ways of seeing relations in civil society and transforming the dominant cultural hegemony. James (1963) and Gramsci (1971) spoke of the creation of consciousness and class action in confronting the permeation of hegemony in everyday life. Adopting a Hegelian notion that consciousness is an antecedent to an understanding of oneself in the universe and one’s ensuing liberation, Gramsci and James move outside the traditional white, legal, and material interpretation of society. The solution rests with consciousness, knowing ourselves and our location (Jouve 1991, 8). Critical self-consciousness is not an illusion but a connection; it is created in social relationships which link levels of awareness. An awareness of being different and seeing differences inspire maneuvres that remove cultural closures and facilitate intersubjectivities. Working through whiteness is no facile task because it is oppositional—defying the defining gaze of legal/legitimate authorities and challenging the unitary, polarizing, and totalizing view of traditional cultural models. Working through whiteness requires whites to become strangers, to stand aside and witness their own traditions. Enlightened whites are asked to be courageous given that their arguments will be easily discarded as rancorously polemical and controversially provocative. As they risk bruising and weather more fully the contradictions of culture, these whites will succeed in interrogating complex problematic relationships. Whites are asked to situate themselves in the debates and struggles that characterize the dominant culture, to ground their perceptions, and to avoid self-incarceration by empowering themselves. As whites come to terms with their whiteness, they will understand their privilege by confronting themselves and transforming their

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knowledge. Understanding seems to be in short supply. This requires character, courage, and conviction. It is not simply a matter of whites “moving over” and making room but of genuine pressures from within the white communities that challenge fundamental social inequalities. Quite simply, we must connect with ourselves, each other, and “those others” in order to become, in the Gramscian sense, an organic intellectual (Gramsci 1971). The organic intellectual is someone who is positioned to have experienced—and is experiencing—the particular consequences of living from a certain social position; and has articulated a set of problems associated with one’s life and other people’s lives. As a result, one develops a relationship of familiarity with people and has the opportunity to think through issues in order to effect change in the oppressive structures of dominance. For too long, the silence of the white culture has been deafening in its support for systemic inequalities. Struggle and the repositioning of identities are essential especially for whites who have long enjoyed the benefits of racism and colonialism. The second step for whites is to connect with others. A strident movement, not just token gestures of state-sponsored multiculturalism is required strategically. That is, whites need to move outside their own programme of cultural incarceration to effect social emancipation in order to transform and authenticate their lived realities. Herein lie further risks. Given that whiteness is defined in terms of power propagated by institutions of the dominant culture, how and why would the white corporate structures surrender their privilege? The culture of capital continues to challenge any social change that seeks to redress the wrongs of its white corporate profits. A more critical interrogation of power warrants an examination of advocacy and empowerment in order to provide a conceptually more comprehensive appreciation of praxis. Communities-in-action, not community inaction, invite a commitment to immediate and meaningful action. The notion of communities-in-action does not suffer from the vagueness inherent in the currently fashionable neoliberal discourses of “civil society,” nor is it vulnerable to corporate or statesponsored “community” constructions. Changes in legislation, administrative rules, and regulations, albeit long overdue, are sui generis limiting. Vigilance on the part of genuine community groups is needed in reclaiming that which more appropriately belongs to them. Actionbased initiatives, however, routinely confront numerous barriers that include, for example, the denial of a problem; the refusal to recognize the significance of community input; a self-arrogated sense of professionalism that fears change and remains suspicious of critical inquiry; a

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lack of commitment to change; a dysfunctional public accountability; and a displacement of responsibility. The following changes are warranted. Activists/researchers need to develop an understanding of community interests that moves beyond trite public statements; increase the flow of information; field questions from all community groups; encourage the proactive consultation; utilize community resources; invite participation in the program planning and development stages; and select informants from a cross-section of the community who will articulate issues of inequality, rampant in the criminal justice system. According to Warren (1977, 251), even when community-based organizations are transformed, they may still remain as islands in a very hostile sea. Structural barriers such as the rigid bureaucratic framework, inadequate legislation, systemic bias against any challenge to authority, and ineffective accountability prevail. Briefly, praxis is a collective accomplishment despite the rancorous resistance of authorities denouncing the cacophony of ideologically biased protagonists. Mobilization of outside support, therefore, is necessary. But efforts to mobilize a large number of people to bring about change (Stone 1990; Visano 1998) are determined by several contingencies. Mobilization is shaped by ideology, an able leadership, and channels of communication or networks of cooperative relationships. Ideology sustains participation by providing a litany of invaluable rationalizations. This set of interrelated values resocializes volunteers or activists to become receptive to new competing definitions. Additionally, ideology is a reflexive process that is directed at the self and recasts present troubles through past experiences. Ideological challenges invite, as Lofland (1987) suggests, ongoing conversions in social and personal identities. A change in consciousness emerges as long as alternative visions are explored and a distance from official accounts is maintained. The culture of color is never external to individual consciousness. Logically, risk and resistance are, in effect, expressions of subjectivity, autonomy, and accountability. Gradually, the self becomes oriented towards unlearning the conventions of law and increasingly familiar with more progressive explanations of power and the consequences of noncompliance. By moving beyond convenience and self-serving rationales, whites need to ideologically situate themselves as committed participants. The potential for mobilization is determined by the cohesiveness of the group, strengths of opposing control agents, and resources available. For Tilly (1978), mobilization is the process of creating commitments that generate a willingness to contribute in collaborative acts of resistance. Also, the process of coalition building with community organizations for the socially disadvantaged, feminist organizations, anti-racist action groups, labor unions, aboriginal associations,

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media and civil liberty organizations, progressive opposition party members of the legislatures, and so forth constitutes a formidable force. Attempts by the state and white corporate privilege to promote interand intragroup conflicts in an effort to construct the community in its own image will falter. The influence of these corporate voices cannot be dismissed and the mobilization of non–economically privileged whites is essential. The divisive logic of privilege prioritizes one oppression over the other; but there is no one oppression that is more important than the other. Clearly, the struggles against racism, misogyny, classism, ableism, ageism, and heterosexism are linked with the interrogation of the power of privileged white male corporate structures. It is therefore critical and incumbent upon all of us to make the connections with historical trends, ideological closures, and the political economy of inequality. Since power does not negotiate its own demise, multitiered long-term and immediate approaches are required which are oriented towards coalition building with local and more global movements. Incremental or sudden change is enhanced with the assistance of other existing and newly created power blocs working within and outside extant structures. The following maneuvres are helpful: the labor movement, women’s movement, and the revolutionary spirit of various rights movements; student and community activists committed to social justice in confronting white corporate privilege; the political arena in forcing governmental changes in regulation; the use of the market to influence policies of corporations to affect their profits (attendance at shareholder meetings and boycotting services and products to proverbially “hit them where it hurts— the profits”); the practice of shaming the media, politicians, churches, and education, into action; and the exposure of the incestuous relationship between profit and law. New rules of conduct within a culture of accountability are needed. How are we connected to a project of overcoming inequalities? What do we want from and what can we contribute to change? What kind of sacrifices are whites prepared to make? Martin Luther King Jr. suggested that the “ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” (1963, 20).

Conclusions: Connecting Culture and Crime Attempts to work through whiteness warrant a compelling integration of real conditions and possibilities of those productive forces and relations which structure class, control, and conflict. A cultural critique rejects liberal assumptions about equality and artificial claims about individual merit and the benefits of competition. Liberalism, with its

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emphasis on egoism and self-fulfilment, must be juxtaposed against the history of human inequality (Lakoff 1964, 196). Equality, it is submitted, is a collective and historical accomplishment. Liberal discourses repeatedly avoid equality and accessibility to resources while stressing the individual’s relative freedom of action. As Marx (1956) writes, we are not abstractions but rather we are the totality of social relations. In other words, we are all connected to historical sociopolitical trends. Ultimately, the social responsibility of the theorist and the activist alike is to probe into fundamental social values upon which law and state depend. As Miles notes, we should question “the way in which common sense discourse has come to structure and determine academic discourses” (1982, 3). Common sense is established to serve state and economic bloc interests. Ideologies therefore are discourses flowing through subjects who use them to construct their self-identities. Common sense, as Hall (1988, 55) clarifies, is itself a structure of popular ideology, a spontaneous conception of the world, thoughts sedimented into everyday reasoning. Common sense “naturalizes” the connection of color and crime. For instance, whiteness is rewarded, or as Du Bois adds, “they were given public deference” ([1935] 1977, 700). Citron (1972) examined the “rightness of whiteness,” the notion that white folks are somehow better, more normal, or more natural than black or brown folks. Admittedly, culture is a barrier to communication that has become institutionalized within absolutist and corporate interpretive frameworks. As Habermas (1974) notes, the meanings and symbols of the dominant ideology prevent critical thinking by penetrating social processes, language, and individual consciousness. An analytically fruitful complement to Gramsci’s (1971) “consent” is Foucault’s concept of the docile body, “a body that may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved” (1979: 136). According to his compelling logic, whiteness is a “reality fabricated by institutions of power” (Foucault, 1979, 194). Conceptually informed by the classic writings of Du Bois (1977), Fanon (1976), James (1963), Morrison (1982) and Davis (1989), this chapter demonstrates a particular politics of recognition vis-à-vis the criminal law. Briefly, difference and identity impact on legal categories that are used to construct knowledge of crime. As law legitimates whiteness, the public is led to believe in the suspicious propensities of non-whites. Once the connections of criminality and color are “naturally” made, it seems to follow that whites should criminalize those “others.” Specifically, this study demonstrates that the relationship between the criminal justice (law) and racial minority communities

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(color) are largely defined by wider cultural values. For legal agents, the following features of whiteness are salient: the occupational culture; the law; administrative rules, the political climate; and the dominant culture of capital. For various affected communities (white and black), such notions of relative disadvantage, patterns of exclusion, issues of access, and images of the law are significant. The impact of culture (whiteness) in the control (law) of color (black) has been demonstrated in a manner that moves beyond the already well-established assertions of racism to address the differential benefits of whiteness. Working through whiteness warrants a confrontation with the problematic advantages of whiteness. Whiteness in law is not just a static, fixed, and easily identifiable feature of close-minded individuals and pathological agencies. Whiteness is an expression of hegemonic imperatives that ensure the survival of privilege and the benefits of racism and colonialism. On the one hand, law as a weapon repositions crime as an ontological playing field in the unprecedented expansion of white ruling forces which have established firm control through the institutionalised production of inequality. On the other hand, law as a symbol of justice enables whiteness to inhabit multiple worlds simultaneously. In this chapter we selected the criminal law as a heuristic tool that permits us to grasp the narrow self-identity of whiteness, the essential sociality of coercion, and various institutional connections.

Note The author wishes to acknowledge with considerable gratitude the generous contributions of Professor Brenda Spotton Visano for charting the compassionate contours of this and related projects. Dr. Wesley Crichlow’s discussion of the concept of whiteness assisted in grounding the theoretic frontiers of this chapter. Dr. Cynthia Levine-Rasky’s detailed comments were extremely helpful in linking the arguments of the chapter.

References Baker, D. 1999. Forms of exclusion: Racism and community policing in Canada. Doctoral dissertation, York University, Toronto. Bakhtin, M. 1981. Discourse in the novel. In The dialogic imagination, ed. M. Holquist and C. Emerson. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Balbus, I. 1973. The dialectics of legal repression. New York: Russell Sage. Barthes, R. 1977. Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang. Beirne, P., and J. Messerschmidt. l991. Criminology. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

232 L. A. Visano Bolaria, B. S., and P. Li. 1988. Racial oppression in Canada. Toronto: Garamond. Boorstin, D. l971. The perils of indwelling law. In The rule of law, ed. R. Wolff. New York: Simon and Shuster. Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Brake, M. 1985. Comparative youth culture. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Bridges, G. R. Crutchfield, and E. Simpson. 1987. Crime, social structure and criminal punishment: White and nonwhite rates of imprisonment. Social Problems 34: 345–357. Bynum, T. S., and R. Paternoster. 1994. Discrimination revisited: An exploration of frontstage and backstage criminal justice decision making. In Reading racism and the criminal justice system, ed. D. Baker. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Carter, R. H. 1991. The 16th round. New York: Penguin. Cashmore, E., and E. McLaughlin. 1991. Out of order? Policing black people. London: Routledge. Citron, A. 1972. The rightness of whiteness. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System. 1994. Racism behind bars, interim report. Toronto: Queen’s Printer. ———. 1996. Racism behind bars, final report. Toronto: Queen’s Printer. Crow, I. 1994. Black people and criminal justice in the UK. In Reading racism and the criminal justice system, ed. D. Baker. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Davis, A. 1989. Women, culture, politics. New York: Vintage Books. Davis, M. 1992. City of quartz. New York: Vintage. Delgado, R. 1995. Critical race theory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Denney, D. 1992. Racism and anti-racism in probation. London: Routledge. Derrida, J. 1981. Positions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. de Saussure, F. 1986. Course in general linguistics. Chicago: Open Court. Duberman, M. 1989. Paul Robeson. New York: Ballantine. Du Bois, W. E. B. [1935] 1977. Black reconstruction in the United States, 1860–1880. New York: Russell and Russell. Dunphy, C. 1992. Black, white and angry world of Spike Lee. Toronto Star, Nov. 13, A32. Eric H., and T. Ranger, 1983. The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ericson, R. 1984. The constitution of legal inequality. Ottawa: Carlton University Press. Erikson, K. 1966. Wayward puritans. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Fanon, F. 1976. The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove.

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Ferenc, L. 1993. Education called key to overcoming racial tensions. Toronto Star, Aug. 5, A13. Fitzpatrick, P. 1990. Racism and the innocence of law. In Anatomy of racism, ed. D. Goldberg. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Flemming, R. B., P. F. Nardulli, and J. Eisenstein. 1992. The craft of justice: Politics and work in criminal court communities. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Foucault, M. 1979. Discipline and power. New York: Pantheon. Fukurai, H., E. Butler, and R. Krooth. 1994. Where did black jurors go? A theoretical synthesis of racial disenfranchisement in the jury system and jury selection. In Reading racism and the criminal justice system, ed. D. Baker. Toronto: Canadian Scholars. Gates, H. L. Jr. 1985. Race, writing and difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Giddens, A. 1992. Transformation of intimacy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gombu P. 1992. Border search irks Caribana visitors. Toronto Star, Nov. 13, B4. Gordon, P. 1986. Racial violence and harassment. London: Runnymede Trust Press. Gramsci, A. 1971. Prison notebooks: Selections. New York: International Publishers. Gray, J., and D. Smith. 1985. Police and people in London: The PSI report. Aldershot, U.K.: Gower. Habermas, J. 1974. Theory and practice. London: Heinemann Educational. ———. 1976. Legitimation crisis. London: Heinemann Educational Books. Hall, S. 1988. Toad in the garden: Thatcherism among the theorists. In Marxism and the interpretation of culture, ed. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg. Urbana: University of Illinois. Hall, S., C. Crichter, T. Jefferson, J. Clarke, and B. Roberts. 1978. Policing the crisis. London: Macmillan. Hall, S., D. Hobson, A. Lowe, and P. Willis, eds., Culture, media, language. London: Routledge. Herbert, P. 1986. The colour of justice. Unpublished sessional paper, Law Union, London. Hobsbawm, E. and T. Ranger, 1983. The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, B. 1989. Discrimination and disparity: the influence of race on sentencing. New Community 16 (1): 21–32. Institute of Race Relations. 1982. Patterns of racism. London: Institute of Race Relations.

234 L. A. Visano ———. 1987. Policing against black people. London: Institute of Race Relations. James, C. L. R. 1963a. The black Jacobins. New York: Vintage. ———. 1963b. Beyond a boundary. London: Hutchinson. Jennings, K. 1993. Black youth in police crosshairs. Covert Action 45 (summer): 50. Jennings N. 1992. Sister Souljah. Toronto Star, Nov. 22, p. C1. Johnson, E. 1957. Selective forces in capital punishment. Social Forces 36: 165–169. Jouve, N. W. 1991. White woman speaks with forked tongue: Criticism as autobiography. London: Routledge. Keil, T., and G. Vito. 1989. Race homicide severity and application of the death penalty: A consideration of the Barnett scale. Criminology 27 (3): 511–535. ———. 1990. Race and the death penalty in Kentucky murder trials: An analysis of post-Gregg outcomes. Justice Quarterly 7 (March) 43–69. King, M. L., Jr. 1963. The strength to love. New York: Harper and Row. Klein, M. 1979. Deinstitutionalization and diversion of juvenile offenders: A litany of impediments. In Crime and Justice, ed. N. Morris and M. Tonrey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kritzer, H. K. 1991. Let’s make a deal: Understanding the negotiation in ordinary litigation. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Lacan, J. 1977. Écrits: A selection. New York: Norton. Lakoff, S. 1964. Equality in political philosophy. Boston: Beacon. Landau, S. F., and G. Nathan, 1983. Selecting delinquents for cautioning in the London metropolitan area. British Journal of Criminology 23 (2): 128–149. Lee, J. A., and L. A. Visano. 1981. Official deviance in the legal system. In Law and deviance, ed. H. L. Ross. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage. Levi, J. N., and A. G. Walker. 1990. Language in the judicial process. New York: Plenum Press. Levine, J. P. 1992. Juries and politics. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole. Li, P. 1992. Race and gender as bases of class fractions and their effects on earnings. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 29 (4): 488–510. Lines, R. 1992a. Dare to struggle. In Canadian penology, ed. K. McCormick and L. A. Visano. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. ———. 1992b. On the prowl. Unpublished Graduate paper, York University, Toronto. Locke, A. L. 1992. Race contacts and interracial relations. Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press.

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Lofland, J. 1987. Conversion to the Doomsday Cult. In Deviance, ed. E. Rubington and M. Weinberg. New York: Macmillan. Magee, J. 1993. Managing with a pathological institution: Judicial review in American democracy. Paper presented at annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2–5.Washington, D.C. Mair, G. 1986. Ethnic minorities, probation and the magistrate’s courts. British Journal of Criminology 26: 147–155. Mann, C. R. 1993. Unequal justice: A question of colour. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mann, E., and J. A. Lee. 1979. The RCMP vs. the people. Toronto: General Publishing. Marx, K. 1956. Selected writings in sociology and social philosophy, ed. T. Bottomore. London: Watts and Company. Masotti, L. H., and D. R. Bowen, 1968. Riots and rebellion: Civil violence in the urban community. Beverley Hills, Calif.: Sage. McCormick, P. 1994. Canada’s courts. Toronto: James Lorimer. Merger, M. l985. Race awareness. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Miles, R. l982. Racism and migrant labour. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. 1989. Racism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Moloney P. 1993. Jury’s right to rule on racism upheld” Toronto Star, April 22, p. A26. Morrison, T. 1982. Race-ing justice, en-gendering power. New York: Pantheon. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 1993. Beyond King: A NAACP report on police conduct and community relations. Baltimore: NAACP. Oake, G. 1993. Native justice reports gather dust while Canada builds new jails. Toronto Star, February 16. O’Neill, J. 1985. Five bodies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. O’Reilly, K. 1989. Racial matters: The FBI’s secret file on black America, 1960–1972. New York: Free Press. Paternoster, R. 1984. Prosecutorial discretion in requesting the death penalty: A case of victim-based racial discrimination. Law and Society Review 18: 437–478. Radelet, M. 1994. Executions of whites for crimes against blacks: Exceptions to the rule? In Reading racism and the criminal justice system, ed. D. Baker. Toronto: Canadian Scholars. Roediger, D. 1991. Wages of whiteness. London: Verso. Ruby, C. 1994. Raising questions about racial bias in the courtroom. Toronto Star, May 18. Sellar D. 1992. Stumbling into racial controversy. Toronto Star, Nov. 13, p. B4.

236 L. A. Visano Simon, D. 1988. Liberalism and white collar crime: Toward resolving a crisis. Quarterly Journal of Ideology 12 (January): 19–30. Solomos, J. 1988. Black youth, racism and the state—the politics of ideology and polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spann, G. 1993. Race against the court: The Supreme Court and minorities in contemporary America. New York: New York University Press. Staples, R. 1994. Black male genocide: A final solution to the race problem in America. In Reading racism and the criminal justice system, ed. D. Black. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Steiberg, N. 1994. The law of unintended consequences. Rolling Stone, May 5: 33. Stewart, S. A. 1994. A racial interjection in OJ case. USA Today, Aug. 19, p. 3a. Swainson, G. 1994. Report slams police for dossiers on black activists. Toronto Star, Feb. 17, p. A13. Thornton, C. 1999. Racism and the war on drugs. Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Drug War Prisoners, March 20, Toronto, York University. Tilly, C. 1978. From mobilization to revolution. Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley. Time Magazine. 1994. Numbering their days: Would quotas for death penalties ease the bias against black prisoners? May 23, p. 35. Toronto Star. 1998. Amnesty Reports Slams US Prisons. Oct. 7, p. A20. Tyler, T. 1994. The colour of justice. Toronto Star, January 8. Vienneau, D. 1994. Law panel won’t demand judges to take class on racism. Toronto Star, Feb. 17, p. A13. Visano, L. 1994. The culture of capital as carceral: Conditions and contradictions. In Carceral contexts, ed. K. McCormick. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. ———. 1998. Crime and culture. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Warren, R. 1977. Social change and human purpose. Chicago: Rand McNally. Weber, M. 1969. The theory of social and economic organization. New York: Free Press. Weinstein, C., and E. Cummins. 1993. The crime of punishment at Pelican Bay Maximum Security Prison. Covert Action (45): 38–45. Williams, P. 1994. Spirit-murdering the messenger: The discourse of fingerpointing as the law’s response to racism. In Reading racism and the criminal justice system, ed. D. Baker. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Wolfgang, K., N. Wolfgang, M. Kelly, A. Nolde, H. Nolde. 1962. Comparisons of the executed and the commuted among admissions to death row. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 53: 301–310.

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Wright, B. 1990. Black robes, white justice. New York: Carol Publishing. Wright, J. W. 1993. The universal almanac 1994. Kansas City: Universal Press. X., Malcolm. 1970. By any means necessary. New York: Pathfinders. Zatz, M. 1987. The changing forms of racial and ethnic biases in sentencing. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 24(1): 69–92.

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Part III Pedagogies for Whiteness

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9 “In Whitest England”: New Subject Positions for White Youth in the Post-Imperial Moment Anoop Nayak

Introduction: The Spectre of Whiteness My involvement with radical politics on the left, had taught me to disavow the racial exclusivity of white ethnicity, but never to analyse or try and understand it. . . . The problem with intellectually disowning English ethnicity was that the left never got around to working out what it was, and what our own emotional connections to it were. . . . —R. Rutherford, Forever England: Reflections on Masculinity and Empire

A cursory glance through the extant literature on race and education boasts a number of detailed qualitative studies focusing on the schooling experience of ethnic minorities in multi-ethnic institutions (Fuller 1982; Mac an Ghaill 1988; Gillborn 1990; Sewell 1997; Connolly 1998). While this work has continued apace, the striking contradiction is that we now seem to know far less about the racialized identities of the ethnic majority (notably English whites), and who they are in the present postcolonial era. For Jonathan Rutherford’s Leftist generation depicted above, white English ethnicity was a landscape long given over to the Right, and as such had become an unknown continent to be disowned or disavowed. The problem with expelling ethnicity in this manner is that the projected form continues to return in other less visible guises, rather like a white phantom in serious need of an exorcism. The failure to engage with white English ethnicity was made acutely apparent in a poignant study of Burnage High School, Manchester, which followed the fatal stabbing of an Asian1 youth, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah, by a white male, Darren Coulburn, in 1986. The 241

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team-led inquiry into the reasons behind the murder (MacDonald et al. 1989) produced a comprehensive account of student race relations in what was to become known as the Burnage Report. The report highlighted the lack of attention paid by antiracist initiatives to the needs and perspectives of white (especially working-class) students, who were treated as “cultureless,” wandering spirits.2 The gravity of this omission meant that “many of the students, especially those in the ‘English’ category had little or no notion of their own ethnicity and were agitated and made insecure by their confusion or else showed anger and resentment. . . . ” (Macdonald et al., 392). In short, the school’s attempt to disavow white English ethnicity did not make it magically disappear altogether; instead, these emotional investments fatally returned in the guise of a racist murder. It was not the institution’s antiracist policies that were to blame, but rather the limited extent to which these initiatives touched the everyday lives of students. For these reasons, this chapter seeks to address how whiteness, Englishness, and ethnicity are experienced by white youth in school-based cultures. By focusing on whiteness and Englishness in student cultures, I aim to expose the varied ambivalent connections to race and nationhood undertaken by the dominant ethnic majority.

The School-Based Sites The ethnographic study is based in two schools in the Tyneside conurbation in the northeast of England. The histories of race, ethnicity, and migration to the region have been discussed elsewhere (Nayak 1999a). Overall, the area is regarded as a mainly white preserve and in the last 1991 census reading the ethnic minority populace was estimated to be a little over 3 percent. Despite the ostensibly white appearance of the district pockets of migrant settlement can be found notably in the West End district. Thus, Emblevale School was a friendly, multiethnic institution of 405 students that expressed a broad commitment to antiracist pedagogy. The school had a large intake of special needs students, including many with visual impairments.3 The majority of students were white, incorporating those from Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and English backgrounds as well as a smaller number who had Scandinavian, Polish, German, and Italian heritages. Nevertheless, the school more than adequately represented the region’s ethnic minority communities, who were predominantly from South Asian backgrounds (including those of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi descent), with a fraction of African-Caribbean and East Asian students. In total, for 11 percent of students English was an additional language. The respondents interviewed in this establishment were between nine and twelve years of age. The social class background of these students was remarkably diverse,

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including some from leafy suburban quarters, but many from workingclass districts and the impoverished areas towards the West End of the locality. Thus, about a quarter (24 percent) of school students were officially categorized as “economically and socially deprived” and entitled to free school meals on account of this. In contrast, the all-but-white Snowhill Comprehensive was an enormous state school of 1,936 students with a massive white majority of 1,869. Interviews were conducted with Lower Sixth Form students aged sixteen to seventeen years. The Sixth Form contained 270 students, of whom 255 were white United Kingdom citizens. Of the remaining cohort 6 were Indian, 5 were classified as Chinese, 2 as Pakistani, and another 2 were simply referenced as “other minority.” The school had 114 members of full-time staff and only one black teacher (that is, less than 1 percent). As such the school lacked the relative ethnic diversity of Emblevale but contained students who were largely from various working-class backgrounds. Interviews were taped, transcribed, and thematically organized so that I could return to key elements that had arisen from previous sessions. Field notes were also made which included observational points and references to particular incidents. Although some writers have provided compelling poststructuralist analyses which deconstruct the making of white youthful identities in school, few have indicated how (if at all) oppressive styles of whiteness can be challenged, resisted, or transformed. This chapter seeks to understand the meaning of whiteness in young people’s lives by exploring how white racial identity is experientially lived out in classroom contexts. Moreover, it argues for an engagement with white English ethnicities and outlines how this task was undertaken in Tyneside schools. The research points to the need for the development of critical projects on whiteness which may take their lead from poststructuralist accounts, and so move beyond what Henry Giroux describes as “the jaundiced view of Whiteness as simply a trope of domination” (1997a, 302). Instead, I want to suggest that we need to reconceptualize what it is to be white and English in the current postcolonial period. The chapter is concerned to locate the contemporary perspectives of the ethnic majority. Here, the remarkable extent to which a white backlash against antiracism has taken place is sharply illustrated. Finally, I shall consider potential escape routes from the double bind of empowering white working-class youth to feel confident in the knowledge of their heritages, while maintaining a student appreciation for social justice and racial inequalities.

The Varied Usage of Whiteness amongst Young People Recent poststructuralist approaches to anti-racism have begun to challenge the fixity of black/white models of race and racism. For example,

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contemporary cultural theorists have indicated that racism is not something that is inherent amongst white youth as a consequence of racial privilege, but, rather, all ethnicities are “suffused with elements of sexual and class difference and therefore fractured and criss-crossed around a number of axes and identities” (Rattansi 1993, 37). This approach has called for the need to further develop antioppressive models of identity politics, which were formerly concerned with the social exclusion of minority groups and how relations of power constructed these subjectivities as subordinate. In this reading whites and blacks, for instance, are inherently located in a respective power dynamic of dominance and subordinance. It is the social inequalities of racism that mark out the terrain upon which black and white actors are located. Here, power is a dangerous, determining force that benefits white citizens at the expense of oppressing their black counterparts. This rationalist account of the effects of power, and how it is lived out, has been most thoroughly critiqued by the French analyst Michel Foucault (1980, 1988). For Foucault, power is not uniformly experienced, nor is it a wholly negating activity. Instead, power is conceptualized as productive since it “doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no. . . . [I]t induces pleasure, forms of knowledge, produces discourses” (1980, 119).4 Here, power relations are continually produced and reproduced in often unpredictable ways, as the contours of oppression and resistance shift and intertwine. Rather than seeing power as a simple matter of closed binaries—white/black, men/women, straight/gay, bourgeoisie/proletariat—where the former categories come to dominate and subsume the latter elements of the dichotomous equation, poststructuralist analyses investigate the multiple interconnections between race, gender, sexuality, and social class to ask how these processes can be seen to interact, and so inflect one another. Recently, British writers have used psychoanalytical approaches to avoid overly rational, simplistic conceptions of young people’s social power relationships, and in so doing they have pointed towards unconscious investments, unspeakable fears and desires, and complex structures of feeling (Cohen 1988; Walkerdine 1990; Hall 1993). As such, the poststructuralist and psychoanalytically informed arguments have given way to refined understandings of young people’s social activities. Thus, in their landmark study of school antiracism, the authors of the Burnage Report found they could no longer view the death of Ahmed Iqbal Ullah as simply a matter of white power (although this dynamic informed the attack). Instead, they were led to consider, “Did Ahmed Ullah die at the cross-roads where the power of masculinity, male dominance, violence and racism intersect?” (Macdonald et al. 1989, 143). Moreover, the poststructuralist and psychoanalytical appreciation

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of ambivalence in the face of a deterministic rationalism can inform us of how young people may take up racist positions at one moment (“I hate Pakis”), and then disclaim them in the next (“But some of my best friends are black”). In this sense comprehending racism as a competing discourse in the lives of young people, rather than something that is intrinsic to ethnic majorities, paints a far more contradictory picture of white identities in educational settings. Subsequently, in their study of mainly white primary schools, Troyna and Hatcher found that white children could deploy a variety of discourses when it came to discussing issues of race: “The attitudes and beliefs of white children range from those who make use of racist frameworks of interpretation to those who are committed to well-developed notions of racial equality. Many children display inconsistent and contradictory repertoires of attitudes, containing both elements of racially egalitarian ideologies and elements of racist ideologies” (1992a, 197). In these readings young people’s racist expressions must be understood as “situated responses,” discursively constituted within the particular dynamic of the peer group and the institution of schooling. The issue of “positionality” now remains central where “a thorough ‘pedagogy of positionality’ must entail an excavation of Whiteness in its many dimensions and complexities” (Maher and Tetreault 1997, 322). But how can we interpret the ethnicities of white English youth? It would appear that far from being monolithic, white cultural identities are complex, variable social phenomena. For example in his study of Rastafarians and reggae music in the Balsall Heath district of inner-city Birmingham, Simon Jones (1988) found that white youth were keen to effect the full blazonry of Rasta style through the prominent influence of black culture within their local schooling and neighborhood networks. Evidence of cultural dialogues between black and white youth has also been found in a number of research projects conducted in South London (Hewitt 1986; Back 1990, 1996; Wulff 1995). These interracial dynamics were closely related to the urban, multiethnic locality and the biographical histories of young people who resided in these areas. My research implies a geographical specificity to the forms of white ethnicity enacted in northern English towns; indeed, a qualitatively different repertoire of cultural experience may be in occurrence amongst young people in these peripheral preserves. In contrast to the cultural exchanges emphasized by some writers, other authors have drawn attention to the saliency of racism and the commitment to white ethnicity undertaken notably in working-class youth subcultures (Clarke 1973; Pearson 1976; Robins and Cohen 1978; Cohen 1993; Nayak 1999b). Notwithstanding, Mac an Ghaill (1997), in his study of schools and colleges in the English Midlands,

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refers to the reactionary enactment of white ethnicity indulged in by a group of middle-class white male students called the “Real Englishmen.” The parents of these young men were described as having liberal tendencies, which had initially prompted them to send their sons to non-fee-paying educational establishments. Rather than taking on the liberal values of their parent generation, these young men were adamant in the allegiance to a white English masculinity. The students were struggling with issues of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, confirming the notion that white youth are responding to social change through the differing usage of ethnicity in the contemporary era: “[T]he Real Englishmen were in the process of constructing a positive ethnic identity. At times, their talk of nationality appeared obsessive. They explained the significance of their name with reference to white English ethnicity. More specifically, they were developing a young masculine identity against their parents’ denial and suppression of English nationality and nationalism” (84). The parental disavowal of Englishness was very much in keeping with that of Jonathan Rutherford’s Leftist generation described earlier, yet, paradoxically, only served to encourage a celebration of national affiliations through the formation of a white peer group, “the Real Englishmen.” The need to understand the racialized identities of the ethnic majority is also signaled in a study by Ann Phoenix (1997) of 248 young Londoners (14 to 18 years). She found that 92 percent of black youth and 77 percent of mixed-heritage youth claimed to be proud of their color, while only 34 percent of whites shared this feeling. Meanwhile, in a discussion of British youth culture Dianna Jeater claimed that the majority of young whites “don’t feel they have an ‘ethnicity,’ or if they do, that it’s not one they feel too good about” (1992, 107). This needs to be remedied. As such, there is a paucity of detailed qualitative research concerning why young white people may view their racial identities as problematic; and even less regarding the issue of what can be done about this. In support of this, I provocatively asked some older students I knew to provide me with the stereotype of a white person. Their reply illustrates the way white cultural identities can become straight-jacketed by association with extreme racism: JOHN (17): You’ve got like the blond bimbo; you’ve got like the skinhead. You think, “Oh God.” CHRIS (16): You think like racist, Nazi kind of stuff, skinheads.

Understanding the contingency of white English ethnicity and the multiple fragmented forms of identity young people come to inhabit remains paramount. Indeed, Henry Giroux asks the pertinent question,

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“What subjectivities or points of identification become available to white students who can imagine white experience only as monolithic, self-contained, and deeply racist?” (1997b, 310). As we have seen, a failure to engage with this issue may bolster the image of white masculinities and femininities as the “Skinhead”5 or “Blond bimbo.”

Classroom Cultures and Racist Name-Calling: Ethnic Majority Perspectives The celebratory language of multi-culturalism has tended to reproduce Asian and black British people as Other simply because it never took white English ethnicity as problematic. Similarly white anti-racism in its disavowal of whiteness and English ethnicity ignored or denigrated white peoples’ emotional attachments to their ethnicity. Neither strategy provided the space to analyse whiteness and English ethnicity and make it a subject of debate. —R. Rutherford, Forever England: Reflections on Masculinity and Empire

Schools are agencies for the production of ethnic identities via the curricula, beliefs, values, and attitudes propagated. In this sense, they cannot be regarded as institutions which passively reflect or mechanically reproduce social relations of race. There already exists an extensive literature on how school authorities use racist labels to interpret the experiences of black youth, and how teacher typologies and classroom cultures differently affect the behavior and performance of these students (Coard 1982; Driver 1982; Fuller 1982; Mac an Ghaill 1988; Sewell 1997). Moreover, ethnic identities are continually negotiated through student-teacher interactions and the complex interplay that occurs within student cultures. The assumption that English schools in white-majority preserves are free from racism has been problematized in a 1987 special teacherled issue of the journal Perspectives 35, which investigated ethnicity and prejudice in “White Highlands” schools. A cluster of academics have also demonstrated that racism is very much alive within all-white schools (Gaine 1987, 1995; Tomlinson 1990; Troyna and Hatcher 1992a; Short and Carrington 1992). Indeed, this research indicates that antiracism may be of more import in all-but-white locales, a view supported by the Swann Committee: “Whilst most people would accept

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that there may be a degree of inter-racial tension between groups in schools with substantial ethnic minority populations, it might generally be felt that racist attitudes and behaviour would be less common in schools with few or no ethnic minority pupils. . . . [W]e believe this is far from the case” (DES 1985, 36). At the Emblevale School white students were at times critical of the existing antiracist policy though few indicated that it should be done away with. Many believed racism should be challenged, yet were scathing of the current institutional structure of antiracism, which viewed them as inherently privileged (Gillborn 1996). Instead, they saw the occasional special session on multiculturalism as evidence of a bias towards minority pupils (Jeffcoate 1982). For example, during the fieldwork period an announcement was made over the school public address system asking all Asian students who were interested in Indian cooking to go to the school hall where a demonstration was in progress. Asian children were frequently racialized in this manner as exotically, unalterably different when it came to daily social routines. Similarly, there was an assumption that white children were only concerned with what lay directly within their cultural realm of experience. I later spoke with a teacher who mentioned having white students in her class who were very interested in the session, and resented what they perceived to be a form of social exclusion. Thankfully, the teacher ignored the assumptions embedded in the statement (that only Asian children are interested in Indian food) and sent a mixed cohort of willing pupils. In her own pedagogic practice Christine Sleeter (1993) found that such forms of multiculturalism all too readily failed to engage with whiteness. She recalls, “When teachers told me about ‘multicultural lessons’ or ‘multicultural bulletin boards,’ what they usually drew my attention to was the flat representations of people of colour that had been added; multidimensional representations of whiteness throughout the school were treated as a neutral background not requiring comment” (166–177). Here, whiteness is construed as normative, the blank canvass of experience, or what Alastair Bonnett has termed ‘the Other of ethnicity’ (1993b, 175–176). Some teachers had the perception of the locality that white working-class students had no culture, yet this was in direct contrast to how young people experienced “Geordie” identity.6 Moreover, these students felt their black peers were strategically advantaged when it came to interracial conflict. I had this conversation with a group of eleven- and twelve-year olds: ANOOP: Are there any advantages to being white in this school? NICOLA: Well, no.

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MICHELLE: Cos colored people can call us [names]. JAMES: It’s not fair reely cos they can call us like, “milk bottles” and that, but us can’t call them. SAM: The thing is in this school, is like if you’re racist you get expelled or something, but they [blacks] can call us names and the teachers don’t tek any notice of it. JAMES: They tek no notice.

The school’s sensitivity to racist harassment appeared to bolster white injustice among respondents and create a feeling that such forms of moral antiracism were not fair (see also MacDonald et al. 1989; Hewitt 1996). That teachers were said to ignore claims of name-calling made by black students, yet expel white students for using racist taunts, affirmed a sense of white defensiveness. These feelings may be more pronounced in multiracial locations and ethnically diverse schools. Certainly while I was researching in the English West Midlands, white students made it clear to me that black males were often the most feared, respected, and visible youth group within inner-city schools, encouraging white peers to state, “How can they be victims?” At its most extreme, a disillusioned white student (age sixteen) in an large urban multiracial school in Birmingham responded to my question if he thought the school was racist by claiming, “Yeah, it is—this school’s racist against its own kind!” Where a large number of black students exist, this may not be an unusual sentiment. David Gillborn describes a similar feeling amongst white students in London areas: “In particular, white students pinpointed a shift in power that seemed to privilege minority perspectives and deny legitimacy to whites’ experiences. This issue . . . arises from the multiple locations inhabited by white students as class, race, gender, and sexual subjects. The assertion that whiteness ultimately defines them as powerful oppressors simply does not accord with the lived experience of many workingclass white students” (1996, 170). However, even in the white locales of the North East some youth maintained that black students were given preferential treatment deemed unfair. Furthermore, it was said that they could even exploit this situation when it came to name-calling. ANOOP: So what do the name-callers say? MICHELLE: Things like “milk bottle.” JAMES: And “whitey.” MICHELLE: And “milky way” and things.

Alongside the opinion that antiracism was unfair to the needs of white youth ran an overwhelming feeling that black students had an

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identifiable culture that they could draw on, which was denied to English whites. Moreover, the positive expression of black ethnicities could be experienced by skeptical white youth as a broader exclusionary device: SAM: What I don’t like is all the Pakistani people all talk in their language an’ you dunno what they’re talkin’ about. Used to be this lad in our class, Shaheed, he would talk to his mate Abdul, half in English, half in another language. NICOLA: If they wanna talk about you they can talk in another language. MICHELLE: If we wanna talk about them, they know what we’re sayin’.

Again, the implications are that it is white youth who are culturally impaired in exchanges with their black counterparts. This is a reversal of older academic assumptions that it is black students who are compromised, “caught between two cultures.” Instead, as globalization takes hold the new settlement patterns reveal that the once distant margins have indeed penetrated the colonial center of many English cities. In these new times of mass communication and cultural cross-fertilization white youth in Emblevale were keen to emphasize the advantages of bilingualism and “black cool” and the classroom benefits of being construed as the potential victims of racist harassment. Yet in mainly white locales Troyna and Hatcher (1992a) found that positive assertions of black identity were frequently viewed by white children as an attempt at dominance. Similarly, the choice for minority students within the predominantly white conurbation of Tyneside appeared to be “act white” or return to the West End urban interior. Emblevale students were keen to make a careful distinction between racism as a discourse of power available to them through regimes of representation (in language, speech, metaphors, and imagery), and racism as a chosen subject position that was explicitly ideological and practiced in vehement daily exchanges. Whereas the former stance offered a latent potential for racist enactment, triggered only at certain moments, the latter position was more readily condemned as explicitly racist and wholly unegalitarian. It is this unevenness of racism in young people’s lives that we need to be attentive to. The grainy line separating what white students said to their black peers in certain situations and how they felt towards them more generally became a source of tension when episodes of racism surfaced in classroom contexts. Most specifically in fraught personal exchanges between students, racist name-calling offered an inviting mode of redress for whites, as Sam explained: “We canna sey anythin’ cos they [black students] can get us annoyed and it’s hard not calling them a

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racist name or somethin’. I never bin racist cos I don’t think it’s right but some people jus’ think it’s hard to not call them a racist name if an argument starts.” The student responses listed here signal a confusion regarding the issue of why white racial epithets such as “whitey,” “milk bottle,” or “milky way” are not construed as forms of racist name-calling. As other researchers have implied, the meanings carried in derogatory white terms rarely hold the same weight as antiblack racist terminology (Back 1990; Troyna and Hatcher 1992a). Troyna and Hatcher (1992a, b) argue that racial insults such as “white duck,” or “ice cream” must be carefully distinguished from terms such as “paki,” which are saturated with racist power. “Black children wanting to call racial names back faced several problems. First, the white racist vocabulary was much richer, as many children recognized. . . . Second, white children knew that there was no social sanction against white skin. . . . The third problem concerns the issue of ‘nation.’ There was no reverse equivalent to the racist name-calling of ‘Paki’. . . . ” (1992a, 158). In Troyna and Hatcher’s definition, it is precisely because black and white students occupy different discursive positions of dominance and subordinance in race relations that white epithets are considered racial name-calling forms and black epithets are viewed as “racist” terms. Here, there is no equivalence between black and white name-calling as ultimately, “Racist attacks (by whites on blacks) are part of a coherent ideology of oppression which is not true when blacks attack whites, or indeed, when there is conflict between members of different ethnic minority groups” (1992b, 495). However, this antioppressive model reifies race, and may have less import at a global level where it is subject to alternative forms of racism and differing relations of power. A further concern remains with how identity is deterministically conceptualized in this paradigm, since “[w]ithin an anti-oppressive problematic, an individual’s subjectivity is conceptualized as coherent and rationally fixed” (Mac an Ghaill and Haywood 1997, 24). Because of the striking manner in which young children in Emblevale perceived racism and antiracism, I was curious as to how older students, who had a lifetime of schooling experience under Conservative (right wing) leadership, would respond. Snowhill Comprehensive is an enormous all-but-white school in Tyneside. The Lower Sixth students I interviewed indicated that that the predominance of white students was beneficial to the extent that interethnic struggles were avoided. Blaming black people rather than white antagonism was a common discursive mode of analysis (Gilroy 1987). There was a sense that if the school merged with a mixed local establishment black students would compartmentalize into ethnic groups; there was

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no recognition that ethnic majorities were themselves engaged in forms of “white bonding.” Moreover, many working-class students felt that black students were as culpable, if not more so, than whites when it came to racism, as two students, ages sixteen and seventeen, explained to me: ANOOP: Do you think that blacks can be as racist as whites? LUCY: I think it works both ways. CHRIS: More, I would say. ANOOP: More racist? CHRIS: Er, they’re like bitter against the way they’ve been treated, like slavery and that. They feel like somehow they’ve been hard done by. LUCY: It works both ways.

The idea that blacks are “bitter” against whites and feel “hard done by” draws on a familiar schema which portrays ethnic minority groups as having a “chip on the shoulder.” As with younger Emblevale students, there was a belief that racism “works both ways;” it is something that blacks and whites commit alike. Chris, whom we heard from above, went on to describe the “reverse racism” he perceived in multiracial districts: CHRIS: There’s a lot of racism but it’s like different, it’s from the blacks against the whites, you know what I mean? Me dad went into a bar y’kna in Leicester [a multiethnic city in the English Midlands] and it was like blacks everywhere. And he went in and it was like, “Oh white boy” and all this. ANOOP: What kinda things were being said? CHRIS: Jus like, y’kna how some fools may call ‘em “Niggers” and stuff? It was like, “You white honky,” and all this kinda crap, mon. It was like “What you doing here?” and all this, “Get back to where you come from.” And now that it is more equal, like the equal rights and stuff, they want to get their own back on whites.

The geographical locations of Leicester and Tyneside are strikingly different, which in turn has a bearing on race relations in these provinces (Bonnett 1993c). Since many Tyneside students operated with a parallel model of racism which equated the term “black nigger” with that of “white honky,” their cynicism towards antiracism became easier to understand. However, other white working-class students refuted the parallel model of racism and emphasized the privileged position of whiteness in name-calling interactions. Here, Ema (age sixteen) elucidates on the difference between terms such as “black bastard” and “white trash.”

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If I was arguing with a colored person and I said something that wasn’t needed to be said and they said it to me and went into [the assistant principal’s] office and I said, “I called him a black whatever” and said, “but he called me ‘white trash,’” he’d think, “How’s that gonna harm you?” I may have been called a name like that but it wouldn’t bother me. If someone comes to me and says, “She just called me a ‘black b,’” I’d say something and get ‘em done, if I was a teacher. But if someone says, “She’s just called me ‘white trash.’ I’d say, “And what’s wrong with that?” I’d probably think, “Well maybe it would hurt them, but to me it wouldn’t be anything to say ‘white’” I’d be proud of it.

Ema makes a qualitative distinction between the use of a black or white racial epithet before an insult. She indicates that white has a neutral, or even positive signification that cannot be easily overturned (“I’d be proud of it”). As Troyna and Hatcher (1992b, p. 495) would have it, “white” does not draw on a historical, “coherent ideology of racism” (slavery, imperialism, apartheid, discrimination, xenophobia, nationalism) in the ways that the term “black bastard” might. Although awareness of the qualitatively different racialized experiences of black and white youth remains pertinent, contemporary definitions of racism have been further extended. While Troyna and Hatcher’s definition foregrounds the “asymmetrical power relations” (1992b, 495) between blacks and whites and is a welcome improvement on liberal power-evasive models of racism, there remain potential shortcomings with the antioppressive framework. To begin with, there is an immediate reification of race as an insurmountable point of difference that too readily equates whiteness with oppression and blackness with victimhood. Moreover, whites are endowed with the privilege of being the central architects of history and the key agents of social change. The multiple positions that blacks and whites may come to occupy, and how these subjective locations are nuanced by class, gender, sexuality and generation, are subsequently condensed into a racial dichotomy of power/powerless. Furthermore, the tendency to construe racism across a black/white binary may in turn occlude other examples of racist hostility such as anti-Semitism, the ethnic cleansing of Eastern European peoples in the former Yugoslavia, and the ritual persecution of the Irish. Indeed, an engagement with whiteness beyond racial polarities may allude to a complex understanding of racism that may invoke aspects of nationhood or religion as further points of discrimination. Recently, other writers have pursued this line of enquiry. Connolly for example has remarked, “We cannot assume that racism will always be associated with beliefs about racial inferiority; that it will always be signified by skin colour; that it will be only White people who can be racist; or that racism will always be the most significant factor in the

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experience of minority ethnic groups” (1998, 10). As such, the exercise of power is subject to context and situation, and can come to mean different things at different moments. David Gillborn extends this differentialist reading of racism to incorporate black students as potential aggressors: “Hence, while black and Asian people—as a group—can be said to be relatively powerless in Britain, in certain situations black and Asian individuals clearly exercise power; therefore, they have the potential to act in ways that are racist. This would apply to the school situation, for example, where black and Asian students may enjoy power through peer relations” (1996, 170). In the two schools I visited, the overwhelming whiteness of the Tyneside conurbation (Bonnett 1993c) meant that black and Asian students rarely shared the peer-group power that some black youth may enact in multiethnic inner-city locales. However, while conducting research with perpetrators of racist violence in Birmingham, we found evidence of involvement by mixed-heritage youth (with AfricanCaribbean fathers and English mothers) against Asian peoples.7 Similarly, Phil Cohen (1988) has written persuasively about ethnic alliances between white working-class youth and African-Caribbean young people against Asian communities in urban Britain. These examples point to a move away from binary relations of racism (black/white) towards composite forms of discrimination; we may consider this shift in the emergence of a concept of racisms.8 Here, established types of racism may continue but they have also fragmented and multiplied into new, sometimes contradictory expressions of hostility (Cohen 1988; Rattansi 1993; Back 1996; Gillborn 1996; Nayak 1999b). This points towards a need for antiracist practitioners in whitemajority schools to engage with the salience, or absence, of whiteness in young people’s cultures and discuss the social meaning of these terms with students. A failure to elicit the perspectives of white students only serves to encourage confusion and the claims of unfairness we have witnessed. Notably, many of the students who voiced these grievances did not identify as racist, nor were they vehemently opposed to antioppressive school policies. Their points of resistance had less to do with a rejection of antiracism as a democratic strategy; rather they appeared more concerned with perceptions of being left out. Thus special multicultural sessions designed for minority students in dance, art, or cookery had the unfortunate tendency be seen as exclusive and so suture white defensiveness (Roman 1993). Similarly, the bilingual skills of some students were frowned upon as a conscious attempt at white exclusion. These feelings were further compounded by a belief that school rules on name-calling indirectly favored minority students over ethnic majorities.

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As the 1989 Burnage Report signaled, young people need clear guidelines about discriminatory practices, but these policies must be formed more closely with all students whose lives are directly touched by these actions.9 This would indicate a need for interventionist strategies that are more sensitive to the varied cultures of young people. Tyneside responses appeared to indicate that many white students were inconsistent in their use of racist language; certain youth may be regularly targeted while others were not; context, situation, and circumstance all appeared to affect the emergence of a racist vocabulary in young people’s social interactions. This does not detract from the pernicious aspects of racism but provides careful insight into the problems of imposing an insensitive and proscriptive antiracist policy. However, as we shall now see, white students were themselves highly ambivalent about the value of antiracist practice in school institutions. While initial interviews appear to suggest that students hold egalitarian values when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity, more penetrative long-term ethnographic investigation revealed that a number of unspoken white grievances could simultaneously be harbored beneath the surface.

White Backlash The antiracist backlash (anti-antiracism) in Britain was most viciously pursued in tabloid newspapers in the late eighties and early nineties during the pomp of New Right ideology. Somewhat surprisingly, vivid traces of these events were recalled in much detail by a generation that would have been toddlers at the time of these affairs. The students in Emblevale had a skewed interpretation of these incidents, no doubt drawn from older members in the white community, who saw the incriminating representation of these events as evidence of the curtailing of white ethnicity. Significantly the provocative tabloid headlines had been developed as an attack on Southern English Left-wing councils, including Brent, Haringey, and the Inner-London Education Authority (ILEA). The phobic attack on an imagined antiracist political correctness has been widely documented by other writers in the area (see for example, Barker 1981; Gordon and Klug n.d.; Epstein 1993). Ali Rattansi succinctly sums up the Right-wing hysteria of the period as a series of “moral panics . . . orchestrated around ‘loony-left councils’ supposedly banning black dustbin liners, insisting on renaming black coffee ‘coffee without milk,’ and banning ‘Ba-ba black sheep’ from the classroom—scares which turned out to rest on complete fabrications” (1999, 13). However, while many of the events were taken out of context, exaggerated, or simply invented this did not seem to detract from

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a commonsense understanding of antiracism and multiculturalism as an attack on white cultural practices and the “British way of life”: NICOLA: I’ve got this book from when I was little. It’s called Little Black Sambo. It’s got Black Mumbo and Black [giggles] Jumbo. SAM: Oh, I had that, I used to ‘ave that. MICHELLE: It’s been banned. You’re not allowed to say, “Baa Baa Blacksheep” NICOLA: And you’re not allowed to ask for a black coffee. MICHELLE: Aye. ANOOP: Who says? MICHELLE: On the news. SAM: So we go round singin,’ “Baa Baa Multicolored Sheep!”

I was surprised to find that the young age of the children and their particular geographic situation did not detract from them having an intimate knowledge of media representations of antiracism. What remains pertinent is that the debates appear to have left a deep scar on the psyche of white working-class subjects to date in economic outposts as far removed from the English capital as the northeast.10 The notion of whites as under surveillance, where literature is banned, and seemingly innocent tasks such as ordering a coffee are open to an imagined scrutiny, was taken a step further. It was even thought that legislation existed which censored white behavior. NICOLA: And there’s these dolls that you’re not allowed to ‘ave. SAM: Gollywogs. NICOLA: Aye. And on the news now [it says] every child has gotta have a black doll. ANOOP: Hold on, are you saying that every child by law has got to have a black doll? NICOLA: Yeah, so they grow to accept black people. SAM: Y’kna how they’ve started making black Sindys and that, and Barbies? JAMES: And black Action Man. MICHELLE: Aye, black Action Man!

The language used in student descriptions of antiracist practice suggests they interpret it as a largely proscriptive, often negative set of values. Students continually refer to items that have been “banned,” symbols that they have “gotta have,” and things they are “not allowed” to say or do. In essence, antiracism and multiculturalism are reproduced as part of a “discourse of derision” (Ball 1990) within the

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social peer groups of white youth. The feeling among these students was that white ethnicity had to be regulated and that British antiracism was a somewhat arbitrary mode of “policing.” At best antiracism was random and nit-picking in its choice of execution (black dolls, gollywogs, coffee, nursery rhymes, garbage can liners, and so on); at worst it was downright unfair, and even prejudiced against whites: JAMES: They don’t go on about “Baa Baa Whitesheep.” NICOLA: That’s even more racist. JAMES: Them [blacks] could be banned for buyin’ white milk. MICHELLE: [laughing] Well ya can’t buy black milk!

White students appeared acutely sensitive to any semblance of preferential treatment, and at times saw the school’s antiracist policy as a form of institutional discrimination against themselves. Roger Hewitt discusses perceived ‘unfairness’ by white youth as a major obstacle for antiracism as it functions as “a screen which filters out the possibility of some whites fully understanding the meaning of racial harassment, and generates an almost impermeable defensiveness” (1996, 57). In the context of the Tyneside conurbation, a more meaningful approach may be to ally the experience of working-class students with the local culture,11 to include discussions on “Geordie” identity for example, or the precarious position Englishness holds within the region. Understanding the different types of antiracism required in various locales remains of key significance. Specifically, Bonnett (1993a, c) has argued for the recognition of spatial complexities, because forms of antiracist practice which may be successful in London cannot be surgically transplanted into Tyneside, where the ethnic composition is sharply different. Indeed, the “radical” practitioners he interviewed advocate a response that engages with the interstices of race and class, and have a contextual meaning of the local populace.

Towards New Subject Positions: Strategies for Engaging White Ethnicities We still have a great deal of work to do to decouple ethnicity as it functions in the dominant discourse, from its equivalence with nationalism, imperialism, racism and the state, which are the points of attachment around which a distinctive British or, more accurately, English ethnicity have been constructed. —Stuart Hall, “New Ethnicities”

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According to David Gillborn schools now require “a more sensitive and sophisticated approach to questions of white ethnicity” (1995, 11). But the question that now remains is how can we delicately capture the varied experience of white ethnicity without alienating white youth? This is all the harder to address, as whiteness and Englishness have come to represent the ethnicity that is not one. For as Stuart Hall has noted, “[T]he embattled, hegemonic conception of ‘Englishness’ . . . because it is hegemonic, does not represent itself as an ethnicity at all” (1993, 257). Furthermore, as the Burnage Report illustrated, heavyhanded forms of antiracism have tended to treat white students as implicitly racist on the basis of their whiteness, “whether they are ferret-eyed fascists or committed anti-racists” (Macdonald et al 1989, 402). In order to sensitively engage with white English ethnicities I shall turn to historical methods. Exposing the diverse histories of white students upon Tyneside could be a productive exchange where the immediate heritage of respondents was discussed. The recognition that English identities had changed over time allowed these students to feel less threatened by the prospect of black British settlement. Projects directed by young people which draw on familial life history accounts may be of use to antiracist practitioners, who may wish to share their own personal biographies. Encouraging students in mainly white preserves to sensitively trace their ethnic and social-class lineage was found to be a fruitful way of deconstructing whiteness.12 Even so, I remain in agreement with David Gillborn that, firstly, “no strategy is likely to be completely successful, and second, that an effective strategy in one context, may fail in another context or at another time” (1995, 89). With these provisos in place, the approach deployed was sensitive to the local culture of the community and subject to my particular relationship with students. I found that imploding white ethnicities offered a way of contextualizing antiracism, and helped to develop an interest amongst students in race relations they felt they could have a personal stake in. Such a pedagogy is imperative, for as Stuart Hall has noted, “We are all, in that sense, ethnically located and our ethnic identities are crucial to our subjective sense of who we are” (1993, 258). The value of student life histories was made known to me when new inflections upon an assumed, coherent English ethnicity began to unfold. Although a number of students identified as white English13 in general parlance, their subjective deconstructions acted as fertile ground upon which to yield syncretic youth identities: DANIELLE: Mine parents were born in Germany, cos me nanna used to travel o’er abroad.

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BRETT: I used to have an Italian granddad. ALAN: Me next name’s “O’Maley” an’ that isn’t English. [...] NICOLA: I tell yer I’m English, but I’m part German. My granddad came over as a prisoner of war. He was working over at Belsey Park and my grandma was teaching. [...] JAMES: Some white people have got black people in their family. Like say my aunty married a black person and had babies. MICHELLE: I’ve got one in my family. [...] SAM: I’m a quarter Irish, a quarter Scottish, a quarter English and a quarter Italian.

The responses generated during the fieldwork period indicated that the implosion of white ethnicities could offer alternative historical trajectories with which many students had a self-fascination. Tracing their familial past was a means of personalizing history, making it relevant to their life experiences to date. In the course of this process it was not unusual for students to refer to generational elements of racism within their family lineage. Many students mentioned parents or grandparents with pronounced racist opinions. This allowed for further points of critique and discussion between young people. This would support Robert Burgess’s claim that “historical sources can provide the field researcher with a rich vein of material to compliment the ethnographic present and provide deeper sociological insights into the way in which people lived their lives” (1982, 134). Although many whites may lay claim to the identity of white Englishness, the narratives illustrated how these ethnicities were discursively constituted in the present situation. According to Hickman and Walter (1995) it is this failure to deconstruct whiteness that has led to the invisibility of Irish ethnicities in contemporary Britain. The deconstruction of white identity became, then, a means of splicing Englishness, whiteness, and ethnicity. Although the fragmented, “hyphenated” identities of white youth (Anglo-Irish, Scotch-Irish, Anglo-Italian) has particular resonance to the local culture of the North East, this did not mean that Englishness itself was left untouched. Alan (age ten) pointed to the hybrid history of English identity and its absence from contemporary debate when he remarked, “It’s all a mixed breed in England cos we’ve had the Vikings and the Saxons come across . . . .France, Denmark, them places.” In turn I could further share knowledge of the locality by discussing the long-standing migrant settlement in the region and the resistance to Fascism during the interim war period and beyond. Conversations

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concerning the locality and the laboring heritage of the area were particularly productive. Moreover, with older students it was possible to engage in a critical dialogue with whiteness. Ema and Jolene (both sixteen years old) each identified as working-class young women. Ema’s father was in the army and during the fieldwork period she too decided to sign up in preference to completing her Sixth Form education. Jolene’s father, meanwhile, had a masculine occupation that reflected the depleting infrastructure of the region, working as a bailiff. Both Ema and Jolene engaged in an appraisal of their own racial identities, which at times disrupted the association of Britishness/Englishness with whiteness: JOLENE: There’s different colors of white. ANOOP: What d’you mean? JOLENE: Like Chinese. Do you know what I mean, what color are they? There isn’t a color—we’re not proper white. EMA: Different shades really. JOLENE: There’s Chinese; there’s other people; there’s us; naturally dark skins who are white. EMA: People say like, “I’d hate to be black” and everything but when they go on the sun-bed and get tanned, they love to be tanned. JOLENE: Yeah! People go on the sun-bed just to get browned.

The critical deconstruction of whiteness undertaken by Ema and Jolene fractures monolithic notions of white identity through a recognition that so-called whites are comprised of “different shades really.” Instead of seeing white as colorless, as it is all too frequently regarded (Dyer 1993, 1997), the young women introduced a wide spectrum of color symbols which at its most extreme included “dark-skinned whites” and bronzed, sun-tanned figures who still manage to ‘claim’ the elusive emblem of whiteness. The question of what color Chinese people are further disrupts the fixed polarization of race as a discourse shared solely between black and white citizens (Bonnett 1997).14 Moreover, whiteness is seen as a term socially ascribed to certain groups rather than an accurate mode of racial classification. The social construction of whiteness is also apparent here, where students recognize that strictly speaking they were not “proper white” (whatever that might be). Overall, nesting antiracism within the localized cultures of young people in the northeast permitted a discussion of “Geordie” identity, whiteness, and Englishness to come about, and as such offered a broader strategy of participation. Experimental artists such as the Multiple Occupancies Collective have used song, poetry, and the medium of painting to recount the multiple configurations which come

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to make up their new ethnicities in Britain. The notion of white youth as also inhabiting “multiple occupancies” may enable them to feel included in the term “ethnicity,” without having to resort to an unflinching nationalist rhetoric. Jane Ifekwunigwe, a comember of the collective, claims to “encourage others with multiple identifications to acknowledge rather than to deny these affiliations” (Multiple Occupancies Collective 1998, 95). This call is taken up in Lorraine Ayensu’s poems, where autobiographies of the local people are a central part of the work. She explains, “I was conceived as a result of my White English birth-mother’s extramarital relationship with my Black Ghanaian father. She was married to a White English man. . . . My ethnic and cultural identities are strongly rooted in White Geordie (native Tyneside) culture. Embracing my Geordie experiences involves both a racialised critique of my ironic circumstances and an affirmation of my origins and my complex realities” (96–97). Ayensu’s knowing attempt to embrace a Tyneside identity acts at once as a racialised critique of the whiteness of “Geordie.” At the same time it points to the multiple heritages that may be concealed in seemingly monolithic terms such as “Geordie,” “whiteness,” or “Englishness.” I would suggest that making slippery the frozen status of white English ethnicity may yet pave the way for the emergence of new spaces of subjectivity for white youth. Indeed, the white Rastafarians Simon Jones (1988) encountered in the English urban interior, along with the new ethnicities identified by other researchers (Wulff 1995; Back 1996), suggest that these cultural transformations are already underway in the United Kingdom. Moreover, if these youthful identities can be encouraged to flourish outside the ideological nexus that merges whiteness, racism, and nationhood, there remains cause for hope.

Concluding Commentary Referring to Paul Gilroy’s (1987) book There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack (a title derived from a National Front slogan), Stuart Hall closes his essay on “New Ethnicities” with the claim that until relatively recently he “didn’t care, whether there was any black in the Union Jack. Now not only do we care, we must” (1993, 258). By the same token, if white students are to feel able to contribute to antiracism whatever their nationality may be, they must have subjective investments in a politics that at times has passed them by. Deconstructing the identities of ethnic majorities, with as much purpose and vigor as that of minority groups, should be a vital component of antiracist practice. A stumbling block that needs to be removed is the perception that

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many white students (and parents) have of antiracism as a bourgeois antiwhite practice. Here, suppressed white grievances could give way to an understanding that while racism “works both ways,” antiracism does not. A more fruitful route to pursue in white majority preserves may be to connect antioppressive policies with local histories and the lived culture of the community. As Raphael Samuel has noted, “Local history also has the strength of being popular. . . . People are continually asking themselves questions about where they live, and how their elders fared” (1982, 136–137). Embracing the popular in this way may entail a clearer understanding of the specificities of white Northern British ethnicities, and engender a perspective which is hopefully more sensitive to marginal working-class experiences. Despite its reputation for racist violence Tyneside also boasts a legacy of anti-Fascist resistance, a history of organized marches against nationalist extremists such as Enoch Powell and Oswald Moseley, and a rarely acknowledged past of black settlement and habitation (Todd 1995; Nayak 1999a). Moreover, the multiple styles of white identity evoked by young people even in largely white enclaves implies that a more sophisticated treatment of racism and antiracism is required. Exposing the multiplicity and mutability of white experience remains imperative where the only recognizable forms of white English identity for young men and women appear to be the “Nazi Skinhead” or the “Blond bombshell.”

Notes An extended version of this article was previously published as “White English Ethnicities: Racism, Anti-Racism and Student Perspectives.” Race Ethnicity and Education 2(2): 177–202. 1. In the British context the term “Asian” is used to refer to people from the Indian subcontinent including those of Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankhan, and Bangladeshi descent. 2. The report was later hijacked by sections of the press to make the spurious claim that the school’s antiracist policy led to the murder of Ahmed. This of course was a misreading of the findings proposed by the inquiry, which stated almost the reverse: antiracism needed to be extended to incorporate white youth rather than retracted (see Rattansi 1993 for more details). To avoid further confusion I would like to state at the outset that any criticism of antiracism made in this article is to be carefully placed within this caveat. 3. The school had 15 students with statements of educational needs and 103 students without statements. 4. At the micropolitical level of schooling cultures, some researchers have utilized these notions of power to provide evidence of how teacher/student relations may incite unexpected happenings (Kehily & Nayak 1996, 1997; Skeggs

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1991; Walkerdine 1990). In each of these studies, power is not a given constant, but worked and reworked through its potential possibilities, often in imaginative ways. 5. For an ethnographic discussion of Skinhead culture and whiteness see Nayak (1999b). 6. The term “Geordie” derives from the mining tradition and refers to the strong local identity of the region. “Geordies” are renowned for occupying a distinctive working-class identity that encompasses particular dialects, linguistic phrases, and other customs. I had numerous discussions with young people in which they consistently foregrounded the value of this local identity over and above national affiliations. For further discussion see Colls and Lancaster, 1992. 7. The research into the Social Basis of Racist Action Amongst Young People in Outer-City Areas was funded by the Economic Social Research Council (ESRC 000234272) and conducted by Les Back and Roger Hewitt, with the aid of Ian Barker. 8. For a thorough account of definitions of racism and how it is variously practiced see Miles, 1995. 9. These rules may be of use in out-of-school situations too. For example, in his youth club research Les Back found that the proscriptive antiracism policies available “took no account of the lived cultures of the young people who were subject to these rules” (1990, 15). 10. According to Alastair Bonnett (1993c) antiracist practitioners in Tyneside are permanently wary of a backlash and so opt for a “softly-softly” or gentle approach to antiracism, favoring concern with local sensitivity. This feeling, however constraining it may be, is not overly paranoid. Some three years after the Right-wing media “bashing” of London city councils, a local paper carried the headline “Baa Baa Pinksheep” as a story lead which was then picked up by local and then national papers. 11. See for example the practical approaches adopted by Brown, Barnfield, and Stone (1995) in predominantly white schools in Cumbria. 12. In U.S. higher educational establishments, Kristin Crosland Nebeker found that such “counter-stories” can “question the role of whites in the dialogical process.” For further examples of biographical and storytelling critiques of whiteness see also Ware, 1993; hooks, 1993; Nayak, 1997. 13. This would support the use of long-term ethnographic research, where the researcher can gradually get to know respondents, over “cold” interviewing methods. It may also be of use to speak to young people both in groups and individually to grasp the various situations in which multiple ethnic identifications can arise. 14. Frank Dikotter has provided detailed historical evidence of ancient landed-gentry Chinese people who frequently deployed the symbol of whiteness as a signifier of bodily beauty. Thus, skin, teeth, and other anatomical parts were compared to “white jade,” “tree grubs,” “melon seeds,” “congealed oint-

264 Anoop Nayak ment,” “silkworm moths,” or “young white grass” (1992, 10). However, the author also makes clear that the notion of a “yellow race” came via missionaries but was taken up willingly by sections of the Chinese who equated the color with the positive signification of gold.

References Back, L. 1990. Racist name-calling and developing anti-racist initiatives in youth work. CRER 14. Coventry: University of Warwick. ———. 1996. New ethnicities and urban culture: Racism and multiculture in young people’s lives. London: UCL Press. Ball, S. 1990. Politics and policy making in education: Explorations in political sociology. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Barker, M. 1981. The new racism. London: Junction Books. Bonnett, A. 1993a. Radicalism, anti-racism and representation. London: Routledge. ———. 1993b. Forever ‘white’? Challenges and alternatives to a ‘racial’ monolith. New Community 20 (1):173–180. ———. 1993c. The formation of public professional radical consciousness: The example of anti-racism. Sociology 27 (2): 281–297. ———. 1997. Geography, ‘race’ and whiteness: Invisible traditions and current challenges. Area 29 (3): 193–199. Brown, C., J. Barnfield, and M. Stone. 1995. Spanner in the works: Education for racial equality and social justice in white schools. Stoke-on-Trent, U.K: Trentham Books. Burgess, R. G. 1982. Personal documents, oral sources and field research. In Field research: A sourcebook and field manual, ed. R. G. Burgess. London: George Allen and Unwin. Clarke, J. 1973. The skinheads and the study of youth culture. Birmingham, U.K.: (Centre for Contemporary Culture Sudies) CCCS at the University of Birmingham. Duplicated. Coard, B. 1982. What the British school system does to the black child. In The school in the multicultural society, ed. A. James and R. Jeffcoate. London: Harper and Row/Open University Press. Cohen, P. 1988. The perversions of inheritance: Studies in the making of multiracist Britain. In Multi-racist Britain, ed. P. Cohen and H. Bains. Basingstoke, U.K.: MacMillan. ———. 1993. “It’s racism what dunnit”: Hidden narratives in theories of racism. In ‘Race.’ culture and difference, ed. J. Donald and A. Rattansi. London: Open University Press. Colls, R., and B. Lancaster. 1992. Geordies: Roots of regionalism. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Connolly, P. 1998. Racism, gender identities and young children: Social relations in a multi-ethnic inner-city primary school. London: Routledge.

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Department of Education and Science (DES). 1985. Education for all. Report of the Enquiry of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups (Swann Report). London: HMSO. Dikotter, F. 1992. The discourse of racism in modern China. London: Hurst. Driver, G. 1982. Classroom stress and school achievement: West Indian adolescents and their teachers. In The school in the multicultural society, ed. A. James and R. Jeffcoate. London: Harper and Row/Open University Press. Dyer, R. 1993. White. In The matter of images: Essays on representations. London: Routledge. ———. 1997. White. London, Routledge. Epstein, D. 1993. Changing classroom cultures: Anti-racism, politics and schools. Stoke-on-Trent, U.K.: Trentham Books. Fekete, L. 1998. Let them eat cake. Race and Class 39 (3): 77–82. Foucault, M. 1980. Truth and power. In Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972–77, ed. C. Gordon. Brighton U.K.: Harvester Press. ———. 1988. Technologies of the self. In Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault, ed. L. Martin, H. Gutman, and P. Hutton. London: Tavistock. Fuller, M. 1982. Black girls in a London Comprehensive. In The school in the multicultural society, ed. A. James and R. Jeffcoate. London: Harper and Row/Open University Press. Gaine, C. 1987. No problem here: A practical approach to education and ‘race’ in white schools. London: Hutchinson Education. ———. 1995. Still no problem here. Stoke-on-Trent, U.K.: Trentham Books. Gillborn, D. 1990. ‘Race,’ ethnicity and education: Teaching and learning in multi-ethnic schools. London: Unwin-Hyman/Routledge. ———. 1995. Racism and antiracism in real schools. Buckingham, U.K.: Open University Press. ———. 1996. Student roles and perspectives in antiracist education: A crisis of white ethnicity? British Educational Research Journal 22 (2): 165–179. Gilroy, P. 1987. There ain’t no black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson. Giroux, H. 1997a. Rewriting the discourse of racial identity: Towards a pedagogy and politics of whiteness. Harvard Educational Review 67 (2): 285–319. ———. 1997b. Racial politics and the pedagogy of whiteness. In Whiteness: A critical reader, ed. M. Hill. New York: New York University Press. Gordon, P. and F. Klug. (No date) New right new racism. Nottingham, U.K.: Searchlight Publications. Hall, S. 1993. New ethnicities. In ‘Race,’ culture & difference, ed. J. Donald and A. Rattansi. London: Sage/Open University Press. Hewitt, R. 1986. White talk black talk. London: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1996. Routes of racism: The social basis of racist action. Stoke-onTrent, U.K.: Trentham Boks.

266 Anoop Nayak Hickman, M. J., and B. Walter. 1995. Deconstructing whiteness: Irish women in Britain. Feminist Review 50 (summer): 5–19. hooks, b. 1992. Black looks. New York: Routledge. Jeater, D. 1992. Roast beef and reggae music: The passing of whiteness. New Formations 18: 107–121. Jeffcoate, R. 1982. Evaluating the multicultural curriculum: Pupils’ perspectives. In The school in the multicultural society, ed. A. James and R. Jeffcoate. London: Harper and Row/Open University Press. Jones, S. 1988. Black culture, white youth: The reggae tradition from JA to UK. Basingstoke, U.K.: MacMillan Education. Kehily, M. J., and A. Nayak. 1996. ‘The Christmas kiss’: Sexuality, story-telling and schooling. Curriculum Studies Special Issue 4 (2): 211–227. ———. 1997. ‘Lads and laughter’: Humour and the production of heterosexual hierarchies. Gender and Education 9 (1): 69–87. Mac an Ghaill, M. 1988. Young, gifted and black. Milton Keynes, U.K: Open University Press. ———. 1997. The making of men: Masculinities, sexualities and schooling. Milton Keynes, U.K: Open University Press. Mac an Ghaill, M. and C. Haywood. 1997. The end of anti-oppressive education? A differentialist critique. International Studies in Sociology of Education 7 (1): 21–34. MacDonald, I., R. Bhavani, L. Khan, and G. John. 1989. Murder in the playground: The Burnage Report. London: Longsight. Maher, F. A., and M. K. T. Tetreault. 1997. Learning in the dark: How assumptions of whiteness shape classroom knowledge. Harvard Educational Review 62 (2): 321–349. Media Research Group. 1987. Media coverage of London councils. London: Goldsmiths College, University of London. Miles, R. 1995. Racism. London: Routledge. Multiple Occupancies Collective. 1998. Multiple occupancies: Locating home base. New Formations 33: 90–108. Nayak, A. 1997. Tales from the darkside: Negotiating whiteness in school arenas. International Studies in Sociology of Education 7 (1): 57–80. ———. 1999a. ‘White English ethnicities’: Racism, anti-racism and student perspectives. Race Ethnicity and Education 2 (2): 177–202. ———. 1999b. ‘Pale warriors’—Skinhead culture and the embodiment of white masculinities. In Thinking identities: Ethnicity, racism and culture, ed. A. Brah, M. J. Hickmand and M. Mac an Ghaill. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Pearson, G. 1976. ‘Paki-bashing’ in a North East Lancashire cotton town: A case study and its history. In Working class youth culture, ed. G. Mungham and G. Pearson. London: Routledge. Phoenix, A. 1997. ‘I’m white! So what?’ The construction of whiteness for young Londoners. In Off white, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, L. Powell, and L. Mun Wong. New York: Routledge.

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Rattansi, A. 1993. Changing the subject? Racism, culture and education. In ‘Race,’ culture and difference, ed. J. Donald and A. Rattansi. London: Sage/Open University Press. Robins, D., and C. Cohen. 1978. Knuckle sandwich: Growing up in the working-class community. Middlesex, U.K.: Pelican Books. Roman, L. G. 1993. White is not a colour! White defensiveness, postmodernism and anti-racist pedagogy. In Race, identity and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. London: Routledge. Rutherford, R. 1997. Forever England: Reflections on masculinity and empire. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Samuel, R. 1982. Local history and oral history. In Field research: A sourcebook and field manual, ed. R. G. Burgess. London: George Allen and Unwin. Sewell, T. 1997. Black masculinities and schooling. Stoke-on-Trent, U.K.: Trentham Books. Short, G., and B. Carrington. 1992. Towards an antiracist initiative in the allwhite primary school: A case study. In Racism and education: Structures and strategies, ed. D. Gill, B. Mayor, and M. Blair. London: Sage/Open University Press. Skeggs, B. 1991. Challenging masculinity and using sexuality. British Journal of Sociology of Education 11: 127–138. Sleeter, C. E. 1993. How white teachers construct race. In Race, identity and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. London: Routledge. Todd, N. 1995. In excited times: The people against the blackshirts. Tynes and Wear, U.K.: Bewick Press/TWAFA. Tomlinson, S. 1990. Multicultural education in all-white areas. Aldershot, U.K.: Avebury. Troyna, B., and R. Hatcher. 1992a. Racism in children’s lives: A study of mainly white primary schools. London: Routledge/National Children’s Bureau. ———. 1992b. It’s only words: Understanding ‘racial’ and racist incidents. New Community 18 (3): 493–496. Walkerdine, V. 1990. Schoolgirl fictions. London: Verso. Ware, V. 1993. Beyond the pale: White women, racism and history. London: Verso. Wulff, H. 1995. Inter racial friendship: Community youth styles, ethnicity and teenage femininity in South London. In Youth cultures: A cross cultural perspective, ed. V. Amit-Talai and H. Wulf. London: Routledge.

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10 When the Big Snow Melts: White Women Teaching in Canada’s North Helen Harper

I should mention to you that for quite a while when I got here, I looked at myself a lot. I kept physically looking at myself. Because I kept thinking, what do I look like. It was very strange. What do I look like to them. I kept trying, because I’d never seen myself as the oppressor. I could never see myself as—even though I’m white, because I always felt I was on the periphery, I never felt really “Wonder Bread” white. And I was all of a sudden. And I would look all the time. I remember asking myself questions like, “How white am I?” I did that a lot. It was very weird. —Robin It’s scary: I am very visible as a white female. . . . I was talking to the principal today, telling her I’ve never been so conscious of my color before, and this is the first and probably the only time in my life when I will be. . . . I’m definitely conscious of the fact, all the time, of being white and [that] I’m not here to be a white educator teaching in the “southern” way. —Nell

Robin and Nell1 are two young white women from southern Canada who were first-year teachers at the time of their comments. Robin was teaching in a fly-in Cree community in northern Ontario and Nell was teaching in an Inuit community in the high Arctic. Previously they had been students in the Faculty of Education where I teach. As evident in the quotes, both were suddenly and acutely aware of their racial identity—of being white—and both struggled intensely and self-consciously with an identity formulated in, against, and beyond notions of femininity, whiteness, and teacher, as organized through the history, practices and identities available to them socially and historically. 269

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This chapter describes their struggles drawing on interview data collected during their first, and in Nell’s case, first and second year of teaching in northern Canada.2 This research is part of an ongoing study investigating how white, First Nations,3 and other visible–minority women teaching in isolated northern aboriginal communities create and negotiate a sense of themselves and their work. One of the goals of this research is to make visible the identificatory processes by which women teachers assume or not particular images or constructs of the teacher. It is hoped that this project will produce a larger, clearer, and more dynamic picture of the history and process by which gendered and racialized teacher identities are assumed and negotiated. This may in turn indicate how to intervene more effectively in the preparation of teachers from dominant culture(s) for work in antiracist education in minority school contexts, and more generally, how all teachers can work effectively in any school context to support antiracist education. Central for me, as teacher educator working with a largely white, female student population, is how faculties of education can serve in the making and remaking of white women teachers, and in the process undo my own education in white femininity. This chapter draws the experiences of twelve women who were teaching in fly-in First Nations communities located in northern Ontario and Nunavut.4 The study involved interviews and field observations. This chapter focuses primarily on Robin and Nell, with whom I had the most contact. Robin was highly articulate, and, by comparison with the other teachers, seemed more aware of the politics of teaching in a First Nations community. Unlike the others, she entered the profession with a strong desire to teach in an alternative school setting. However, she was not able to create or recreate herself to her satisfaction in the school and community in which she resided. Like many white “southern” teachers who find employment in the North, she stayed only one year. Nell stayed two years in the Inuit community where she was employed. Like Robin, Nell was politically sensitive to her circumstances, at least relative to the other teachers I interviewed, and had made a conscious choice to live and teach in communities with diverse or minority populations. Unlike the others, Robin and Nell had no difficulty naming and speaking about whiteness. I suspect this was because they shared a more radical (as opposed to liberal) perspective on race, developed through their involvement with social activism in one form or another in southern Ontario. Despite this background, both were still shaken by the intensity of their experiences and their particular positioning(s) as white women teachers in the North.

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Robin and Nell’s experiences and their responses render visible the nature and power of whiteness and femininity, worked with and against Nativeness and masculinity that continues to organize teacher identity. This chapter explores this organization, drawing on Nell and Robin’s experiences, and on theory in whiteness studies, and postmodern and psychoanalytic notions of the subject. The chapter begins by briefly outlining these theoretical underpinnings of this research, and then traces historically two subject positions of the white woman teacher: what I refer to as “Lady Bountiful” and “Janey Canuck.” The last section of the chapter returns to Robin, Nell, and the other women teachers in the study and their struggles with and against these positionings and thesocial and psychological investments that underlie them.

Identity and Whiteness Studies in Antiracist Education Antiracist education focuses on how schools name, define, and negotiate cultural and racial differences. It confronts educational policies and practices that reproduce race together with gender, sex, class, and other inequalities. This inclusive antiracist education offers a powerful alternative to the responses that have historically characterized the production and treatment of human difference in Canadian schools (Dei 1995, 1994). Such responses have included 1) the suppression of difference through assimilation; 2) an insistence on a “natural” difference that requires segregation; 3) the denial of difference with a demand for equal treatment for all; and, 4) the celebration of difference by way of multicultural education (Harper 1997). In terms of identity, antiracist education examines issues of power in relation to how identities are produced and normalized in school contexts. In part this has meant a focus on the linguistic and material practices through which identities are produced and translated into the everyday, into common sense or what seems natural or normal. What is deemed normal and natural becomes hegemonic and largely invisible. Whiteness often functions as an invisible norm and in the case of some forms of multicultural education it is only the other that is specified: “Looking with such passion and single-mindedness at non-dominant groups has had the effect of reproducing the sense of the oddness, the differentness, exceptionally of these groups, the feeling that they are departures from the norm. Meanwhile the norm has carried on as if it is the natural, inevitable, ordinary way of being human” (Dyer 1988: 4). The importance of examining white identity, in this instance the representation and performance of the white woman teacher, lies

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in making visible its taken-for-granted assumptions and normalizing practices in efforts to understand and challenge structures of white privilege and authority. It is not easy work. Exposing the workings of identity formation is socially and psychologically disturbing. In the case of white people, white identity can secure privilege and power for oneself and one’s children. Tampering with such privilege is not easily accepted. Furthermore intervention of any kind means reworking identities and identifications that have, for better or worse, have secured people to the world. There is comfort in what is familiar; in what appears normal, natural, and seemingly stable. However, the stability and naturalness is largely illusionary. From the perspective of postmodern theory identity is an ongoing process rather than a fixed state. Individuals actively, often unconsciously, negotiate an identity with and against the seemingly normal and natural positionings available to them at any one historical moment. There are also psychological processes, in particular the workings of desire, that operate in the formation and defense of identity. The conglomerations of positionings available at any one historical moment are organized against an unconstructed alterity—what is “not me”— that has been excluded, denied, or actively ignored in efforts to delimit a sense of self. Judith Butler (1993), among others, has argued that the subject both desires and disavows that which is excluded, what she calls the “abject being.” The reworking of identity, white or otherwise, thus requires the reworking of this psychic organization of desire and disavowal. Considering all of this it is of no surprise that exposing and rearticulating identity meets with difficulty and resistance. Such resistance is all too well known to those working in antiracist education (Schick 2000; Roman 1997; Sleeter 1993). Central to this study and its larger project are questions of how white identities get organized and negotiated; in particular, what is the history of white subject positions that have dominated educational discourse, and what is the nature and power of these positionings both socially and psychologically? What are the contradictions and alternatives—the “abject being” or “other”—that must be actively ignored and excluded or in some way negotiated in the formation and performance of white identity? In the case of this research, how does white femininity get organized and negotiated in and through teacher identity and how might white feminine teacher identity be rearticulated to forward what Roger Simon (1992) calls “a pedagogy of possibility?” Since white women may well continue to have a presence in the teaching profession, and since there is an increasing diversity in the students with whom they will be or are now working, this last question is particularly important in order to improve minority and anti-racist education, and in this case, First Nations education.

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Such work is important but it may be politically dangerous. As noted by Fine, Weis, Powell, and Wong among others, the study of whiteness can serve to reinscribe white identity at the primary center of research agendas, obliterating any focus on those who have been marginalized: “We worry that in our desire to create spaces to speak, intellectually and empirically, about whiteness, we may have reified whiteness as a fixed category of experience and identity. . . .We despair that a terrifying academic flight toward something called white studies could eclipse the important work being done across the range of race, postcolonialism, ethnicity and people of color; that research funds could shift categories; that understanding whiteness could surface as the new intellectual fetish, leaving questions of power, privilege and race/ethnic political minorities behind as an intellectual fad of the past” (1997, xi–xii). Unless the focus on whiteness works strategically to expose and dismantle its position as an invisible norm in social practice, there is the danger of reifying whiteness. Vigilance on the part of researchers and the academic community is key in assuring this does not happen. At this point, I leave it to my readers who share a commitment to issues of social justice to determine whether in fact this research hinders or helps in the dismantling of white privilege and in the rearticulation of white identity.

Lady Bountiful and Janey Canuck: White Women and the Empire Robin and Nell and other women new to teaching in First Nations communities directly confront, along with their students, a discursive and material history of Canadian, British, and French colonialism. In terms of identity, there appear to be two subject positions for white women that have dominated the Canadian North and more generally the British imperialism: the mother-teacher in service to the Empire and the lady traveler off on her adventures in the colonies (Harper, 2000). The English Mother of Empire has been referred to by Domic David Alessio (1997) as the “Perfect Lady” and by Honor Ford Smith (1992) as “Lady Bountiful.” Lady Bountiful is a representation of the white lady missionary or white lady teacher that emerges during the time of British imperialism. It is an image in which “notions of imperial destiny and class and racial superiority were grafted onto the traditional views of refined English motherhood to produce a concept of the English woman as an invincible global civilizing agent” (Ware 1992, 120). The intersection of white lady teacher and motherhood and colonialism is particularly powerful because Lady Bountiful epitomized purity, chastity, and goodness, but selflessness. Her selflessness

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was also bound inextricability to administering to the needs of others, not to her own. She is/was the consummate caregiver. According to Honor Ford Smith, to act as the civilizing force, to be the white mother–teacher in the service of the Empire, requires the white women to be at the center, knowing and helping and in the case of the white lady teachers, instructing their charges. As a missionary–teacher, if she doesn’t know, if she can’t be in control helping and teaching, there is the guilt and the fear that she is unmotherly or unladylike or unchristian. The white lady traveler off on her adventures in the colonies is also in service to the Empire and she too needs to be at the center, knowing and understanding the foreigners she meets. She is the consummate researcher and teacher, reporting her experiences back to those in England, teaching the other and teaching about the other to those back home. Her gender was significant in that it allowed a woman’s perspective to see and record areas of life that male colonial administrators and explorers were unaware of or unable to experience. Lady Bountiful and the white lady traveler are evident in historical documents and in literature, often as part of the positioning of the white lady teacher. To some degree, one can see Lady Bountiful in Anne Langton, a spinster from England who devoted her life chiefly to housekeeping for brothers in Canada during the early 1800s. According to her diaries, Anne Langton was not particularly enamored of her “untutored children of the forest” but nonetheless believed it was her duty to spread British culture to the inhabitants of the Canadian backwoods (Prentice 1991). Another Lady Bountiful, in name at any rate, was Edith May Griffis, who in 1912 was the first teacher to open a school for Métis and First Nations children at York Factory, a isolated community on the shores of Hudson Bay. Ms. Griffis was known for many years as “the Lady of the Bay” (Griffis 1960, 46). More recently there is some evidence that early multicultural education policies and practices in Canada employ the image of Lady Bountiful, demanding the teacher know and save hapless minority students, while her own whiteness and white privilege remain unacknowledged (Harper and Cavanagh 1994). Janey Canuck Abroad (1901) and Janey Canuck in the West (1910), written by Emily Murphy, offer images of the white lady adventurer in Canada. The image of the Janey Canuck character is overtly Canadian. She was the “female counterpart of “Jack Canuck,” the popular cartoon figure of the 1890s who had become the symbol of the naive, youthful, self-confident and brash Canadianism of the day” (Basset 1975, xi). Through the persona of Janey Canuck, Emily Murphy depicted Canada as a place of adventure and rejuvenation for

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Europeans: “[T]he hardy Northern environment of Canada is a fertile breeding ground where the tired, ailing Anglo-Saxon race, exhausted and numbed by the unhealthy conditions and decadence of the late nineteenth century city life, could be revitalized” (Bassett 1975, xix). From the late 1800s through the first half of the twentieth century, the stories of women’s adventure travels in the Canadian wilderness were prominent in popular literature. Isabella Bird chronicled many of her adventures, including her trip to the Rockies Mountains, described in her book A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879). Another example of the lady traveler is Agnes Deans Cameron ([1909] 1986), who produced the book The New North: An Account of a Woman’s 1908 Journey through Canada to the Arctic. There have been a number of books from women who as wives or teachers spent considerable time in the North. For example, I was No Lady: I Followed the Call of the Wild is the 1959 autobiography of Jean Godsell, the wife of a white fur trader employed in the Northwest Territories in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. White women teaching in the North also wrote of their experiences. Margery Hinds, for example, wrote, School House in the Arctic (1958) and High Venture (1968), which describe her experiences as the first white woman teaching in the High Arctic. The saintly Lady Bountiful, mother of the Empire, and the intrepid Janey Canuck, female reporter to the Empire, are easily identified in Canadian literature and history, and it is against these two images that First Nations women in Canada were often positioned. Aboriginal women were excluded from the categories of mother, lady, settler, or traveler. Although there existed the image of “Pocahontas: the beautiful Indian maiden” the dominant image was of “the squalid and immoral squaw” who “stood in the way of progress, that is, civilization” (Carter 1997, 161). Actual First Nations women and their children were the targets of white women’s instruction and thus aboriginal women were to be learners, not teachers. Historically this was often true in the North. First Nations women have been teaching assistants but it is only recently that they have become teachers officially sanctioned to work in schools. The struggle of negotiating oneself against the history of white women is evident in the comments made by a young woman teacher I interviewed during the study. Martha is aboriginal, but was not from the northern community where she was teaching at the time of her comments. She reflects on her experience: Sometimes I feel kind of strange because I’ve lived on reserves most of my life and hung around with Native people all my life. And then I come here and [am] labeled as “teacher.” Here I’m hanging around with a lot of

276 Helen Harper non-Native teachers. I don’t mind, but sometimes it’s kind of strange. You know, you’re “the teacher,” even though I’m Native. But I’m still not from the community. I’m still an outsider. But I am Native, you know what I mean?

Martha found her association with non-Aboriginal teachers odd, and struggled with the association of “teacher” with “whiteness” that threatened to undermine her sense of credibility and authenticity both as teacher and as Native. From the perspective of psychoanalytic theory, if First Nations people like Martha are the “abject other” against whom Canadian white identity is defined, in particular white female teacher identity, Martha as teacher troubles this identity of aboriginal, as well as the representation of Lady Bountiful and Janey Canuck as white lady teachers. It is not surprising that Martha may find her experience “strange.”

Aboriginal Education in Canada and the Role of Teacher Historically in Canada the role of white teachers and their relation to aboriginal students were abundantly clear. Until 1969 the education of aboriginal children was under the auspices of the Federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. Until then, the objective of education had been to suppress aboriginal culture and languages in efforts to assimilate aboriginal children or, failing that, of “fitting the Indian for ‘civilized’ life in his own environment, a goal it [also] failed to achieve” (Ashworth 1993, 26). The social, psychological, and economic scars of colonization experienced in various aboriginal residential, industrial, and day schools are still apparent in the communities even now (Milloy 1999). In response to the disastrous result of assimilation attempts made in southern Canada, the rhetoric of northern school officials suggested that assimilation was not the aim of schooling for aboriginal and Inuit children; rather, the aim was to modernize First Nations people, to make “better Indians and Eskimos” and insure a “pride in their race” (Macpherson 1991). This meant creating a more relevant and meaningful curriculum. But while one of the foremost authorities on education in the North—Anglican Bishop Marsh, known as Donald of the Arctic—credited the education leaders with sincerity when they claimed that preservation of First Nations culture was a major task, he claimed, “[T]his is anything but true amongst those who are teaching the children. . . .[R]ight across the North . . .I have been repeatedly told by the teaching personnel, that their aim is to make the children “white” and able only to take their place in the outside [southern white economic] system” (Milloy 1999, 255).

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If the Bishop’s observations are in any way accurate, it is not surprising that there exist negative views about white teachers, as Battiste and Barman describe: “Aboriginal peoples began to see educators, like their missionary predecessors, as nothing more than racists, patriarchs and oppressors who hid behind fine-sounding words or ideology. Their objectives were viewed as tainted and hypocritical” (1995, viii). Although white Lady Bountifuls and Janey Canucks may still appear discursively, if not embodied in actual people, the purpose of education and the role and image of teacher have shifted dramatically in northern First Nations communities. Since the 1970s First Nations communities have been gaining greater control over the education of their children. The result has been a firm redefinition of the purpose of First Nations education with a key commitment to salvaging aboriginal languages and cultures and transmitting those cultures and their unique world views (Battiste and Barman 1995). The desire now is for aboriginal teachers who know and understand their own culture and language to become the norm in First Nations communities. Thus the position of the white lady teacher has become problematic for both aboriginal communities and the white women teachers who continue to be employed in these areas. Certainly it continues to trouble aboriginal women teachers like Martha5 and white women teachers like Nell and Robin and the others I interviewed.

Robin and Nell Contending with Lady Bountiful and Janey Canuck As stated earlier in this chapter, Robin and Nell each worked in a bandcontrolled school in a small Northern fly-in First Nations community— Robin in a Cree community in northern Ontario and Nell in an Inuit community in the territory of Nunavut. Although some of the senior administrators, teachers, and teacher assistants in the two schools were First Nations people, more often the majority of those employed were young, white, and from the south. This is not unusual. Without a sufficient pool of qualified aboriginal teachers willing to work in the North, white teachers from the south continue to be recruited by northern First Nations schools. Both Robin and Nell defined themselves, at least initially, against these white northern teachers and indeed against most other white teachers and white populations. For example, in the course of our interviews, Robin described herself as an individual who had not lived a traditional white middle-class life. She was not raised in a nuclear family, nor in middle-class neighborhoods. For a time she had lived in downtown Detroit,where she was the only white student in her elementary class. Later when her family

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moved to Canada she attended a French immersion school, but felt marginalized there because of her family’s lower socioeconomic status. In terms of her education, Robin often described herself as someone who resisted schooling and was not particularly enamored by her experience in the faculty of education. Robin experienced difficulty identifying with her fellow student teachers, associate teachers, and professors. She remarked, “I felt I was in disguise. I was suppose to be like them [the other students and teachers] and I just couldn’t be.” She saw herself as far more politically radical than other students in the faculty and was, in that regard, definitely in the minority. From her account, what appears to have kept her in the program and in the profession in part is her reading of radical pedagogy, in particular the works of Henry Giroux. Her reading gave her “some hope I can do this [teaching].” Defining herself as marginalized, as different—as having “always existed on the periphery”—Robin decided to pursue a teaching position but, “would never ever teach in southwestern Ontario. If I had to teach in the suburbs I would go insane.” Nell wished to construct her adult life outside of what she tacitly understands as traditional white norms. Unlike Robin, Nell had had what she described as a “sheltered upbringing” in a “small white town.” According to Nell she had had excellent teachers in high school who sparked her interest in Canadian politics, particularly related to issues of social justice, but, until she moved to Toronto, she had had little exposure to minority groups: “I had never met a Jewish person until I went to University. . . .The first time I ever spoke to anybody who didn’t speak fluent English was when I went to Toronto.” However, in later discussions, Nell mentioned that a large First Nations reserve was located just outside of her hometown, and that she had had an aboriginal friend during her adolescence. Evidently this aboriginal presence seemed to operate as an invisible “abject other” that she literally disavowed or “forgot,” at least initially in our earlier conversation. I suspect it is the visible, active presence of minorities that Nell feels she lacked in her childhood. If this is accurate then the desire for the other is predicated on the idea that the minority can be fully present and knowable (to whites), and most importantly can serve to assuage white people’s feelings of deprivation or loss (Schick 2000). Having a strong sense that her life experience was limited, Nell wanted to explore the world and learn through “direct experience.” She commented, “Studying political science and Native issues in a university classroom for five years is not the same as going to a community and living the experience.” This is also evident in her advice to other white teachers considering the North: “One of the things about being up here is getting the full experience; you’ve really got to do the right

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thing. You’ve got to get out into the community and meet the people and get involved.” In this Nell constructs the other as best knowable through personal experience, and white people, perhaps particularly white academics and white teachers, as unwilling to experience the other directly and thus quite unlike herself. Although she would state at one point, “You know I do have normal American dreams, like having a family and having a home,” Nell also stated she wanted to have a “unique” life: It sounds so stupid, but I get off on the idea that I live in this really cool place [a community in Nunavut]. . . . Not that I get off on it in the way that I get to tell others, but just that I’ll always look back on my life and say I did this really cool thing. To some people it’s not cool but to me it’s just such a unique opportunity. . . .It’s just being involved and learning things by being surrounded by it rather than reading it in a book. I guess that is what I mean by “unique.” Unique is something that I won’t always be doing. You can’t do this [teach in the North] when you’ve got two kids and a mortgage.

At this point in her life Nell thinks she might return to “normal” white life, perhaps one with a mortgage and two kids, but for now she wants a life that is organized, as she sees it, against these norms. This experience is intended for her own “personal development” and also for her own political education: “I’m really intrigued by the role of white people especially in the North.” She names this opportunity as limited in time and therefore precious—something that other whites don’t understand or appreciate. Both Nell and Robin spoke specifically about how they differ from other white teachers in the North. They did not mention actual teachers nor did they yet know their white colleagues well. At one point in our interviews Nell commented, My role is different from a lot of white people. The way I see my role, I’m definitely conscious of the fact all the time of being white and I’m not here to be a white educator teaching in the southern way. . . .My original idea in coming here was to bridge that generation where they haven’t yet created their own teachers and to be a part of that process to get them to self-government.

Nell sees herself as different in that she is aware of her whiteness, aware that she is to teach differently, aware that she is there only as a temporary support. In doing so she seems to create a foil against which she understands her own whiteness as well as constructing an aboriginal

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other who needs her. In this way she, like others, legitimates her role and presence in the North. Robin is less sure of her purpose, less sure of her positioning as white woman teacher. She deliberated at length before accepting her teaching position: “I had reservations about if I could teach Native children because I’m not Native, because I was just such an outsider. How I could do that or if I had the right.” When asked what she had thought she offered the community, Robin replied, “I don’t know if I thought I had anything to offer. I felt that I wasn’t going to do any more damage. I think that’s more it. I felt like I respected that they were their own community and I was an outsider. I felt I could be sensitive. I at least thought there was a question. I may not know the answer but I knew there was a question.” The construct of the white radical teacher is one formulated largely on the notion of living, to use Robin’s words, “on the periphery” or more commonly living on the borders or in borderlands and knowing there is “a question” or a “problem of white colonization” (Giroux 1992, Haig–Brown 1996). It is an identity which becomes intelligible when whiteness becomes other to itself, that is, it is a white identity understood and articulated against dominant white culture. This is the position of the radical pedagogue, but oddly enough it is also, to a degree, the subject positioning of Lady Bountiful and the white lady traveller, who themselves push convention by traveling and working in the geographical and social margins of the Empire. The white lady traveler, in particular, flaunts Victorian notions of femininity by traveling privately, often unaccompanied, in foreign lands. However, neither the white lady traveler nor Lady Bountiful is out to deliberately challenge British imperialism, and in fact the work of white women in the colonies generally served to reinscribe the values and beliefs that underlie British colonialism (Chaudhuri and Strobel 1992). Robin’s and in particular Nell’s renderings of themselves rely not only on their difference from other whites, but also on the idea that what they lack in knowledge and experience First Nations peoples can fulfill. The aboriginal student and the northern experience will satisfy the need for expanding the white self to answer the question, to insure a borderland identity, to expand one’s knowledge and understanding of the other. Defining themselves against a history of white teachers who have damaged aboriginal culture(s), Robin and Nell can imagine a place for themselves on the reserve. And they were hired. However, the experience proved difficult. At the time of my visit Robin was considering leaving the community—thoughts she would eventually act upon. After her second year, Nell would leave the North to travel. Both named and described incidents in which fears of damaging aboriginal culture, of

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becoming or being positioned as racist, came to the fore. What haunts these incidents is the historical legacy of Lady Bountiful and the white lady traveler.

The White Mother–Teacher As suggested in the quotes that began this chapter, both Nell and Robin were acutely aware of their whiteness. Robin found a personal identity as white, in particular white and oppressor, disconcerting. Having defined herself against a construct of white dominant society, to be viewed within this construct left her questioning her own identity— “How white am I?” At least momentarily she questioned her own complicity within practices that have supported white imperialism and racism. Comparing herself against other whites in the community, Robin believed she offered something different and was dismayed by her inability to be differentiated from this construct of whiteness. She desperately wished to be quickly recognized by the community as different from other whites. Nell spoke about how she felt she was being tested in her first year in the community. She believed that the tests determined whether she was indeed different from other whites, really willing to participate in or tolerate Inuit customs. She felt she could not refuse or fail such tests: When they killed the whale outside my house, Kay said, “Here, you want some?” because she was eating some [raw meat] right there on the shore and I was confident enough to say, “No thanks.” Whereas last year I probably would have thought, “Oh my God, this is a test for the white girl.” And I would have had some when I didn’t really want it.

Whether there was testing or the true nature of the test, Nell named it as such in our conversation. Her desire to be accepted, to be seen as different from less involved, less aware white teachers obviously placed tremendous pressure on her. Robin found the lack of differentiation from other white teachers was particularly painful. She pointed to official discourses in the community: “We’re actually not considered a part of the community—the white people. In all official LEA [Local Education Authority] documents we’re defined as transients: the hospital staff, the teaching staff, some of the workers at the Northern Store.” Robin did not see herself nor want to be seen as transient. Although she was told by her colleagues that white women rarely stay, and realized that for all intents and purposes that the white population was transient, she expected to be viewed outside of this identity.

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An incident that Robin would find particularly troubling involved a meeting organized by school authorities to deal with school violence. During this meeting non–aboriginal teachers were asked to leave. This caused agitation among everyone and eventually the teachers were invited back in. She described the event: They have been trying to get this behavior code for years but no one from the community will ever show up to meetings. The teachers feel like they’re working on a battleground. We need that document. And the first thing to come out of the superintendent’s mouth is that teachers should not have any part at all—sorry, white teachers—should not have any part at all helping in drawing up this document. It was a slap in the face. And he prefaced that by saying these teachers are transients. He reiterated that. “Teachers are not part of the community. They will not stay; they will be gone, and we will be left.” Which I can sort of understand and I agree that it has to come from the community but we’re going to be the ones to enforce the rules, plus a lot of parents don’t know what’s going on in the school.

At this point Robin saw no space to define herself in the community, outside of the transient teacher identity. Although white teachers were permitted back into the meeting, the incident remained for Robin, a “slap in the face.” The nature of the insult is more apparent when Robin speaks about another incident involving a primary school teacher: There was a primary teacher here last year who at one point referred to her students as “my kids”: “Oh my kids are doing this.” I do [say] that. Jane does that. We all do that. And a parent overheard it and freaked out. It was a very big thing. And that teacher was sat down and there were meetings. The community was really upset when they found out because they are not your kids and don’t you ever think they are your kids.

Robin’s desire to be seen in this instance as the mother–teacher neglects the history and racial construction of the white mother–teacher and her contemporary and historical relationship with aboriginal students and their communities. This local incident plays out the actual power struggle between the white mother–teacher and the aboriginal mother-teacher occurring on a larger scale as First Nation peoples seek greater control over the education of their children. In the history of aboriginal education it has been the white teachers and administrators who, as agents of the federal government, have been central in making educational decisions for and about aboriginal children.

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It is a difficult position to relinquish. Lady Bountiful and the white woman traveler are seductive subject positions. It is difficult to resist the desire to be central in someone’s life, to be given the illusion of transcending one’s social and historical location and one’s own privilege to “know” and “help,” and to think of oneself as indispensable to others. It is predictable, considering the white teacher–mother positioning, that Robin felt guilty in leaving the community: I know it’s going to be really, really hard to leave this place. There’s a lot of guilt associated with leaving here. I can never promise my students that I’m going to be here for them. I could never promise that I’d be here next year. Some ask for this. Some want to but are too afraid because they don’t get it. A lot of the hatred they feel for us is because we do go.

The echoes of the white missionary teacher, as Lady Bountiful, are evident in another first-year teacher interviewed during the study. She commented, I think they [the Cree community] could use some help with environmental issues around here. That’s the other part of me—the environmental geographer that’s saying, “What can I do to help these people?” but then I don’t want to feel like the white person coming in and saving them. [emphasis added]

During her second year in the study I was able to share with Nell some of my preliminary writing about the subject position of Lady Bountiful. Nell commented how caught up she was in this position of the white lady teacher and indicated her inability (or refusal) to imagine other possibilities: Reading that article [about Lady Bountiful] I saw myself in it all over the place and that’s problematic, but in the same token we have to do it, because who else is? If we don’t provide what we think is the best as teachers from our own framework, if we don’t do that then I feel like I haven’t done my job. So I don’t know how you teach in the North as a white woman and not be Lady Bountiful. I don’t know the answer to that.

Janey Canuck: The Transient Teacher As mentioned previously the transient nature of the white teacher population is played out in discursive and material ways in the experiences of Nell and Robin. This transience suggests the bad mother Lady

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Bountiful abandoning her children/charges. It also resonates in less guilty ways with the white lady traveler who seeks the adventure and direct experience of the exotic other. One of the white women interviewed for the study made more specific comments that were suggestive of Jane Canuck. Her advice to prospective teachers began by emphasizing learning and staying positive: “If you’re the kind of person who is looking for a challenge, [someone] eager and hungry to learn yourself, and [who] knows that you don’t know it all, then this is a great place to be. It’s a great place to be.” This emphasized the notion that the other holds special information that can (should) be dispensed to whites who lack this knowledge and experience. She then described the opportunities the North offers to “independent” women: I could see that if you were a woman who was used to living by yourself, an independent person who wasn’t in a relationship . . . coming up here could be such a liberating thing. . . .[If] you just wanted to pour yourself into your work and throw yourself into experiencing new things, this is the one place you could do it. There are so many different opportunities for a single person, a single woman especially, to learn about life . . . making snowshoes, tanning hides, making moccasins, snaring, hunting and fishing—living off the land.

The notion of the single, independent woman learning to hunt and fish and so forth is dependent on constructing the North as different and exotic from life in the south—a place to learn and experience new things. It assumes aboriginal culture exists as a romanticized version of the past. It is a subject position that cannot be easily adopted if the community and its culture are viewed as dynamic and contemporary. Thus, the community’s contemporary practices and modern conveniences and, indeed for white teachers from the south, any similarities to one’s own culture and community, need to be suppressed if only momentarily in order to secure the position of Janey Canuck. Furthermore, although the desire to learn just for the sake of learning that this woman spoke of may well be admirable, the intent, mentioned by at least one teacher, may be more specific and connected back to the image of the white lady traveler returning home to inform others, presumably white people, as one second year teacher enthusiastically commented: It will make me a better teacher. . . . I can’t wait until I’m a teacher [back] in Ontario and I get to do a big unit on Native people. I can show them bones, and slides, and my Native earrings. If I had a grade six class I could show them all of this. So you are walking away with a great teachable subject.

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This image of Janey Canuck or the white lady traveler is a celebration of being transient in the North, of collecting experiences to share later. The nature of being a teacher is such that one is always looking for interesting ideas, artifacts, and experiences to share with students. The concern is that by framing one’s experience using the position of Janey Canuck, the teacher is produced as researcher and/or as tourist, and the First Nations student and community as artifact or resource. At the point at which the students and their communities cease to offer a unique resource, the adventure ends and Lady Jane moves on. While this may or may not be the actual experience of all white women teachers, the positioning of the white woman teacher as Janey Canuck or as Lady Bountiful may serve to organize the material and discursive practices of white women teachers and their students. For Robin, Nell, and the other white and First Nations teachers and, most importantly, for aboriginal children and their communities, there need to be other more progressive teacher identities available. As long as white women from the south continue to teach in First Nations communities, a new relationship between white women teachers and their students will need to be forged. This begins with making visible the history and politics of the North, problematizing white identity, as well as the other discursive constructions that have affected and continue to affect the social, political, and psychological terrain of the North and of Canada more generally.

Teacher Education I have learned to take risks. As a non–Native person focusing on First Nations education, I have come to accept myself and the work I do as part of what has become my culture—a culture of the border. . . . I have found justification for my work in terms of efforts to work by the side of the oppressed to combat racism. . . . This border world has become my home. —Celia Haig-Brown, “Border Work”

What is the education that white women teachers need in order to do border work successfully—to find a home in the border world, as Celia Haig–Brown describes? What is the answer to Nell when she says, “I don’t know how you teach in the North as a white woman and not be Lady Bountiful. I don’t know the answer to that”? How is it possible to rearticulate white female teacher identity? A faculty of education might be a site to develop and rearticulate teacher identity.

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In the case of white women, this rearticulation may be possible if teacher education programs include opportunities for engagement with 1) critical antiracist education; 2) the history and discursive construction of racial identities including the white identity; 3) postmodern notions of identity, displacement, and home; and 4) the rethinking of Lady Bountiful and the white lady traveler in the texts of the lives of teachers and students. In general, faculties of education will need a more overtly political teacher education program. To offer such a program without turning my colleagues and myself into Lady Bountifuls is another struggle, but the need is pressing. As the racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity in all our schools increases—as “the big snow melts”—and our schools become less white and more multiracial, the need for better teacher education programs becomes all the more critical. Without it, white women teachers may continue to become Lady Bountifuls and white lady travelers—at best, conflicted; at worst, blindly reinscribing colonial purposes and aims in both northern and southern Canadian classrooms.

Notes 1. Robin and Nell are pseudonyms, as are all the names given research subjects in this chapter. 2. For a complete report on the results of the initial study that informs much of this chapter see H. Harper (2000b). For a more detailed discussion of Robin’s experiences see Harper (2000a). 3. The term “First Nations” refers to all aboriginal including Inuit (Eskimo) groups in Canada. “Aboriginal” is used somewhat synonymously in this chapter. In this I am following the example set in the documents produced by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996). The aboriginal woman teacher interviewed in this study referred to herself as “Native,” a term that continues to appear along with “Indian” and “Eskimo” in some contexts despite the pejorative associations these terms carry. 4. Nunavut is a recently established territory in northeastern and central Canada. It had been a part of the Northwest Territories. The population of Nunavut consists primarily of Inuit peoples. 5. Martha is the only aboriginal woman interviewed for the initial study. The original intent was to interview white woman only. It became clear to me that the experiences of both nonaboriginal and aboriginal women are key in understanding how racial identities, white and otherwise, are organized. More interviews with First Nations women teachers are thus suggested for such research.

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References Alessio, D. D. 1997. Domesticating “the heart of the wild”: Female personification of the colonies, 1886–1940. Women’s History Review 6 (2): 239–269. Ashworth, M. 1993. Children of the Canadian mosaic: A brief history to 1950. Toronto: OISE Press. Bassett, I. 1975. Introduction to Janey Canuck in the West, by Emily Murphy. Toronto: McClelland and Steward Ltd. Battiste, M., and J. Barman. 1995. First nations education in Canada: The circle unfolds. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Bird, I. 1879. A lady’s life in the Rocky Mountains. London: John Murray. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex.’ New York: Routledge. Cameron, A. D. 1986 [1909]. The new north: An account of a woman’s 1908 journey through Canada to the Arctic. Saskatoon, Sask.: Western Producer Prairie Books. Carter, S. 1997. Capturing women: The manipulation of cultural imagery in Canada’s prairie west. Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press. Chaudhuri, N., and M. Strobel. 1992. Western women and imperialism: Complicity and resistance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Dei, G. 1994. Anti-racist education: Working across difference. Orbit 25 (2): 1–3. ———. 1995. Integrative anti-racism: Intersection of race, class, and gender. Race, Gender and Class 2 (3): 11–30. Dyer, R. 1988. White. Screen 29 (4): 44–64. Fine, M., L. Weis, L. Powell, and L. M. Wong, eds. 1997. Off white: Readings on race, power, and society. New York: Routledge. Ford–Smith, H. 1992. Remaking white ladies: The construction of gendered whiteness in the Caribbean. Paper presented at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto. Giroux, H. 1992. Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. London: Routledge. Godsell, J. W. 1959. I was no lady: I followed the call of the wild. Toronto: Ryerson. Griffis, E. M. 1960. The lady of the bay. The Beaver (winter): 46-50. Haig–Brown, C. 1996. Border work. In Native writers, Canadian writing, Canadian literature, ed. W. H. White. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Harper, H. 1997. Difference and diversity in Ontario schooling. Canadian Journal of Education 22 (2): 192–206. ———. 2000a. White women teaching in the North: Problematic identity on the shores of Hudson Bay. In Dismantling white privilege: Pedagogy, poli-

288 Helen Harper tics, and whiteness, ed. N. M. Rodriguez and L. E. Villaverde. New York: Peter Lang. ———. 2000b. “There is no way to prepare for this”: Teaching in First Nations schools in Northern Ontario—issues and concerns. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 24 (2), 144–157. Harper, H., and S. Cavanagh. 1994. Lady bountiful: The white woman teacher in multicultural education. Women’s Education 11 (2): 27–33. Hinds, M. 1958. School house in the Arctic. London: Geoffrey Bles. ———. 1968. High venture. Toronto: Ryerson Press. Macpherson, N. 1991. Dreams and visions: Education in the Northwest Territories from early days to 1984. Yellowknife: Northwest Territories Government. Milloy, J. S. 1999. A national crime: The Canadian government and the residential school system: 1879–1986. Winnipeg: The University of Manitoba Press. Murphy, E. 1901. Janey Canuck abroad. Toronto: McClelland and Steward Ltd. ———. 1910. Janey Canuck in the West. Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons. Prentice, A. 1991. From household to school house: The emergence of the teacher as servant of the state. In Gender and education in Ontario: An historical reader, ed. R. Heap and A. Prentice. Toronto: Scholars’ Press. Roman, L. 1997. Denying (white) privilege: Redemption discourses and the uses of fantasy. In Off white: Readings on race, power and society, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, C. Powell, and L. M. Wong. New York: Routledge. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. 1996. Ottawa: Government of Canada, Canada Communications Group. Schick, C. 2000. “By virtue of being white”: Resistance in anti-racist pedagogy. Race, Ethnicity and Education 3 (1): 83–102. Simon, R. 1992. Teaching against the grain: Texts for a pedagogy of possibility. Toronto: OISE Press. Sleeter, C. 1993. How white teachers construct race. In Race, identity and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. New York: Routledge. Ware, V. 1992. Beyond the pale: White women, racism and history. London: Verso.

11 Developing Feminist Pedagogical Practices to Complicate Whiteness and Work with Defensiveness Jessica Ringrose

I’m trying to learn how to live, to have the speaking-to extend beyond the moment’s word, to act so as to change the unjust circumstances that keep us from being able to speak to each other; I’m trying to get a little closer to the longed-for but un-realized world, where we each are able to live, but not by trying to make someone less than us, not by someone else’s blood or pain: yes, that’s what I’m trying to do with my living now. —Minnie Bruce Pratt, “Identity: Skin Blood Heart”

Introduction My chapter begins by revisiting the limitations of some aspects of dominant second-wave feminism. This is a discourse that offers little reflexivity regarding the multiplicity of women’s differing experience, specifically how gendered subjectivity is articulated with other sites of privilege/oppression. I discuss, in brief, how the conceptual foundations of radical feminist theory and knowledge were institutionally entrenched within Canadian women’s studies university programs. I consider how the theoretical blind spots of this type of feminist thought might continue to inform current feminist discourses of pedagogical empowerment and “consciousness raising” in women’s studies. Drawing on poststructural and psychoanalytic feminist critiques, I suggest that some feminist narratives of liberation neglect theoretically complex notions of subjectivity, and that some pedagogues orient their teaching around reductionist epistemologies of experience. Even more troubling is the consistent feminist pedagogical failure to theorize the complexity of teachers’ and students’ desires, and the processes of resistance and conflict that inevitably characterize the 289

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learning of difficult knowledges of oppression and inequity when learning involves self-implication. At this juncture, I am privy to overlapping vantage points for engaging with the particular politics of feminism, antiracism, and the continual conflicts that characterize the development of a critical awareness of whiteness in feminist classrooms. I am a graduate student in sociology who experiences the relative power and authority of a pedagogue, “the subject supposed to know,” but what I am deeply motivated by are the poignant memories of my undergraduate experiences as a student in women’s studies (Felman 1987). These memories fuel my narrative as I seek to illustrate through reference to personal anecdotes and excerpts from interviews with several members of my undergraduate classes,1 the heated dynamics that have unfolded in some of the courses that I have participated in. Through the use of autobiography and memories I ponder the belated time of learning—the ongoing emotive struggle to address those crises and conflicts in knowledge that hold portent for thinking beyond our settled and comfortable selfknowledge (Britzman 1998). Through my attempt to deconstruct a traumatic feminist engagement with race and racism, I point to how inadequate understandings of the discursive, socially and psychically mediated nature of experience in the women’s studies classroom have created counterproductive notions about which subjects can legitimately speak to issues of racism. I worry about the new gaps, silences, guilt, and hierarchy that can plague those pedagogical moments that involve more shame than productive currents of tension and rupture. I argue for the development of self-reflexive pedagogical methods that encourage every member of the classroom to engage with a poststructural—discursive, historicized, and relational—analysis of race, and whiteness in particular. When adopted pedagogically, this analysis assists in exposing power differentials in both the classroom and the outside world by helping students to identify their shifting and contradictory (dis)locations in the hierarchical web of social relations. I temper my enthusiasm for a poststructural approach, however, by considering some limitations to theorizing identity as discursively informed, and argue that the psychoanalytic attention to identification and the intersubjective dynamic of the classroom open further doors for thinking about the possibilities of understanding how students learn. I wonder whether particular pedagogical practices that encourage insights into internal desires may help interrupt the racial scripts encoded within each of our psyches, and make room for reinterpretation. I ask whether personalized, self-implicated knowledge of white racism makes it any

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more difficult for the racially privileged to fall back on epistemologies couched in distorted webs of white social entitlement.

A History of Exclusion I who am bounded by my mirror as well as my bed see causes in colour as well as sex and sit here wondering which me will survive all these liberations. —Audre Lorde, “Who Said It Was Simple”

What is broadly understood as the second wave feminist movement, and the subsequent institutionalization of Western feminism in the form of women’s studies, have been characterized by Eurocentric, neocolonial world views and attendant racisms (Carby 1982). Early American, British, and Canadian critics sought to document how, far from constituting a liberatory movement as its adherents claimed, white, EuroAmerican, middle-class feminism was reentrenching race and class dominance, and spoke for a select elite group in the name of all women.2 In response to this exclusion, women of color have long implored Western feminists to recognize feminist implication in Western epistemologies of modernity, civilization, and progress, and the colonial heritage that informed white feminism (Amos and Parmar 1984). During the first wave of North American feminism this critique of exclusivity was epitomized by Sojourner Truth’s powerfully rhetorical question, “Ain’t I a woman?”3 This was a demand for recognition that women of color would be forced to reiterate again and again during the second wave, evidenced by bell hooks’ (1981) book of this same title. Hooks argued that a primary flaw in the women’s movement was the failure of organizers to acknowledge the conflict and difference that existed between black and white women; as she put it, “[I]n a capitalist, racist, imperialist state there is no one social status women share as a collective group” (136). Well-known debates have taken up the the epistemic exclusion that is incorporated within the very conceptual categories of radical feminist thought (De Lauretis 1986, 15). Universalizing and ahistorical theories of gender oppression and patriarchy typical of second-wave theories deny specificity and the material contexts of most women’s lives (Bannerji 1995). Generalized notions like “women’s oppression,” for example, can discursively construct exclusion by homogenizing all women into a fictitious unitary category (Mohanty 1990). Chronic

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conceptual erasures were ridiculed in the title of another early text challenging the dominant feminism of the second wave All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some of Us are Brave (Hull, Scott, and Smith 1982). Not surprisingly, many of the limitations in theorizing race common to dominant feminist discourse and particular theoretical convictions about identity have become structurally entrenched and canonized in women’s studies.4 In Canada, institutionalized racial and cultural exclusion is articulated by Esmeralda Thornhill (1983) in the first issue of the Canadian literary journal Fireweed where she addresses issues of racism in either the women’s movement or in feminist teaching. Thornhill spoke of how “our present Women’s Studies programmes and teaching related to women clearly exclude—especially in their philosophical underpinnings—women of color” (1983, 78). In the United States, Barbara Smith described in the early eighties how feminism’s theoretical elisions had a “predictably disastrous effect on the newly emerging field, since women’s studies courses . . . focused almost exclusively upon the lives of white women” (Hull, Scott, and Smith 1982, 20). Although both external and internal critiques of homogenizing feminist discourses have flourished, practical and theoretical difficulties persist, and feminist pedagogues continue to write and talk about the “omissions and silences” that plague women’s studies (Maynard, 1996). Himani Bannerji (1995) has argued that Canadian women’s studies has failed to meet the challenge of inclusiveness posed by women of color, citing nonwhite women as the “other” added on to courses designed for white women. Another Canadian feminist theorist, Lorna Weir, has discussed how feminist pedagogues are often theoretically ill equipped to address issues of racism, stating that “anti-racist critiques have been acknowledged . . . though not always deeply understood by many white feminists who are teachers of feminist courses” (1991, 19). Similarly, Linda Carty has made reference to a “theoretical vacuum” in Canadian women’s studies programs, which she claims operate under the reductive notion that “the dynamics of power which fuel gender inequality are only discernible when other power relations, specifically those of race, class and culture, are least visible if not invisible” (1991, 12).5 This theoretical void surrounding how to best address issues of difference in the feminist classroom is broached more generally by Alice Pitt in an analysis of how women’s studies students relate to the topic of lesbianism in her courses. She suggests that the failure of feminist pedagogy to attend to differences and power hierarchies between women stems from its roots in radical feminism. Pitt argues that radical feminism fosters a “minoritizing” view of identity and social difference

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where “identity originates in the self [and] . . . [t]he categories of race, class, sex, and even gender are understood as relevant only to those individuals whose identities are socially marked by them; they are not understood as part and parcel of the complex social relations that constitute all identities” (1997, 131; emphasis added). According to Pitt, radical feminism is locked into a binary, oppositional conception of identity. Feminist theorists sensitive to the complex power inequities that divide women have critiqued the man/woman dichotomy central to white second-wave feminism as universalizing, essentializing, dualistic, ahistorical, and heterosexist (Gordon, 1999). Himani Bannerji’s comments are representative of these critiques of a feminism wherein “all other social relations and contradictions . . . are subsumed in the primary antagonism expressed in male-female gender relations. Man and woman face each other in opposition—their subjectivities in ‘essential’ otherness and confrontation. This antagonistic otherness originates outside of history and social organization . . . [and] assum[es] a global sameness for all women, trans-historically and socially, as well as transpersonally” (1995, 79). In many brands of modernist feminism, identity groupings are taken as self-evident and oppressive categories that determine the individual. Moreover, identity is not understood as socially constructed but rather essentialized into rigidly defined, often mutually exclusive categories. Radical feminism, for example, is incapable of breaking down unified notions of the subject, and rallies around a privileged site of naturalized, feminine identity. Pedagogues who adopt modernist feminist approaches often have even greater difficulty addressing racialized difference than sexualized difference, because these theories do not make clear every student’s relationship to dominant, oppressive discourses of racialization. Instead, this feminism has typically focused on the negative effects assumed to be experienced by the racialized subject without tracing these effects back to their epistemic origins and the historical construction of the white, normalized, and idealized self in relation to an inferiorized other (Stoler 1995). Missing, then, is an awareness of how every individual is constructed through a naturalized field of categorization in what Foucault has called our “normalizing society,” which situates everyone in relation to idealized, although always amorphous, norms (1980, 144). In her analysis of feminism’s engagement with difference, Pitt (1997, 130) seeks to avoid what she calls “the facile mapping of identity onto larger sociocultural dynamics” typical of “sociological interpretation” through an exclusive conceptual turn to psychoanalysis. I, however, do not wish to abandon sociological understandings

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of the relational nature of social discourses as these inform identity and relationship, but seek to enrich this analysis through reference to psychoanalytic interpretations of what may motivate defensiveness in the classroom.6 A poststructural framework informed by Foucauldian theory illustrates how social discourses that have gained cultural dominance pervade the social space and constitute identity through processes of normalization. An exclusive attention to discursive impositions of culture upon identity, however, eludes an analysis of how race and gender are experienced through the relational, intersubjective and temporal dynamics of sociality, which supersede the confines of the fixed and categorized. Unconscious desire, and potential misrecognition of the symbolic and of language, highlights the imaginative complexity of identification in the forging of relationships both within and outside the classroom (Rose, 1987). A psychoanalytic problematization of the “imperative” formalization encourages a recognition of how society does indeed “bear down upon” subjects and learners, yet suggests also that internal “interference” mediates subjectivity (Britzman 1998, 5). Psychoanalysis can enlarge the poststructural tracing of the effects of social/cultural discourses, by questioning why subjects take up discourses or refuse them in particular ways. In this sense psychoanalysis is a necessary corrective to the totalising Foucauldian insistence on the discursive constitution of subjectivity and relative neglect of intersubjectivity (Butler 1996, Chodorow, 1999). I seek to theorize some of the social and physical processes that inform my pedagogical stories. Before I flesh out this theoretical frame further, however, I need to return to an examination of traditional feminist pedagogical models that have dominated women’s studies.

The Feminist Pedagogue as Liberator? The fear of exposing any shortcomings within the development of feminist pedagogy should not impede the progress which can arise from a better understanding of the ruptures and gaps in liberating discourses. —Kelly Coate Bignell, “Building Feminist Praxis Out of Feminist Pedagogy”

In a conscious attempt to reduce power imbalances and oppressive hierarchies within the classroom, women’s studies programs have traditionally adopted many of the principles and practices of critical pedagogy (Luke and Gore 1992). These borrowed teaching strategies, which have

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been self identified as “liberatory,” include collective grading schemes; the introduction of the lecturer as facilitator or catalyst; extracurricular attempts to build feminist community; and the almost universal use of the “‘talking circle’—the long cherished form of the democratic classroom” (Orner 1992, 83). Women’s studies is also commonly understood as providing a forum for “women to speak, to find their own voices and to hear those of other women” (Klein 1987, 187). As poststructural theorists have began to illustrate, however, critical pedagogy is conceptually problematic because it relies on a modernist model of identity formation and subjectivity (Lather 1991).7 In women’s studies classrooms that center on radical feminism, the unified subject has typically been defined primarily through her essentialized gender/sexual oppression as a woman, a definition which fails to account for how the subject is “increasingly fragmented [and] multiplied” and socially constructed through many more axes of identity, that is, every woman is raced (Luke 1992, 46). Part of the reason critical pedagogy is so appealing to radical feminist pedagogues, in particular, is that each discourse is rooted in the same modernist tenets that conflate knowledge and consciousness raising with liberation, but do not attend to the learning process and intersubjective negotiation of knowledge—the internal life of unconscious desire and wish fulfillment—that mediates the relationship between what we know and what we can or choose to do. Mimi Orner contends that within “liberatory” educational discourses “little or no attention is given to the multiple social positions, multiple voices, conscious and unconscious pleasures, tensions, desires, and contradictions which are present in all subjects, in all historical contexts” (1992, 79). The feminist imperative of consciousness raising reproduces the dubious Marxist notion that knowledge and critique will inevitably lead to liberation (Delanty 1997, 67). What seems, therefore, to be lacking from many feminist discourses of pedagogical empowerment are the following questions: What is the relationship between knowledge of oppression and the desire to change? How do unconscious processes mediate our relationship to feminist knowledge? How do students relate to feminist or antiracist discourses when they are presented as imperatives for learning how to liberate oneself and others? How is the impossibility of this rule-orientated mode of empowerment experienced by students? Can the normative tenets of antioppressive discourses be experienced as disciplinary and shameful? In what follows, I present a subjective account of how emancipatory discourses of radical feminism and interpretations of racism within this model have actually been experienced, or “reconstructed” through my memories (Pitt 2001) and those of a few other students in several undergraduate women’s studies classes. Important insights into

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complex temporal and emotional aspects of learning are highlighted, and questions about how we might ethically engage with crisis in the classroom are raised. When, for example, does conflict hold the potential to disrupt comfortable and limiting knowledge? What are the consequences of classroom politics that digress into shaming practices and defensive positions? How does the notion that knowledge is taken up in unexpected and unpredictable ways transform our capacity to make predictive, developmental strategies for teaching (Britzman 1998)?

The Classroom In 1995, I participated in a course on second-wave feminism. One pedagogical method employed in this course was to organize students into mock consciousness raising groups. We were to pretend that we were back in the 1970s and had formed consciousness raising groups through our friendships with other women.8 In each class we sat in our particular group and discussed our responses to second-wave texts and our personal experiences of gender oppression. We critically engaged with issues of race on many occasions; for instance, the elision of black women in the mutually exclusive categories of women and blacks was repeatedly taken up. The analytic frame of radical feminism and consciousness raising continued, however, to reinscribe the dualism and oppositionality of categorical notions of identity. The logical progression was a privileging of our sameness as women over a feminist commitment to antiracism. An antiessentialist analytic framing that might have allowed us to understand our multiple and contradictory identities was never introduced; moreover, the idea that white women were also raced was never quite clear. Thus women of color had the burden of negotiating race and gender and white women were voyeurs into this process—allies9 at best disengaged at worst, with no avenue for fully participating in antiracist politics themselves. It is surely not surprising that we found dealing with our differences in race, class, and sexuality exceedingly difficult. The type of racist practices that resulted from our classroom experiences of consciousness raising are illustrated in the following scenario recounted to me through an informal interview with a woman of color in the class. Lisa10 remembers a classroom situation where gender was privileged over race and competing concerns and experiences were silenced: During one discussion we talked about a woman feeling fear as she walked alone at night. When a woman of color suggested that she might be feeling fear because of the color of her skin, she was met with resistance

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from some of the white women. They insisted her fear would be based on her sex, not her color.

It seems obvious that assuming consciousness raising around gender oppression is liberatory is both naive and dangerous. Some white women in this context were acting out an unacknowledged epistemic authority,11 which led to the further marginalization of the women of color in the class. Those white women struggling themselves with antiracist analysis were likely left feeling guilty about and ashamed of their peer’s racism. A renewed critique of the assumption that consciousness raising is self-evidently empowering ought to be clearly grounded in the politics of the women’s studies classroom to extend Ellsworth’s important challenge to the liberatory myths that surround the discourses of critical pedagogy (Ellsworth 1989). The nagging questions, not apparent to me at the time of my classroom engagements but increasingly clear through continual reinterpretations of these memories are: For whom were we raising consciousness? Is something as intangible as liberation a tenable or responsible goal for feminist pedagogy?

Pedagogical Defensiveness Casting back to the time and dynamic of the course, I recognize how unprepared I was to articulate an informed antiracist critique (I was also in the anxious position of a student being graded).12 I did sense, however, that the course relied on pedagogical methods that promoted commonality at the expense of recognizing difference. It seemed these teaching practices were partially informed by the exclusionary course curriculum, since each text we examined was written by a white second-wave feminist with the exception of a few short pieces from Morgan’s Sisterhood is Powerful (1970).13 In a course paper at the end of the term I finally questioned this curriculum and “the existence of a course dedicated to reviewing the racist and classist feminist literature of the seventies, which contains no theoretical response or critique from women of colour”—an arrogant rather than heroic challenge from an undergraduate, which would likely solicit defensiveness. The instructor’s response is interesting for what it reveals of the politics of the course: “I’m presuming you get that in other Women’s Studies courses and can make the links. . . . Is this a mistake?”14 This comment typifies the type of addon approach to issues of race that is endemic to radical feminism, where racism is seen as a minority concern and slotted into separate classes or discrete sections of courses, rather than a fundamental feminist issue.

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When I argued further that “many of the texts published in the eighties speak extensively to women of colour’s experiences in the seventies, and are thus valuable tools for articulating the inadequacies of much early white, Western feminism,” the Professor replied, “Do you think I should add some texts [by women of color] . . . ? How many texts can I ask students to buy and read?”15 This response is analogous to the unwillingness of male scholars to integrate the work of women into the male canon, although the dynamic has changed to feminist curricular exclusion of scholarship either produced by women of color or dealing with issues of racism. Rather than using the literature of the second wave alongside texts that offer an important internal critique of racist practices, this curriculum reaffirmed exclusion. In this same course paper I discussed the larger issue of racist practices in our women’s studies department. My conclusions pointed to the need “as white women [to] learn to examine our own lives and accept our responsibility in the perpetuation of racism within our feminisms,” a plea met with, “Yes, absolutely, but . . . I fear an excessive introspection here.” At one point in this piece, I also questioned a white faculty member’s use of the word “ghetto,” during a departmental meeting, to describe our predominantly white middle-class women’s studies department. I argued, with naïve dogmatism, that “ghetto” should not be metaphorically transposed in such a desensitized fashion as this occludes the substantive contemporary meaning of the term to describe poor, racialized neighborhoods. Later in a class when the papers were returned, I was labeled anti-Semitic by the instructor in a reactive show of pedagogical dominance. Discussing my paper with the entire class, she claimed that my ignorance of “ghetto” as historically Jewish had led me to erase the history of another oppressed group, and that I had subsequently denied her oppression as a Jew. Before I flesh out the myriad issues at play in this example of classroom politics, I would like to clarify my agenda, and what might seem like personal anecdotes that seek to shame the instructor as I was shamed by her. My purpose is not solely to condemn or lay misogynist blame entirely with the feminist pedagogue, although I am cognizant of my deep ongoing desire to theorize beyond the inadequacies of some feminist approaches to teaching about race. It is this same desire to think through, nourished continually by the deep emotional crisis I experienced in this situation, that makes my narrative so relevant to pedagogical theory. The shame and humiliation I experienced in response to these events has fuelled an entire course of study and reflection. According to Britzman, memory is a “dynamic that organizes and produces desire, ignorance forgetting, and investments . . . a potential

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space that modulates and elaborates the strange relations between affect and idea.” Moreover, she insists that such a “view of memory should become central to educational efforts” (1998, 103). If nothing else, my story provides dramatic evidence of the incredible impact learning dynamics may have on students not only at the moment of pedagogical relations, but afterwards, in entirely unpredictable ways. I continue to translate, refigure, and learn from the trauma that marks my memories of this event. I want to use this personal narrative as a springboard for questioning how it is that we continue to establish silences and impose new binaries between authentic/inauthentic knowers in the classroom, since I believe we need to strive to get beyond classroom politics that are unconsciously mired in power hierarchies based on essentialist identity/knowledge claims. My goal is to remind those of us who participate in women’s studies of the perpetual crisis and disempowerment that may be the experience of learning about antiracism (and other isms) in feminist environments if we do not pay close attention to the implications of our pedagogy. I hope that we can be more cognizant of the ethical limits on how we respond to emotive tensions that will emerge in classroom engagements with race, although we will never be able to master or predict the play of emotion in the dynamics of teaching and learning. It is also important to state that this type of pedagogical silencing, although of an extreme variety, is not an isolated example. I continue to experience similar stalemates in graduate classes, where attempts to think through and discuss issues of racism and whiteness break down due to disdain and anger expressed by both students and pedagogues. This seems to stem partially from how some individuals continue to resist understanding racism as a white issue. Indeed, this reductive logic of identity politics was conveyed to racially and culturally privileged students about their role in antioppression struggles in the events described above. After class, white students described the fear they now felt to even broach issues of race or religion in the future. How were they, as “privileged” subjects, to engage in antiracist dialogue? The complexities and ambiguity of interethnic, religious and racialized conflict—the instability of “whiteness” as privileged signifier—could have been fruitfully engaged, since the instructor was white, but also Jewish. The genealogy of Jewish persecution can serve as an important entry point for complicating whiteness and troubling the historical amnesia that invokes simple binaries between white and black. Instead of using this opportunity to explore the nuances of what we call “whiteness,” a renewed binary between

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oppressed and oppressor was enacted through an abstract and conceptual hierarchy of experience. Not only pulling pedagogical rank, but also claiming epistemic authority as an “authentic insider,” the instructor invoked her identity as a member of a historically racialized group (Hladki 1995), a position that stems from the essentialist radical feminist theory I have critiqued. This claim to epistemic legitimacy is a complex instance that reduces the relationship between social ontology and epistemology. What I want to draw attention to, however, is the painful emotions that mark the time of teaching about racism and the way that this crisis can lead into defensive practices that create a level of tension that may transcend ethical boundaries. Tension, ambiguity, discomfort, and silence will often accompany issues of race and racism in the classroom, and the above example is only unusual for the unveiled hostility it conveyed in the form of a straightforward counterattack—what we might call naked hatred—on the part of the pedagogue. Is it possible for teachers and students to “hate ethically,” and what would this entail? Can we acknowledge hate objectively, rather than deny and perpetuate aggression through defensive pedagogical relations?16 Surely we want to work hard to avoid situations where students feel ignorant or beyond our capacity to teach, although we will not always be successful. If suspicion, anxiety, frustration, and disappointment are all expected reactions when we are dealing with such difficult knowledge and competing interests (although these cannot be assumed), how do we live with the inevitable trauma that marks the disruption of taken-for-granted knowledge? What difference do our theoretical models make? The defensive dynamic that characterized this situation was fostered through the theoretical weakness of a radical feminist approach. Unable to adequately understand or address issues of systemic racism within our department, and, it seems, unwilling to reflect on her own anger, hate, and pedagogical authority, the instructor focused solely on the errors of my analysis. Scapegoating student failings cannot prove an effective strategy for pedagogues. Ideally, a teacher’s role has been earmarked as one who assists students in working through ignorance and incorrect or oppressive perspectives, not imposes new silences. But teachers cannot naively assume that we will escape the inevitable anger, resentment, and defenses that result from the oppressive knowledge that students might hold. What we can be sure of is that the consequences of our own pedagogical defensiveness will have lasting and largely unknowable effects in the continuous and discontinuous time of learning (Britzman and Pitt 1996). Perhaps another knowable outcome can be banked on: students will likely hold defensiveness and resistance

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to antiracist feminist knowledge, especially when we urge self-implication as essential to learning (Pitt 1998).

Student Defensiveness Leslie Roman (1993) has written persuasively about the various types of white defensiveness adopted by students when they are confronted with the negative implications of how whiteness has developed historically as a discourse of privilege. Students experience the exposure of misinformation and “ignorance” as potentially shameful. All learning can be painful and even intolerable, since it requires that we unlearn past convictions, which may be experienced as an attack on our ego and the attachments we hold to various knowledge (Britzman 1998). Can self-reflexive learning contexts be created that help students tolerate the acute discomfort that will mark the subjective experience of “getting it wrong?” As I have suggested, student defensiveness, guilt, and shame are the logical outcomes of defensive pedagogy and classroom politics which leave white students with scant epistemic ground from which to speak about or understand racism. The consequence of this defensiveness may be the inhibition of any desire to learn beyond the conflicts of the classroom, and may actually encourage white indifference and apathy— blockages and resistances to understanding or taking responsibility for racism. Notice, for example, the apathy evident in the following excerpt from an interview with another student in my class, this time a white woman: “A lot of the time in class, I felt like I couldn’t talk about the Third World, racism, class, or sexuality. . . . As a white, heterosexual, middle-class woman, I had too few poker chips to speak to these issues.” Far from empowering her to address issues of racial oppression, Penny’s involvement in women’s studies classes has left her feeling illegitimate in the moral economy of oppression. She sees herself as unable to contribute to class discussions of racism because she doesn’t have the experiential identity currency (poker chips) to claim knowledge. The dangerous result is that she, and others like her, are actually exempted from accountability around issues of racism. Louise Morely describes a similar classroom situation where her students “‘weight’ oppressions and the socially prescribed competition between women is recycled into political discourses as to who is ‘more oppressed’ than the other; thus, some identities become more politically desirable or defective than others” (1992, 520). Indeed, the struggle to displace the various differences that mark us as unequal, in terms of the dominant culture’s class, race, and sexual hierarchies, can succeed in

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creating what Ng has referred to as “new forms of orthodoxy”—hierarchies that reenact the paradigm of “power over,” albeit in new formations (1995, 131, 148). It seems possible that if feminist pedagogues do not take seriously the effects of white guilt and defensiveness, of emotional conflict in the anti-racist classroom, they may be in danger of “reproduce[ing] demagogic theories of exclusiveness in which only racially subordinate students can be allowed to comprehend the experience of racism” (Roman 1993, 84). Women’s studies students and pedagogues may become complicit in illusory reversals of power in the classroom which try to situate moral and epistemic authority in the hands of the oppressed. Speaking space and the right to know about racism should not be reduced to a representational hierarchy determined along simplistic color/culture/identity lines. There are several important reasons why it is dangerous to approach the politics of voice, awareness, and antiracist knowledge this way in pedagogic practice. First, class, gender, national, and sexualized hierarchies are leveled out in a reductionist politics that polarizes white and non-white. Second, this method situates people of color in the classroom as experts on racism, which has a two pronged effect. It obscures those epistemological processes whereby racialized subjects internalize the discourses of racisms and it charges racialized students with the responsibility for educating whites.

Toward the Development of a Feminist Pedagogical Discourse on Whiteness Listening to the important knowledge garnered through experiences of racism is vitally important for students’ ability to reevaluate their often taken for granted reality, but pedagogy cannot stop here as it has in the past. If white students, for example, learn only from voyeuristic empathy gleaned from objectified accounts of racialized others instead of developing their own critical knowledge about whiteness, antiracism is in danger of either reinforcing or degenerating into what George Dei has called a “problematic concern for the other” (1996, 60). I interpret this “concern for the other” as a reinscription of whites’ racializing gaze upon those who are set in deviant opposition to white normalcy. Similarly, whites may develop the “redemption discourses” discussed in Roman’s recent work—those “white fantasies of identification with those rendered ‘racial’ or ‘subaltern others’ . . . [which] mask the desire to know one’s own systemic complicity (both individually and collectively) in racial inequality” (1997, 272).

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Some strains of feminist antiracist, pedagogical discourse to date, for example Ann Bishop’s text, Becoming an Ally: Breaking the Cycle of Oppression (1994) focuses on whites’ role as antiracist allies (see also Lawrence and Tatum 1997). The ally’s role is that of a “border crosser” who attempts to understand and empathize with the oppressed other (Giroux 1993). Giroux has more recently asserted, however, that “[T]here is a curious absence in the work of Whiteness regarding how students might examine critically the construction of their own identities in order to rethink Whiteness as a discourse of both critique and possibility” (1997, 314). He goes on to suggest that there have been “too few attempts to develop a pedagogy of Whiteness that enables White students to move beyond positions of guilt or resentment” (314). Alastair Bonnett has similarly argued that one of the greatest failings of current antiracist practice in the European and North American context is the reification of whiteness into a “fixed, asocial category rather than a mutable social construction” (1997, 177). As Elizabeth Ellsworth (1997) argues, conceptualizing whites as allies is a paternalistic approach that places whites in a fictional binary relationship with the other. Moreover, positing whites’ role in antiracist struggle as that of ally tends to situate whites as helpers, who are not themselves raced. A self-reflexive interrogation of white racial identity is bypassed. The classroom events I illustrate above also indicate that ally-based antiracism positions people of color as experts on racism, and situates whites as “nonknowers” of racism and less relevant players in antiracism. This results in only partial and reductive knowledge of racialization and reentrenches the invisibility of whiteness and its attendant privileges. Each of these authors points to the urgent need for developing teaching strategies that help students understand the multiple meanings of whiteness and the specificity of white racism. My hope is that by further advancing an antiessentialist, relational understanding of racial identity as multiple, shifting, and often taken up in ambiguous, unexpected ways we will begin to realize Giroux’s desire to “move beyond the view of whiteness as simply a fixed position of domination” (1997, 293). The limits of this shifting should, however, be clearly outlined, because while “we may be on our way to genuine hybridity, multiplicity without (white) hegemony . . . we aren’t there yet, and we won’t get there until we see whiteness, see its power, its particularity and limitedness” (Dyer 1997, 4). Giroux’s desire to rearticulate whiteness will be less effective pedagogically without a simultaneous working through of how whiteness has been and continues to be discursively constituted in

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specific sites and locales. Moreover students need to address the potentially painful knowledge of racial inequity and reflect on their own desires if their attempts to trouble and disturb the discourses of white privilege are going to have personal implication: “[T]o get off white . . . first requires that we get on it in critical and politically transformative ways” (Roman 1997, 278).

Poststructural, Postcolonial Pedagogy The complexities of whiteness are explicable when analyzed in a historically nuanced framework that recognizes the classed, gendered, and sexualized dimensions of racialization. In tracing out a conceptual schematic for understanding whiteness, I find antiracist pedagogy is best conceived as one aspect of postcolonial struggle because this frame links us forcefully to the imperial past of which contemporary racism is a legacy. Attention to the processes of (neo)colonization requires that we not simplistically restrict our vision to race, because it opens up inquiry into the vast expanse of inter-related discourses, which legitimated a system of Christian, European, masculine, imperial conquer. As argued by McClintock, “race, gender and class are not distinct realms of experience, existing in splendid isolation from each other; nor . . . [are they] simply yoked together retrospectively like armatures of Lego. Rather, they come into existence in and through relation to each other—if in contradictory and conflictual ways” (1990, 5). This type of articulated framing helps students conceptualize how their lives are mediated by and constructed in relation to any identity/experience axis we can conceptually isolate. Racial otherization is usefully explained through an analysis of the relational processes through which Western Europeans came to define their culture/identity/race as superior in counterpoint to inferiorized internal and external others (Stoler 1995). Whiteness can then be identified as raced and often privileged in contrast to how it is commonly experienced by white students as a taken for granted, invisible aspect of their human condition (Dyer 1997). Giroux (1997, 287) has countered bell hooks, Dyer, and other left critics’ assertion that whiteness is invisible, however, suggesting that during the last decade “whiteness was aggressively embraced in popular culture in order to rearticulate a sense of individual and collective identity for ‘besieged’ whites” (1997, 287).17 While I would agree that whiteness is becoming more visible as a racial marker in our contemporary era of white defensiveness and reactive racial politics, hooks and others are correct in articulating that the variable but manifold privileges of whiteness typically remain invisible. As described by

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Barbara Smith, “Whites . . . tend not to experience their own race as a symmetrical form of privilege and elite cultural identity, but as something ‘normal,’ ‘generic,’ ‘Brand X.’ Whiteness is not distinctive, remarkable, or even interesting. It becomes a conscious element of experience only in the presence of those who are racially different (from the norm)” (Smith 1995, 683). One of the central mechanisms that continues to ensures white dominance is the invisibility of the privileges afforded white skin: as “the presumptive norm of racial power and elevation, the racial dimension of whiteness can be denied or at least ignored” (Goldberg 1997, 83). Pedagogically, racing whiteness is akin to gendering men, and denaturalizing “heteronormativity,” or middle-class hegemony. All are strategies for defamiliarizing privilege, and for understanding how “historically the particular became defined as universal and therefore, powerful” (Dubinsky and Marks 1995). While continually exposing whiteness as a historically privileged identity construct may seem tedious and banal, it remains an important pedagogical engagement that requires repeated effort and negotiation on the part of teachers and students at the undergraduate level of women’s studies.

The Relational Nature of Privilege and Oppression A theoretical approach to inequality that elaborates the discursively informed and relational character of subjectivity is important in the development of classroom knowledge of both the marginalized and the privileged, normative axes of racial identity. The pedagogic usefulness of emphasizing the relational nature of our social locations cannot be overstated (Walcott 1998, 162). Himani Bannerji explains that the social sphere is a relationally constituted arena: “Friends and enemies are constructed by the same ground rules. The social signifiers of oppressive experience can be ‘shared’ by others who inhabit the same social relations of ruling but benefit from them. Those ruling relations and categories of administration based on imputations of inferiority (physical or cultural) characteristic of racism pervade the whole social space of advanced capitalism. It is as familiar a set of practices and ideas to white people as to non-whites—to the doer and the done unto” (1995, 84–85). Recognizing that whiteness is only possible in relation to a racialized other is an instrumental step in helping students understand exactly how whiteness is bound up with racism. A relational analysis enables students to understand the interlinkages between our individual reality and the larger world. It connects white experience to black experience by first exposing whiteness as raced, and then illustrating how this category is only understandable as dominant and normal due to a

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naturalizing process that has defined others as different and deviant. Seen in such a light, it is impossible to view racialization as “solely a ‘black’ experience” (Bannerji, 85). Yet this awareness itself is unlikely to help whites become selfimplicated in the issues of (anti)racism. For this to happen, privileged students must both listen to and learn from the experiences of racist oppression, and take apart their own experiences of race. Discourses of race are enacted and performed by all social subjects. White skin may afford everyday lived privilege, but it is not only those who are identified or identify as white who continually recreate racialization: we all live the paradoxes of race. Moreover, the possibility of understanding that racism is always a white issue is facilitated when the rigid binary between Bannerji’s “doer” and the “done unto” is collapsed, and the rules that determine who might be friends and enemies through the rigid lens of identity categories are deconstructed. Developing a pedagogical practice that enables a systematic understanding of how discourses of white privilege act upon our collective and individual consciousness, but are also mediated by internal unconscious demands, is a critical avenue for future research. Arguing that racisms are reinscribed in multiple arenas and by variously located subjects is not, however, tantamount to the simplistic and relativist claim that “we are all equally racist.” Depending on their positioning in the world, subjects will be in differential relationships to the discourses of race. Some stand to benefit from the relations of power effected through racialized discourse while others are devalued and subjugated. Further, one’s relationship to racializing discourses is context and dynamic specific, which means it may radically shift or remain somewhat constant in an entirely historically, spatially, and relationally contingent manner. My point, however, is that all subjects do have a specific relationship to racialization because at this historical moment it is a normative discourse, permeating local and global spheres differentially. Dominant epistemes are thoroughly racialized, and so while a discursive analysis of race may suggest that race has no essential ontological status, many ways of knowing and being that characterize Western (and global) cultures continually reproduce racism (Goldberg 1993; Young 1995). Thus, racism is a discourse that has widespread effects of power. How people reinscribe, negotiate, and take up these discourses is also complex and context specific.18 The highly varied relationship that white subjects hold to discourses of racialization is something that has recently been traced by several authors.19 The theoretical resources offered by a discursive approach to race are very useful for antiracist pedagogy because they render the intricacies of racialized subjectivity

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visible, rather than reifying and reducing these processes. The immense pedagogical insight gained in communicating experience as discursively and psychically mediated is that students are assured of the possibilities for changing consciousness, since our experiential subject location is not reducible to categories, and our assumed identity interests do not determine or limit what we can know or feel. The unpredictable ways that psychic processes of learning mediate the desire to transform ourselves and social relations have not been adequately theorized and demand much further investigation. Considering psychic processes that structure how subjects identify with racialized discourses may offer further resources for considering the complexities of subjectivization beyond the interpellated agent dominating Foucauldian poststructural accounts of discursively constituted subjectivity (Weedon 1987). Poststructural, postcolonial20 literature that adopts the language of psychoanalysis, such as Laura Stoler’s (1995) account of racial and sexual ambiguity, can be useful in documenting the complex processes of love and hate, attraction and disgust that characterized the historical production of racialized subjects. Critical whiteness pedagogy must also move beyond the rigid boundaries drawn between white/black, racist/raced, oppressor/ oppressed and be active in articulating the contradictory, shifting, and ambiguous nature of identity formation. Every day we are positioned and repositioned within a grid of power/knowledge through the multiple identificatory processes of social interaction. When we recognize that it is identity categories that fix us in absolute positions of domination or subjugation—not our actual identity (dis)locations—we can transform essentialized identity claims in the classroom. Indeed, attention to the complexities of lived subjectivities—the nuances of intersubjective dynamics—immediately unsettles the categorical imperatives to classify, name, and know inherent to Western scientific imperialism.

Beyond a Fixed Position: Whiteness is Not Synonymous with White Racism According to Caren Kaplan, Adrienne Rich developed her notion of the “politics of location” as a “method of interrogating and deconstructing the position, identity, and privilege of whiteness” (1994, 139). Maher and Tetreault (1997) have also recently discussed how a method of positionality emerged as their most important analytic tool for examining whiteness in their classrooms. Similarly, bell hooks praises the deconstructive power of the “process of repositioning . . . [which] allows for the recognition that progressive white people who are antiracists might be able to understand the way in which their cultural

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practice reinscribes white supremacy without promoting paralyzing guilt or denial” (1997, 178). Exercises in location often form an important aspect of theoretical discussions of race in the feminist classroom. I maintain that models that help students to theoretically position themselves within a larger web of social relations are imperative. When viewed through a poststructural lens, the value of this positioning lies mostly in understanding that identity locations are not fixed and static, but rather historically contingent products of context that are never exactly the same twice. Pedagogically this positioning should help students understand how identity categories are constructed in relation to one another within a normalizing field of power. Considering positionality through a psychoanalytic perspective urges teachers to consider the deep complexities of intersubjective dynamics that will always throw conceptual hierarchies of oppression into question. By striving for a classroom context where identity is simultaneously constructed and deconstructed, we can emphasize the strategic value of positioning an identity in flux, rather than an essential, inert location.21 Yet, as Bonnett has argued, “one of the most intractable and . . . counterproductive of anti-racism’s traditional monoliths . . . [has been an] objectified Whiteness” (1997, 186). Historically nuanced, context specific and discursive analyses of whiteness have rarely been promoted in antiracist pedagogy, although recent historical research documents the temporally contingent and shifting nature of whiteness, and its dramatic transformations (Dyer 1997; Ignatiev 1995; Roediger 1991; Young 1990). Consequently, much more attention should now be given to explicating the important differences between “whiteness as a racial identity that is non-racist or anti-racist and those aspects of Whiteness that are racist” (Giroux 1997, 300). Clarifying these crucial distinctions involves a refusal to speak about whiteness as if it is/has been “monolithic, ahistoric, and unambivalent in experience” (Britzman 1997, 31). In our pedagogical practice whiteness and class privilege, for example, are often simplistically collapsed, an unfortunate reduction that erases the poverty and working class stigma that characterizes the lives of many whites. Historian David Roediger (1990) has contributed much to our understandings of the historical interlinkages between whiteness as a privileged signifier and class status. Roediger suggests that white immigrants to America sought to further entrench the shifting category of whiteness as a privileged identity marker and, once they had gained entry into this racial group, used whiteness as a psychological wage to compensate the poverty and harsh urban conditions they faced in industrializing America. Recent scholarship has begun to trace further this complex relationship between whiteness and class status (Wray and Newitz 1997).

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One of the most effective strategies for complicating whiteness may also be found in explorations of Jewish racialization since “the idea of the Jew as ‘white’ in both North American and Europe is barely fifty years old” (Britzman 1988: 104). Additional research exploring the relationships between discourses of femininity, masculinity, sexuality, nationality, age, ability and whiteness is of central importance to the development of feminist, anti-racist theory and practice.

Concluding Remarks The compelling argument has been made by bell hooks that only “a persistent, rigorous, and informed critique of whiteness could really determine what forces of denial, fear, and competition are responsible for creating fundamental gaps between professed political commitment to eradicating racism and the participation in the construction of a discourse on race that perpetuates racial domination” (in Bishop 1994, 12). Throughout this chapter, I have attempted to illustrate how important classroom engagements with discourses of racism and cultural and religious prejudice have been cut short by both teacher and student practices that are steeped in unconscious defensiveness and unacknowledged conflict. In response, I have suggested the usefulness of an antiessentialist, poststructural analysis, augmented by psychoanalytic insights, that may help pedagogues and students, both within and outside of women’s studies, to better understand their relationships to racism and whiteness and to the processes that continue to inform these shifting discursive manifestations. Not surprisingly, when we deconstruct whiteness as a site of impenetrable privilege and problematize models that deny the complexity of subjectivity, we diffuse some of white guilt and defensiveness. Poststructuralism insists that racial essentialism be critically engaged (Goldberg 1993). Consequently, this analytic frame affords subjects room to maneuver outside of the binary of oppressor/oppressed, as each box stifles movement towards new and potentially better ways of understanding our subjectivities. Yet I have also suggested that attention to the dynamics of classroom engagements with race may profit from dialogue with variants of psychoanalytic theory that attend to the tension and pain resulting from teaching and learning around difficult issues of cultural superiority and racialization (Britzman 1998). This issue of how we cope with volatility and defensiveness is of particular relevance in pedagogical sites such as women’s studies, where student dialogue around highly controversial and emotive subjects is continually solicited. Much more thought should also be given to the types of work whites must engage in to begin to transform the distinct ways that discourses of racial superiority continue to structure their self-knowledge

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and every day practices (see Pratt 1984). Psychoanalysis insists we take seriously those unconscious desires that mediate classroom dynamics, our relationship to feminist antiracist knowledge, and our own prejudices. Bonnett’s critique of antiracist strategies focused on consciousness raising, which advocates a “confessional approach” when addressing whiteness and disciplines whites to “face up to their own and other White people’s racism in order to successfully to expunge it from their consciousness” (1997, 181) is also useful. It would seem this practice would inevitably slip into an essentialist and moralizing approach to teaching about whiteness. Moreover, erasing racism from consciousness reads like a process of repression very different from the self-knowledge of desire, narcissism, love, and hatred that might unsettle the dangerous stereotypes and assumptions about others that promote racism (Britzman 1998). Finally, it is ironic that critiques of second-wave feminism come full circle in the realization that decentering the white feminist subject means seriously interrogating whiteness to better understand the processes of otherization and marginalization within feminism. Given the historical record, however, we should remain exceedingly careful that our analyses of whiteness do not end up reinscribing the white woman as dominant figure of feminist analysis or alternatively as static construct of reified privilege. Fortunately, when examined through a poststructural frame that incorporate psychoanalytic insight into the complex dynamics that structure intersubjectivity, whiteness is refused its prior monolithic conceptual proportions. Indeed, the approach I have outlined may provoke further questions about how students and pedagogues might engage with whiteness as a range of highly varied, yet specific discursive practices and modes of identification. From here, we can learn how to enunciate in further detail the complex ways that both white skin privilege and racially marginalized identities are embodied, experienced, and potentially transformed.

Notes 1. I interviewed three students, but report primarily on observations gained through my own participation in women’s studies classrooms. 2. Well known contributors to the American debate are The Combahee River Collective 1986; Davis 1981; hooks 1981; Hull, Scott, and Smith 1982; Lorde 1984; Moraga and Anzaldua 1981; and Smith 1983. Authors writing on this subject in Britain include Carby 1982; and Amos and Parmar 1984. For an account of black feminist critiques of feminism and women’s studies in the Canadian context see Thornhill 1983; Linda Carty 1991; and Vorst 1986.

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3. Leslie Roman (1997), has recently cast doubt on whether Sojourner Truth actually uttered these famous lines, arguing that many of Truth’s published speeches were fictitious accounts constructed by white suffragists. 4. The difficult and complex relationship that always exists between the women’s movement and women’s studies has been well documented. Tracing the many links and disjunctures between the two is beyond the scope of this chapter. Some argue that many difficulties in women’s studies are exacerbated by the weak link between feminisms as political practice and academic discourse. Only a limited Canadian literature addresses directly how the limitations of early feminist theory have become institutionalized in women’s studies programs through disciplinary focus, curriculum, and teaching practices (see Alice Pitt [1997] for some pedagogical discussion of these linkages). Further empirical research, in specific Canadian locales, that addresses this gap in our understandings of how women’s studies has negotiated the limitations of early feminist theory and practice and taken up subsequent theoretical developments pedagogically is necessary. 5. In the British context, Kum Kum Bhavnani has offered a similar critique examining how “racism is embedded within contemporary and prevailing concepts of feminism and Women’s Studies” (1993, 27). Bhavnani, echoing Bannerji (1995), argues that racism has rarely been the focus of women’s studies courses; rather, the erasure of racial difference between women, the denial of white as a racial category, the invisibility of black women’s simultaneously raced and gendered subjectivity, and inclusion of women of color as mere tokens within women’s studies are inadequacies endemic to white feminism (41). Likewise in the United States, Ann Russo has argued that “women of colour have been forced to continue arguing for the same basic issues in feminist political organizing, women’s studies courses and conferences” (1991, 301). 6. Britzman clarifies the many points of overlap between these two approaches in the arguing, for example, that Freud’s treatment of processes of otherization “signif[ied] no biological ground to the cultural dynamics and hatreds between communities. Both love and hatred, for Freud, are psychic demands elaborated socially and historically” (1997, 29). 7. Early models of critical pedagogy are conceptually flawed in many more dimensions than I can broach in my current discussion. For example, a major difficulty in Paulo Friere’s (1970) early work was the masculinist subject of his account. 8. As a pedagogical strategy this dramatization could have been a more useful technique if we had further discussed the vast differences between feminist movement outside of the academy and the theoretical exercise of recreating or imagining the process of consciousness raising inside an institutional setting. 9. I return to a discussion of the epistemic difficulties that inhere in the notion of ally later in the chapter. 10. All names used are pseudonyms.

312 Jessica Ringrose 11. The difficulty with the notion of liberation is evident in this example if we consider that some women may have actually interpreted or experienced the silencing of others’ knowledge as empowering. 12. As articulated by feminists critical of critical pedagogy (Luke and Gore 1992), the deep power inequities that necessarily characterize any classroom where students are hierarchically graded must always be acknowledged. 13. Course texts included Firestone 1972; Greer 1971; Millet 1977; Morgan 1970; Rowbotham 1973. Obvious texts that might have been included in the course outline to achieve some balance in perspective: Carby 1982; The Combahee River Collective 1986; Davis 1981; hooks 1981; Hull, Scott and Smith 1982; Lorde 1984; Rich 1986; and Smith 1983 (among others). 14. Comments on graded course paper. 15. Additional comments on the same course paper. 16. I was alerted to the notion of “hating ethically” by Sarah Mathews, whose knowledge of psychoanalytic approaches to learning inspired me to begin thinking about what psychoanalysis can bring to the sociology of education. The idea that we might learn to hate objectively, conscious of our affect, is addressed in Winnicott’s (1958) essay, “Hate in the counter-transference.” 17. Here Giroux is discussing how whiteness has been taken up in the context of U.S. conservatism and far-right rhetoric. 18. Foucault argues that “power relations are both intentional and nonsubjective. . . . [T]here is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. But this does not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individual subject” (1978, 95). A fuller discussion of how racialized discourses inform or interpellate subjectivity is beyond the scope of this chapter. See Goldberg (1993) for a partial examination. 19. See, for example, the edited volumes by Fine 1997; Frankenberg 1997; and Wray and Newitz 1997. 20. The Subaltern School of postcolonial theory that models itself on Gramsci and neo-Marxism (Ahmed 1995; Parry 1987; Spivak 1987). I see poststructural variants of postcolonialism (see Hall 1996) as particularly useful. 21. See Spivak (1993) and Fuss (1989) for a discussion of strategic essentialism. Drawing on Theresa de Lauretis, Susan Luhmann argues that queer theory offers many pedagogical resources, and that its “productivity lies in th[e] double impulse of production and deconstruction. Queer theory antagonizes identity while at the same time claiming in-your-face visibility” (1998, 146). Important linkages between antiracist pedagogy and other critical interventions such as queer theory/pedagogy have been made, but are as of yet inadequate and tentative.

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———. 2001. The dreamwork of autobiography: Felman, Freud, and Lacan. In Feminist engagements: Revisioning educational and cultural theory, ed. K. Weiler and L. Stone. New York: Routledge. Pratt, M. B. 1984. Identity: Skin blood heart. In Yours in struggle: Three feminist perspectives on anti-semitism and racism, ed. B. Smith, E. Bulkin, and M. B. Pratt. New York: Long Haul Press. Rich, A. 1986. Blood, bread, and poetry: Selected prose, 1979–1985. New York: W.W. Norton. Roediger, D. 1990. The wages of whiteness: Race and the making of the American working class. London: Verso. Roman, L. 1993. White is a colour! In Race, identity and representation in education, ed. C. McCarthy and W. Crichlow. New York: Routledge. ———. 1997. Denying white racial privilege: Redemption discourses and the uses of fantasy. In Off white: Readings on race, power and society, ed. M. Fine, L. Weis, L. C. Powell, and L. M. Wong. New York: Routledge. Rose, J. 1987. Sexuality in the field of vision. London: Verso. Rowbotham, S. 1973. Woman’s consciousness, man’s world. London: Penguin Books. Russo, A. 1991. “We cannot live without our lives”: White women, antiracism, and feminism. In Third world women and the politics of feminism, ed. R. Mohanty and L. Torres. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Scott, J. 1992. Experience. In Feminists theorize the political, ed. J. Butler and J. Scott. New York: Routledge. Shohat, E. 1992. Notes on the postcolonial. Social Text 10 (2–3): 99–113. Sleeter, C. 1995. Reflections on my use of multicultural and critical pedagogy when students are white. In Multicultural education, critical pedagogy, and the politics of difference, ed. C. Sleeter and P. McClaren. New York: State University of New York Press. Smith, B. 1983. Home girls: A black feminist anthology. New York : Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press. ———. 1995. Crossing the great divides: Race, class, and gender in southern women’s organizing, 1979–1991. Gender and Society 9: 680–696. Smith, D. 1990. The conceptual practices of power. Toronto: Women’s Press. ———. 1993. Texts, facts and femininity: Exploring the relations of ruling. New York: Routledge. Spivak, G. C. 1987. In other worlds: Essays in cultural politics. New York: Methuen. ———. 1993. Outside in the teaching machine. New York; London: Routledge. Stoler, Ann. 1995. Race and the education of desire: Foucault’s history of sexuality and the colonial order of things. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

318 Jessica Ringrose Thornhill, E. 1983. Black women’s studies in teaching related to women: Help or hindrance to universal sisterhood? Fireweed 16 (spring): 77–83. Vorst, J. 1989. Race, class, gender: Bonds and barriers. Toronto: Between the Lines and the Society for Socialist Studies. Walcott, R. 1998. Queer Texts and Performativity: Zora Rap and Community. In Queer theory in education, ed. William Pinar. Mahwah, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Weedon, C. 1987. Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Weir, L. 1991. Anti-racist feminist pedagogy, self-observed. Resources for Feminist Research 20: 19–26. Winnicott, D. W. 1958. Collected papers: Through pediatrics to psycho-analysis. New York: Basic Books. Wray, M. and A. Newitz. 1997. White trash: Race and class in America. New York: Routledge. Yon, D. 1999a. The discursive space of schooling: On the theories of power and empowerment in multiculturalism and anti-racism. In The anthropology of power, ed. A. Cheater. London: Routledge. ———. 1999b. Pedagogy and the problem of difference: On reading community in ‘The darker side of black.’ International Journal of Qualitative Research in Education 12 (Nov–Dec): 623–641. Young, R. 1990. White mythologies: Writing history and the west. London: Routledge. ———. 1995. Colonial desire: Hybridity in theory, culture and race. London: Routledge.

12 Critical/Relational/Contextual: Toward a Model for Studying Whiteness Cynthia Levine-Rasky

In the introduction to this volume, I articulate several tensions reticulating the research on whiteness. Indeed, working through whiteness should be conceptualized as a project organized in tension. Can whiteness be its own authority? How can whites name, yet sidestep their claim to knowledge so as to avoid reaffirming their social domination? How can whiteness be examined if doing so threatens the very conditions of privilege that accrue to whiteness? What is it that we want to accomplish in the name of critical whiteness? The contributors to this book communicate these and other questions, and they explore possible approaches to them. David Bedford and Thom Workman, for example, write of the differences between The Great Law of Peace and whiteness and show how the former reveals the ravages of the latter. Renisa Mawani describes historical arrangements as they engendered white supremacy over Native women. Alastair Bonnett reveals the meaning of whiteness as it fluctuates with patterns in different cultures. Whiteness is rationalized, for Bonnett, in terms of prevailing cultural norms, and for Andrew Jakubowicz in terms of prevailing political norms. Michael Sacks and Marika Lindholm, Stephanie Kellington, and Jennifer Reich observe patterns of response and discourse among their respective white research participants. Here, we witness the awkward maneuvers of a whiteness revealed. The actors’ contradictory presentations of sympathy and defensiveness, innocence and complicity are striking. The subject shifts from actor to institution in L. A. (Livy) Visano’s chapter, and the dynamics of white power are correspondingly more ominous. These authors convey the complexity of whiteness as it is lived and as it is enscribed in our institutions. To use Ellsworth’s 1997 terms, we witness here the “social and cultural performance” of whiteness as it confronts its own problematic implications. In the final section of the book, Anoop Nayak’s group of white schoolchildren give complex responses to a threatened white privilege, even if the threat appears only in the form of its naming. Helen Harper 319

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conveys the cost of two women’s struggle with the implications of their poignant whiteness when formal pedagogy and traditional models of white-women-among-the-Natives is insufficient. There are parallels to Jessica Ringrose’s work in which debates about racism and feminism are initiated in the graduate school classroom but are truncated before issues are resolved. Indeed, the debates in this setting register the same fears and doubts observed in other actors in this book, whether they are found in institutions, cultures, histories, or communities. How has the literature on whiteness expressed these problems? I suggest here that the literature has concentrated on three approaches: the critical, the relational, and the contextual. These three categories form the organizational apparatus for this chapter. In it, I identify examples of work that interrogates whiteness critically, relationally, and contextually and the problems in some work which does not. Critical perspectives emphasize a normative position on issues of social injustice, and in its commitment to change inequitable social relations. Relational analyses convey the symbolic and material interdependence of white and other. Contextual approaches situate whiteness historically or in reticulation with intersecting sites of identity. Since the three categories converge in practice, their delineation here is synthetic. My aim is not to recommend a static model for the classification of the literature but to present some analytic possibilities from which we may choose to study, read, teach, critique, write, research, or act upon whiteness.

Examining Whiteness Critically Critical inquiry generally derives from the classically critical or neoMarxist theoretical perspective although the proliferation of hybrid theories in postmodernism and feminism (and their variants) have effectively diversified the traditional approaches. The evolution of social theory is such that it is no longer feasible to speak of a unified Critical Theory. It is possible nonetheless to describe some of the qualities that generally circumscribe inquiry regarded as critical. Critically informed social inquiry is distinguished by a focus on inequality, power, mechanisms of social control and exclusion, an interest in the emancipation of subordinate groups, radical social change, and the paradoxical problem of complicity with and resistance to domination. It is clearly partisan in its criticism of society, of positivistic inquiry, and of a culture shaped by the perverse forces of capitalism. In order to illuminate the totality of social conditions and its interrelationships, a critical perspective often endeavors to integrate structural and cultural critiques of the social order.1 It is self-reflexive and actively weaves knowledge of contradiction and complexity through an analysis.

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I will now summarize some examples of work that examines whiteness from a critical frame. These evince the mechanisms and processes whereby whiteness acquires and exercises power in social relations.2 David Wellman develops a thesis concerning whites’ strategies for denying the existence and impact of racism upon racialized others. Whites are motivated to protect their presumed detachment from racism through their defense of a social system buttressed by racial privilege: “A position is racist when it defends, protects, or enhances social organization based on racial advantage” (1993, 222). Wellman’s thesis is as follows: Unlike other forms of inequality, which do not necessarily deny American ideals, racial inequality needs to be justified since it contradicts publicly espoused ideals and orientations. . . . How people explain this situation is the heart of racist thinking. . . . [T]o explain racial inequality in structural terms, and open the possibility that blacks are in subordinate positions through no fault of their own, implicates white people in the system of racial injustice. The issue is thus framed: what do people do when their interests are threatened and there are few acceptable and publicly legitimate ways of articulating their interests and their fears? . . . The concrete problem facing white people is how to come to grips with the demands made by blacks while at the same time avoiding the possibility of institutional change and reorganization that might affect them. Put another way, they must be able to explain racial inequality without implicating themselves. In various ways every white American must deal with the contradiction. (1993, 56, 59–60)

Whites entertain elaborate and contradictory explanations for social inequities to ensure the preservation of their power, the resources available to them, and their “dysconsciousness” (to use Joyce King’s 1991 word) about participating in inequitable social arrangements. Since there is tremendous resistance to self-reflection around the social taboo of racism, and because there is much to gain in doing so, whites avoid any responsibility for the problem by dismissing the relevance of economic and cultural differentiations made on the basis of skin color. As a particular situation dictates, whites may choose instead to espouse a theory that serves to explain differentiation in a publicly acceptable way. Success is attributed to merit or exceptionality in the case of the socially marginalized, and failure is attributed to personal inadequacy (Frankenberg 1993; Stanfield 1991). Alternatively, whites may respond by minimizing the significance of racism by defining the social issues associated with it as “nonproblems” easily identified with personal or group characteristics (Kluegel and Smith 1986).

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Hurtado and Stewart (1997) document the “dynamics of power” that whites have at their disposal. These include whites distancing themselves from their interdependence with others’ impoverished circumstances and from personal circumstances that confer racial privilege; white racial privilege acknowledged only with its loss; superiority ascribed to a “normalcy” and “neutrality” unattainable by racialized others; and a taken-for-granted belongingness to and solidarity with a racially dominant group (that—in my own observation—is exercised strategically when essential individuality is less advantageous). To this list, Christine Sleeter (1996) would add whites’ evocation of racism divested from human will as in the remark, “Racism causes poor education in inner-city schools.” She also signals the use of code words for racism that command a greater social acceptability but that powerfully sustain racial dominance. Examples of this practice are legion. The language of “welfare dependency,” “students at risk,” “the underclass,” and “inner-city” symbolizes racialized groups without identifying them as such. The strategy relieves whites from acknowledging their active participation in racism. John Gabriel (1998) specifies the processes of exnomination (refusing to name itself), naturalization (against whom others require definition), and universalization (taking its peculiarity as representative and assuming the role of interpreter of all) in whiteness. McIntyre also documents strategies of “derailing the conversation, evading questions, dismissing counter arguments, withdrawing from the discussion, remaining silent, interrupting speakers and topics, and colluding with each other in creating a ‘culture of niceness’ that made it very difficult to ‘read’ the white world” (1997, 46). Finally, Frances Rains (1998) describes five “benign” manifestations of racism induced by whiteness: a sense of entitlement (on the basis of meritocracy); “citation of exceptions” (of racialized persons who overcame the consequences of social inequality); the I-can’t-speak-for response (distancing whites from the claims of racialized persons); the reaction of guilt (diverting knowledge of racism to its effects on white participants); and color-blindness or racial neutrality (dismissing racialization as a context for understanding the experience of persons of color). Rains shows how each of these responses serves the interests of whiteness and social domination and is inconsistent with their progressive aims in support of antiracism. Stephen Haymes authors an essay in which a specifically critical examination of whiteness is tantamount. Beginning with a premise of white hegemonic culture affecting “micro” phenomena like personal sensibilities, dreams, desires, and fears, Haymes asserts that the appropriate response to a multiform racism is “white people rethinking their own collective whiteness” (1995, 107). This involves a critical study of

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the processes by which white culture has gained dominance through racialization of marked others. These processes include a contradictory glorification and demonization of the racialized other reflected in the exercise of commodification, consumption, eroticism, and exoticism. These activities attest to a crucial relationality between whiteness and racialized difference in which “black identity functions for white culture as a way to mark off difference and define white people as normal” (1995, 110). This observation is highly reminiscent of Foucault’s remarks on the genealogy of disciplinary mechanisms, which among other things “traces the limit that will define difference in relation to all other differences, the external frontier of the abnormal. . . . In short, it normalizes” (1979, 183). One consequence of the construction of racialized other through the cultural demands of whiteness is a severance of authentic cultural practices of racialized groups and the historical and social contexts that inspired them, argues Haymes. Not only do such processes objectify racialized groups, but they reduce “black cultural practices to performance” highlighting the racialized body. Meanings of race and culture cultivated by racialized groups in opposition to white hegemony are obscured behind powerfully seductive images. The consequence of neglecting to examine whiteness from a critical vantage point can be observed in some of its transfigurations. The development of “white studies” as a distinct programmatic focus attempts to identify a distinctively white popular culture with the goal of imparting a new status and scholarly legitimacy to the study of such phenomena. As a new branch of ethnic studies, this version of examining whiteness offers great spectacle appeal for journalists and popular social critics, who take it to task as an “academic whirligig.” One writer in the New York Times Magazine correctly notes that in this guise, “ethnic studies has a certain logic, bequeathed to it by the idea of marginalized people moving to the center, and whiteness studies cannot entirely escape the logic—the sense that in naming a new field of scholarship it is bestowing attention, and even validation on the hitherto neglected. The risk is that by trying to limn something called white culture, you make a fetish of it” (Talbot 1997, 118). This approach works only to draw the contours of a whiteness unproblematized in terms of its social context. Observe the rise in popularity in Celtic music and dance,3 klezmer music,4 “New Country” radio stations, the revival of classical theater (one such group in Toronto goes by the appropriative name of “Soulpepper”), North American folk art, and many other cultural forms that permit whites to revel in their European rootedness. The development dovetails with the universalization of the European philosophical traditions in support of self-discovery and individualism.

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The problem here is the conservative politics driving the new movement rectifying what some perceive to be a reverse victimization in our current multiculture.5 As in other versions of racialization processes (diversity, multiculturalism, affirmative action, ethnocultural equity, integration), definitions of whiteness are easily appropriated by the Right and used to galvanize support for racist beliefs and fears (Gabriel 1998; Roediger 1994; Jeater 1992; Gillborn 1996; Kincheloe and Steinberg, 1998). Politically conservative groups claim victim status on the basis of the “surplus visibility” (Patai 1991) of racialized groups as they grow in political sophistication. “Me-too-ism” emerges from a sanguine discovery of a white ethnicity resentful of its exclusion in the multiculture. This new white studies may be a renewed version of white hegemony nuanced by class and colored with pride. As a result, whiteness now engages in a struggle for definition, entitlement, and autonomy. Whiteness thus reclaims the center with a new righteousness, recovering its foothold in a paranoid fantasy of racial wars. White studies may impart a legitimacy to racist and exclusionary practices, ultimately reconfirming the mainstream curriculum in advancing its “intellectual imperialism” (Churchill 1982). Mike Hill asks provocative questions about the implications of this development: Is anyone actually fooled by the political efficacy of the new whiteness studies? . . . Is this newfound attention to whiteness not instead simply about missing a multi-culti jet ride to glory down the ‘length of the chromosome corridor’ now that Marxism allegedly no longer exists? . . . Is the new whiteness studies just an attempt to ‘lactify’ ethnic difference and stay relevant in these lean, mean times of liquid cultural capital?” (1997a, 12). Interests in examining whiteness from a critical perspective are dismissed when the exclusive purpose is to debut whiteness as cultural artifact. The qualification of examining whiteness in a critical, relational, and contextual way is a necessary melioration to this trend. It effectively serves to distinguish critical interrogations of whiteness from white studies and its irreconcilability with social change and a moral sensibility. I turn here to Homi Bhabha, who beautifully captures the meaning of examining whiteness that I have been advocating: “The subversive move is to reveal within the very integuments of ‘whiteness’ the agonistic elements that make it the unsettled, disturbed form of authority that it is—the incommensurable ‘differences’ that it must surmount; the histories of trauma and terror that it must perpetrate and from which it must protect itself; the amnesia it imposes on itself; the violence it inflicts in the process of becoming a transparent and transcendent force of authority” (1998, 21).

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The exemplars I present here take a normative position in investigating the discursive and cultural practices of whiteness that underpin racial injustice. In problematizing whiteness as active participant in systems of domination, such practices expose contradictions between a rhetoric of equality and conceptualizations of social difference. Slippage between symbol and value reveals a concurrence of the power and instability in the embodiment of whiteness. “Amnesia” of its own formation is held in tension with the suppression of its indissoluble relatedness to other. It is this facet of examining whiteness to which I will now turn.

Examining Whiteness Relationally Just as whiteness has constructed the marked other over which it exercises domination and control (though never absolutely), whiteness itself is an emergent category that is inextricably related to other. The construction of the former is impossible without concomitant construction of the latter (Dyer 1997; Hall 1991; Frankenberg 1993). Dyer declares that “white is virtually unthinkable except in opposition to black” (1997, 51), and West, that whiteness is “parasitic on blackness” (1990, 29).6 Dyer (1997) elaborates upon whiteness as nothingness or emptiness for which relationality with other is essential. “Through the figure of the non-white person, whites can feel what being, physicality, presence, might be like, while also dissociating themselves from the nonwhiteness of such things. This would work well were it not for the fact that it also constantly risks reminding whites of what they are relinquishing in their assumption of whiteness: fun, ‘life’ ” (1997, 80). In the absence of the other, whites forfeit their very identity and a sense of being socially complete. Traversing the relationality of white self and other reveals a paradox. Autonomous whiteness confers an invulnerability and a void, ineffably bound to its differentiated figurations. This stands in contrast to the insight that whiteness is meaningless without the racialized other, as documented by writers of color (Morrison 1992; Asante 1990; Said 1979). Doris davenport for example, states that black women perceive white women “as very oppressed, and ironically, invisible. . . . [T]hey cling to their myth of being privileged, powerful, and less oppressed than black wimmin. Why? Because that is all they have. . . . Somewhere deep down (denied and almost killed) in the psyche of racist white feminists there is some perception of their real position: powerless, spineless, and invisible . . . the result of a real inferiority complex, or lack of self-identity” (1983, 87–88).

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This vacancy in whiteness is accomplished not through a sanguine reciprocity with racialized others but through an “engagement with the abject other as a ‘necessary outside’ by which whiteness and respectability are anxiously secured” (Schick 1998, 58; also see Schick 2000). Carol Schick shows how whiteness whiteness depends upon the maintenance of its virtue through the unvirtuous domination of racialized others. White innocence coexists with complicity in the racial domination of others. This contradictory set of social relations accounts for the simultaneous desire/revulsion, proximity/distance, hope/despair, and invitation/fear that whites experience relative to the racialized other (Morrison 1992; Cohen 1997; Roediger 1991). Relationality also applies to the political economy of racism. In this frame, there is not only an ontological relatedness between white and other, but a sense in which the significance, meaning, and status of whiteness is intertwined with the relative significance, meanings, and status of racialized groups. I refer here, perhaps somewhat crudely, to the processes and social structures through which whites accrue economic and social benefits as a result of their domination of racialized others (Wellman 1993; hooks 1990; Bowser 1995). Adrienne Shadd concretizes the problem: “Racism is not something which simply affects its victims in various adverse ways. It also benefits all those against whom it is not directed, by affording certain privileges. Just remember that for every visible minority who is denied a position because of his/her colour there is a majority group member who is awarded that same position because of his/her colour . . . ” (1989, 154). In this sense of the political economy of racism, whites are regarded as obtaining privileges, a normalized identity, status, rewards, dominance, and invisibility contingent upon situating those who are different relative to these characteristics. Michelle Fine explains that “racial formation was filled with parasitic interdependence such that whites needed Blacks in order to become privileged” (1997, 60). Qualities adhering to whiteness arise from historical arrangements established in inequality. Ideological shibboleths of liberal democracy— freedom, equality, individualism—are contingent upon their reflection in the oppositional other who is constrained, unequal, nondescript (Hurtado and Stewart 1997; Wellman 1993; Said 1979). For Toni Morrison (1992), relationality is situated at the core of her impassioned thesis evident in these excerpts: I want to suggest that these concerns—autonomy, authority, newness and difference, absolute power—not only become the major themes and presumptions of American literature, but that each one is made possible by, shaped by, activated by a complex awareness and employment of a constituted Africanism. It was this Africanism, deployed as rawness and

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savagery, that provided the staging ground and arena for the elaboration of the quintessential American identity. (44) How could one speak of profit, economy, labor, progress, suffragism, Christianity, the frontier, the formation of new states, the acquisition of new lands, education, transportation (freight and passengers), neighborhoods, the military—of almost anything a country concerns itself with — without having as a referent, at the heart of the discourse, at the heart of definition, the presence of Africans and their descendants? It was not possible. And it did not happen. (50) Africanism is the vehicle by which the American self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned, but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulfilment of destiny. (1992, 52)

A systematic analysis of the political economy of racism is undertaken by several writers (see Razack, 1998; Jackman, 1996; Kushnick 1996; Mason 1996; Wildman 1996; Wellman 1993; Murray and Smith, 1995). Lipsitz (1995, 1998) explains the relative benefits incurred through a “possessive investment in whiteness” focussing on housing policy in the United States since 1934. He establishes, for example, that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) placed the credit of the federal government behind private loans to home buyers. Through the use of overtly racist categories in “confidential” city surveys, the FHA channelled loans away from older inner-city neighborhoods and toward white home buyers moving into segregated suburbs. The suburban communities consolidated federal aid for such services as water and sewage facilities by incorporating themselves as independent municipalities. These early events established a pattern for differential funding and urban settlement the reverberations of which are felt today by black urban residents. In the 1980s, changes in gfederal tax laws decreased the value of wage income and increased the value of investment income, a policy that emphasized the income disparities between blacks and whites. Lipsitz’s point is that the effect of these policies was not just a sustained and systematic discrimination against blacks and other racialized groups, but an accumulative investment in the relative advantages for whites, in effect, a “subsidy for whiteness” (1995, 377). The latter’s gains were made directly upon the former’s deprivations, reinforcing white privilege and increasing the absolute value of being white (1995, 378). Wellman (1993) describes a great many sites where the political economy of racism is revealed. Whites benefit from police actions concentrated in black communities because this relieves whites from risk of incrimination when they engage in violations of the law. If racialized

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groups are systematically dismissed as appropriate loan beneficiaries, the competition for funds narrows for whites. Whites monopolize superior educational and medical services relative to those delivered to racialized groups. Racial organization of work inhibits the relegation of whites to unskilled low-income occupations reserved for racialized groups. Income disparities between whites and racialized groups for work of equal value results in the arrogation of a higher income for whites. Just as the previous section identified a problematic transfiguration of examining whiteness that neglected a critical mandate, there are other developments that disregard a relational framing of the issue. These have taken the form of antiracism workshops offered by professionals, some specific approaches to which are discussed in Benjamin Bowser’s and Raymond Hunt’s (1996) volume.7 Descended from Katz (1978) and Terry (1975), these programs take the form of an intensive and highly structured group learning experience directed by a dynamic leader with expertise in antiracism. They are often directed to corporate and other organizational audiences, sometimes with exclusively white participants (Crowfoot and Chesler 1996), but also with racially diverse participants (Terry 1996). The workshops are thoroughly saturated with personal narratives, parables, lists of all kinds, physical exercises, pen-and-paper exercises, overhead projections and other sensory prompts, film and other media, small-group discussions, direct responses to personal concerns and anecdotes, and didactic components on definitions of racism, strategies whites (and others) use to rationalize oppression, and the manifestations of white privilege. Workshops usually finish off with the delivery of concrete and uplifting recommendations for change (though interestingly Crowfoot’s and Chesler’s seem to conclude with a series of open-ended questions to stimulate further thought). Workshop leaders sometimes encourage participants to “get in touch with”8 their whiteness. In one case, Lillian Roybal Rose (1996) leads whites through a critical exploration of whiteness and racism. Participants confront the intersections between their resistance to naming racism and recognizing themselves as raced subjects directly involved in systems of oppression. In order to spur progress, Rose ensures that racism is understood in terms of the losses it incurs for whites (see also Crowfoot and Chesler 1996; and Terry 1996). She asserts that white participation in racist practices and relationships entails direct social, emotional, and economic costs for whites. In essence, whites sacrifice their integrity when they cooperate with racism. It is in their interest to challenge racism, therefore, and to redefine a whiteness divested from complicity in racist practices and relationships. To this end, Rose invites participants to eject guilt through reidentifying with their white ancestry.

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Without undermining the change in consciousness that such programs stimulate in some participants, on the whole these approaches to antiracism fail to sufficiently raise questions of how whites conceive of themselves as whites (engaging relationality), and how whiteness came to dominate Western consciousness and social institutions (engaging contextuality). Why racism is problematic (engaging criticality) is often taken up only as a question of whites’ personal loss of their humanity, their integrity, and even of their social advantage (Crowfoot and Chesler 1996). Perhaps valuable and meaningful for many, this approach to racism as a kind of human development project of self-discovery and redemption neglects the underlying context of history and social structure, and ongoing relations to racialized others (see Bailey 1999). Its silence about the commonplace contradictions in understandings about racism, subjectivity, inequality, and racialized identity implies that these workshops settle for social relations as they stand rather than invest in the dismantling of inequitable social relations. The consequence is racism’s whirlwind debut for a dilettante audience in which participants may diverge from critical paths in examining whiteness. Rose, for example, encourages white members to simply proclaim their pride in being white (in discovering their personal version of white ethnicity and oppression), and Robert Terry advises his group to “be authentic” in assuming individual and personal responsibility for problems often projected onto racialized groups. In support of this approach to antiracism and one that testifies, to my mind, to its serious limitations, Robert Blauner states, Development of anti-racist consciousness in white people does not always require direct confrontation with racist beliefs, but is moved by any process that enhances self-knowledge and personal development. Thus, virtually all of today’s personal growth, consciousness, self-help, and political movements can be viewed as allies in anti-racist work . . . Whether the internal changes are political, emotional, spiritual, or some combination of the three, they enhance the potential for a greater understanding of racism. (1995, 134)

To serve these goals, Blauner recommends an adoption of the popular 12-step approach to self-development and recovery. The gap between this and a relational, much less a contextual approach to a critical examination of whiteness is conspicuous. The limitations of antiracism workshops lie in their inattention to the reticulations between whiteness and the sets of social relations in which its power unfolds. Whiteness does not prevail in autonomy. It is suspended in symbolic and material interdependence with the racialized

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other and through structures such as those evinced in analyses of the political economy of racism. Yet relational approaches to working through whiteness need not exclude the subjectivity or agency accentuated in antiracism workshops. Whiteness negotiates social difference as it produces and reproduces conditions for hegemony. Those conditions originate in particular contexts. Some of these are historical; others are associated with the complex ways in which whiteness is animated by human actors. I now turn to some examples of work that contextualizes the issue of working through whiteness.

Examining Whiteness Contextually: Social History The first way to contextualize whiteness is to specify a temporal or historical dimension. Questions of when and where racialized whiteness emerged in Asia and Europe are taken up by Bonnett (1998a). Contrary to expectations, Bonnett finds that Europe had no monopoly on white identity. Whiteness emerged as a social category in premodern China and the Middle East, rather, where neither its dominance nor its meaning were singular. The denial of these other forms of white identity provoked a European fetish of whiteness obsessed with exclusion, prohibition, and interracial sex. With respect to the specific emergence of whiteness among the British working class, Bonnett (1998b) fuses white racialization and social class to changes in the economic structure in Britain. Bonnett traces the transition from white as a bourgeois identity during Britain’s colonial era and laissez-faire capitalism to ‘white’ as a popularist identity in the welfare state. British working class identification with whiteness generated new forms of community based on race, class, labor unionism, consumerism, and welfare liberalism. This social organization was seized as the basis for exclusion of nonwhites since benefits of the welfare state were perceived as threatened by racialized outsiders. Bonnett’s work serves to qualify an established literature on the historical context of whiteness centered upon the United States. I refer to the history of labor and political organization read through the prism of whiteness as provided by David Roediger (1991), Alexander Saxton (1990), Noel Ignatiev (1995), Theodore Allen (1994, 1997), and Matthew Jacobson (1998). Roediger’s The Wages of Whiteness (1991) and Allen’s The Invention of the White Race (1994, 1997) will serve as exemplars of the “genre.” These works demonstrate that the category of whiteness emerged in particular historical, political and economic milieus, wholly dependent upon that of a racialized and subordinate other. The Wages of Whiteness emphasizes the construction of whiteness through the organization of labor relations in the nineteenth

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century. Prior to the American Revolution of 1775–1781, both Roediger and Allen note that black and white groups in the South associated in labor and in social life. During this period, northern whites derived relief from their knowledge that enslaved blacks represented a population for whom even whites’ tenuous hold on independence and barely tolerable work conditions were worse. If wage labor felt like, and even sometimes was articulated as a kind of slavery, northern whites were soon persuaded to believe in a fundamental difference between their circumstances and that of the black slaves to the south, a difference that extended beyond its obvious political purchase. Allen (1997) argues that employers were fighting memories of Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1676 in which slaves, indentured servants, and poor whites united under the leadership of Nathaniel Bacon led an organized attack against the planter class. The main rebel force, Allen reports, were “African-American and Anglo bond laborers together demanding an end to bond servitude” (1994, 17). Viewed with great alarm by the propertied class throughout the colonies, the event substantiated the portentous outcome of interracial interaction. Allen maintains that it was fear of a repetition of Bacon’s Rebellion that contributed to intentionally cultivated antagonisms between black and white laborers into the nineteenth century. After the American Revolution, it was in the interest of capital that wage labor and slave labor be sharply differentiated. The black population symbolized the antithesis of labor republicanism rhetoric, that is, a work force created in liberty, dignity, and independence. To this end, preexisting networks between white and black workers were severed. White workers were encouraged to abandon the metaphor “wage slavery” in the interest of forming a cohesive labor force in terms of both race and class. Roediger cites historical documents deliberately disrupting the idea of wage slavery for whites, declaring that “Capital was the Master” and that employers were themselves mere servants (1991, 71, 73). The metaphor of wage slavery met other forms of compromise. Roediger states that the term was not evoked in solidarity with slaves but as part of the campaign to end inappropriate oppression of whites. Emancipation from slavery became a symbol for working-class whites but was soon challenged by organized white labor movements concerned with maintaining white supremacy in the workplace. Further, the metaphor provided working-class whites with a psychic distance from the reality of chattel slavery. This process entailed the development of an ideology of essential difference embodied by a racialized other. The new republic engaged the slogan of freedom but sustained a dependency on the enslaved as a touchstone against which it generated itself. Fundamental difference between white and black workers (and

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Native people; see Allen 1994, 1997) was a fabrication deliberated through legal, economic, and ideological means to buttress the interests of an emerging white middle-class. In a related argument, Roediger writes that as whites sought membership in the new enterprise of capitalism, they projected onto a constructed blackness all the qualities that were suppressed yet still desired: qualities such as spontaneity, sensuousness, expressiveness, gratification, and the inseparability of public and private. Desire for a preindustrial form of life as embodied by a putative black culture transformed into a vilification of those very qualities that were lost to whites. Meanings of independence, industriousness, mobility, freedom, and individuality were produced alongside an image of a population considered lacking in such qualities. In such practices as minstrelsy and outward acts of racial violence, blacks were widely characterized as resisting conformity to alienated working-class life under capitalism. Such images unified an ethnically diverse white working class and displaced their anxieties about their own sacrifices onto a racialized other. Respectable ways of being in emergent capitalism were thus contingent upon the construction of their opposite cast in racialized terms. The white working class was formed precisely against an enslaved class. Analyses of colonialism, imperialism, and nation building are integral in examining whiteness contextually and temporally. “The very existence of Empire,” write Robert Miles and Anna Phizacklea, “was viewed [as] the outcome of the struggle between superior and inferior ‘races,’ an outcome in which the labour of the inferior ‘races’ had been appropriated not only to ensure ‘their’ advancement towards ‘civilization’ but also, and especially, ‘our’ advancement to the position of Great Britain, workshop of the world” (1984, 12–13). In Canada, writings on the relationship between state formation and preferential practices among groups are more extensive than I can adequately reflect here. Howard Palmer, for example, describes “patterns of prejudice” during the European settlement of Canada. Church and state authorities clearly preferred immigrants from Britain to those from anywhere else as the desire to establish a racial hegemony in Canada was expressed through practices to maintain a specifically Anglo-Saxon citizenship. In the early twentieth century, debates about the future of the nation frequently concerned the preservation of the white race. One moral reformer, for example, expressed his hope that in Canada’s Eastern European immigrants, the “race will assert itself and reproduce in the children of these people the old English character and the old English strength” (in Valverde 1991, 113). Mariana Valverde explains that the “slippery term ‘race’ allowed Anglo-Saxons to think of themselves as both a specific race and as the vanguard of the human race as

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a whole. . . . as Anglo-Saxons progressed or declined, so would the world” (1991, 109–110). Beliefs in fundamental racial differences served the reluctance of the dominant Canadian culture to offer immigrants permanent and meaningful membership in Canadian society. Roxana Ng (1993 a, b) provides an exemplar of an approach to Canadian state formation that underscores the question of ethnicity and race. Ng argues that meanings of ethnicity and race proceed from particular political and ideological processes such as colonization and emigration, or more generally from struggles for domination and control within the culture of capitalism. She shows that nation building was thoroughly penetrated by racial domination. Indeed, for Ng, “the history of ethnic and gender relations is the history of Canadian state formation” (1993b, 186, emphasis added). Assuming European superiority in ideology, religion, industry, private property, family relations, and labor relations, Canada was created through a vision of white domination. It was this model that vindicated racialization of groups together with their systematic oppression. Works such as these are invaluable in substantiating the mechanisms with which the meaning of white and social difference were constructed in the social imagination. They support theories of racialization regarding the fluctuating meanings of raced categories through history. But they do more than this. They show that the process of systematic differentiation of groups and inequitable distribution of social rewards among them were an effect of historical conditions, specifically the capitalist division of labor and state formation. For Roediger, Ng, and their colleagues, racism did not precede political or economic arrangements but arose from them. Social relations in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century North America may have been unjust and inequitable but they were also rationalized and legitimated in the context of a coalescence of a white dominated polity.

Examining Whiteness Contextually: Intersecting Locations of Identity A second way contextuality may be defined involves a spatial dimension in which white racefulness is inextricably linked to other dimensions of social identity, including gender, class, religion, ethnicity, and sexuality. The model of identity as a site of intersecting positions suggests that meanings of race and gender are multiple and produced through “a variety of both contradictory and mutually reinforcing discourses, practices, and social structures” (Dugger 1995, 145). Socially nuanced subjectivity is contingent upon the prevailing culture, the interpretive community, and particular relations of power. There are

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conceptual overlaps here between the model of identity as intersecting social markers and the postmodern concept of identity as constituting a shifting, fragmented space characterized by contradictory effects (Ellsworth 1989; Weedon 1987; de Lauretis 1986). While these theoretical approaches have traditionally been applied to feminist identity, they are only now being read through whiteness. In qualifying whiteness by class and gender as well as by economic networks of production and consumption that transcend racial borders, representing it is a function of identity is immeasurably complicated.9 This form of contextuality serves as a foundation for a more penetrating analysis of whiteness as identity location and dynamic cultural process. Elizabeth Ellsworth remarks that “white people are never just white. We are also always positioned within gender, language, sexuality, class, ability, size, ethnicity, and age. . . . ” (1997, 266). Moreover, whiteness is best conceptualized not as a static identity abstracted from the vagaries of experience, but as a social relation, “a dynamic of cultural production and interrelation . . . a learned social and cultural performance” Ellsworth portrays one woman’s narrative of her family witnessing an incident in the American Midwest in which a black man narrowly escapes lynching. In this text, a version of whiteness emerges from a thoroughly contradictory form of identity. A perverse pleasure derived from the expression of a collective race hatred coexists with guilt, shame, and silence about the consequences of the family’s “performance” of whiteness. But for Ellsworth, the problem is more than one of “contradictory consciousness.” It involves a double bind in which whiteness is reducible only to itself (266).10 When whiteness is erected as an essentialist construct, it neglects other competing identities that are themselves in flux, multiple, and open to shifting cultural processes: “At some times and in some places, those privileges and that safety that come with white skin can be temporarily and problematically overriden or eclipsed by the oppressions and discriminations associated with queerness, Jewishness, femaleness, poverty, homelessness” (266). Contextualizing white identity as a problematic category acts as gateway to an explosion of identity charted with contradictory and unstable bearings. Whiteness itself becomes a field where meanings are contested, recede, and diverge. As Ellsworth suggests, whiteness demands qualification in considerations of social class. For working-class and poor whites who cannot take economic security for granted, prospects of white skin privilege are not at all clear. In addition, meritocracy and individualistic explanations of personal success are mitigated by fluctuating economic and political conditions affecting working-class whites. That is, if all whites benefit from the belief that personal merit and

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innate talent promote economic well-being, the personal implications of “downward mobility” are more likely to oppress members of the white working-class than the white middle-class. Critical examinations of white privilege and the political economy of whiteness tempt an image of white as universally middle-class. This image excludes the reality of poor whites. Matthew Wray and Annalee Newitz (1997; see also Newitz and Wray 1997; Hartigan 1997a, b) state that the category “white trash” for poor whites dramatically testifies to the overlap between race and class, the neglect of which spells an undesirable simplification in examining whiteness. Studying the class nuances within whiteness aids in the understanding of racism, the effects of capitalism upon disaffected groups, and the conflicting agendas among white groups. White trash embodies an overdetermined marginality11 through white victimization, federal welfare rollbacks, and downturns in traditionally blue-collar employment sectors. The explicitly raced and classed category also epitomizes the lack of community resources or community identity that middle-class whites may claim, a quality often romanticized as integral to the identity and culture of racialized others as well. Poor whites “are the proof of the lie of the American dream” (Dunbar 1997, 77) because they symbolize the condition of a white privilege that is always impaired. For Wray and Newitz, white trash is the white other reflecting all that middle-class whiteness struggles against should it momentarily lose its hold on its own unstable identity. A similar problem concerns Weis, Proweller, and Centrie (1997) with respect to the specific relationship between masculinity, workingclass identity, and whiteness. The seamlessness between whiteness and privilege has been interrupted among the white working-class men studied by these writers. Distanced from some aspects of middle-class whiteness, the men justify their presumed entitlement to jobs in ways that impinge upon the rights of racialized others to the same jobs. These justifications are often similar to those used by middle-class whites (see Wellman 1993, McIntyre 1997, or Jackman 1996). Contradictions are encountered when the men try to “sustain both an identity within dominance and the very hierarchies which assure their ongoing domination” (213). The researchers present the ways that the men construct a vilified, racialized other in contrast to whom they appear more capable and deserving of desired jobs. They identify racialized others as the source of their troubles in finding respectable jobs and maintaining pleasant neighborhoods and family relations while declaring themselves innocent of participating in exclusionary racist practices. Feeling chronically under siege, they maintain a diligence in patrolling neighborhood borders for example, but fail to see

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this activity as perpetuating racial divisions. The pattern of white defensiveness is visible in the finding that “not one of the white men we interviewed held elites accountable for the relocation of industry, closing of industries, and so forth . . . [They]trade on their whiteness . . . a way of being white, and therefore dominant, at the expense of seriously analyzing the system and what it has, in fact, done to working-class white men” (214, 215). Whiteness qualified by gender is a crucial dimension of contextuality. In 1983, Marilyn Frye was among the first academics to write of whiteness12 as primarily a political designation. Her writing is in part a response to the charges of racism and white insularism raised by black feminists against white mainstream feminism in the late 1970s and early 1980s.13 In her essay, Frye acknowledges that the feminist movement had conceptualized white interests as universal and that universalization suppresses crucial and incommensurable difference among women along racial lines. Claims of representativeness are a manifestation of white racism, Frye explains (1983, 126), and she attempts to explain its etiology. In a move similar to that of Adrienne Rich, Frye names patriarchy as the larger structure responsible for the conditions that give rise to oppression of white women and their racism. Rich states this position well: “Women did not create the power relationship between master and slave . . . but in the history of American slavery and racism white women have been impressed into its service, not only as the marriage-property and creature-objects of white men, but as their active and passive instruments . . . . (1979, 281–2) Slavery and segregation were not conditions peculiar only to institutionalized racism, but dominant practices of patriarchy. . . . (283) It is her racism, yes, but a racism learned in the same patriarchal school which taught her that women are unimportant or unequal. . . . ” (303)

For these white feminists who fold the problem of white women’s racism into the problem of white men’s sexism, it is patriarchy that creates racial divisions between women’s groups. Martha Mahoney (1997) interpolates an additional link between a patriarchy responsible for white women’s gender oppression and white women’s racism. She modifies the relationship between gender oppression and white privilege as paradoxically hegemonic and “invisible” to whites but in a way that preserves the primacy of patriarchy: “A white woman lives the tension between ongoing oppression and the attempt to effectuate her life as if inside a bubble of dominant culture. . . . Feeling unlike an agent in

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one’s life, noticing only the ways in which one is not powerful, may be a vision of the self which depends on the transparency of the ways in which one is privileged” (642). White women’s privilege may function as a struggle for agency and power delimited by patriarchy. This strategy affords some degree of dignity to white women, though at the expense of racialized others, and at the price of their silent complicity with their own domination. A decade later, Frye (1992) expands her position but does not substantially diverge from her discussion of 1983. She establishes (and on two issues reestablishes) three points: first, that it is a mistake to regard white women as privileged in an absolute sense when it is the experience of gynephobia, rape, objectification, violence, material dependency, powerlessness, harassment, and murder that leads white women to organize against patriarchy; second, that for white women, whiteness is amalgamated with gender oppression; and third, there is a normative apparatus produced and upheld by an elite group characterized by whiteness and middle-classedness that prevails upon whites as a whole regardless of ethnicity, culture, and class (159). Despite criticisms that may be brought to bear upon her thesis, Frye does provide insight into whiteness as “a deeply ingrained way of being in the world” (151), the struggle against which incurs a network of tensions. Borrowing from the social roles of whiteness explained by Minnie Bruce Pratt (1984), Frye submits this assessment of the dilemma for whites: No wonder whitely people have so much trouble learning, so much trouble receiving, understanding and acting on moral or political criticism and demands for change. How can you be a preacher who does not know right from wrong, a judge who is an incompetent observer, a martyr who victimizes others, a peace-maker who is the problem, an authority without authority, a grownup who is a child? How can someone who is supposed to be running the world acknowledge their relative powerlessness in some matters in any politically constructive way? Any serious moral or political challenge to a whitely person must be a direct threat to her or his very being. (1992, 157)

The debate on whiteness and gender is reformulated by Ruth Frankenberg (1993). In her celebrated study, she neither reduces white racism to a problem of patriarchy nor annihilates hope from the desire to reject racism. Rendering whiteness as constructed alongside class, age, sexuality, personal politics, and ethnicity, Frankenberg ushers agency back into the dialogue. The critical activity for Frankenberg is not to articulate whiteness in the abstract but to interrogate whiteness

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as a social dynamic lived by particular people at particular times and places (236). In her empirical study of thirty women’s narratives, she extends the problem of conceptualizing a whiteness that is dually hegemonic and unknown by specifying its operant and relational mechanisms. Frankenberg refers here to color and power evasiveness in a theoretically syncretic analysis of “how white people’s positions in the racial order are produced through the interplay of discourses on race with the material relations of racism” (21). Frankenberg finds that the women’s knowledge of race and racism was always mediated by biography, and biography, in turn, was always mediated through a racially structured environment. Tensions and contradictions permeate the narratives, whether their particular content concerns childhood exposure to social difference, the overlaps between race and sex, personal relationships, whiteness and white culture, racism, or whites’ participation in a racially stratified society. Perhaps the most salient contradiction is contained in Frankenberg’s observation that racialization thoroughly influences white lives even while these subjects pronounce their detachment from racialization. Indeed, they draw upon “discursive repertoires” to normalize or conceal the effects of racial injustice in their lives and those of racialized others. Whiteness confers contradictory attributes upon whites. Examining whiteness contextually or more specifically in terms of variegations of identity involves interrogating issues of class and gender. The writers selected here expand the project through interpolation of tensions: a mitigated privilege; a white marginality; a negotiated hegemony; a deflection of white racism; a gendered critique of white defensiveness; a whiteness inconsistently performed. These tensions arise from the ways whiteness is lived and the ways privilege is made sense of by these social actors through their classed and gendered locations. Contextualizing whiteness spatially expands a simplistic framing of the category but may leave open or at least complicate the problem of racism. In what ways does a whiteness spliced by gender and class maintain active participation in systems of domination? Writers take divergent positions on the question, even redirecting it to other, overarching problems such as patriarchy. Discussions of poor whites may sidestep the question altogether. Racism, however, may conveniently siphon off poor whites’ frustrations over threats to jobs, culture, space, and respectability. The problematic junctures of class and gender verify no sure relationship to social structures that could uniformly contextualize racism and white privilege. Given these complexities, any proposal to abandon whiteness would raise more questions than it resolves. Yet

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this is precisely the direction the publication Race Traitor takes. These points occupy the remainder of this chapter.

Race Traitor and the Problem of Contextuality Race Traitor began as a periodical publication in the United States in 1992 and was intended to accompany a social movement which its founders call the New Abolitionism. The selections from the journal in book form (Ignatiev and Garvey 1996) are the main source to which I will refer here. In Race Traitor “abolitionism” does not refer to the overthrow of the institution of slavery for blacks even as the founders of Race Traitor identify that historical moment as giving rise to their predecessors (notably John Brown and the interracial uprising at Harper’s Ferry in 1859). It refers to the abolishment of the white race so that whites may gain their freedom from the enslavement of their cooperation in racism. This enslavement prohibits whites from embracing their authentic identity as truly “American,” meaning for Ignatiev and Garvey, “incontestably mulatto” (1996, 20). The slogan of Race Traitor is “Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” From the perspective of Race Traitor, no movement or social action to eradicate racism can be successful if “race” remains a meaningful concept. Antiracism and other movements that express only sympathy for racially oppressed groups constitutes “false empathy” rather than the kind of radical work that is really required by whites (Delgado 1997, 617). The tenets of the Race Traitor movement are as follows:14: (1) Race is inscribed into every political controversy, but racial distinctions are a result of historical and ongoing social injustices. (2) A chief result of these injustices is racism, that is, the differential treatment and social rewards conferred upon whites relative to blacks (and other subordinate racialized groups). (3) Racism must be fought. (4) Whites (or “so-called whites,” to use the language of Race Traitor) must assume a special role in that struggle because of their unfair advantage in the social order. (5) The role that so-called whites must assume is that of relinquishing their participation in all practices that reinforce racism or that arise from the racist organization of society as well as forfeiting the social privileges accorded to whites. This role is that of race traitor. (6) Race traitors work to absolve themselves from the mistaken identity of whiteness whenever the opportunity to do so appears. That is, whenever there is an opportunity to take advantage of one’s white privilege, either through personal choice or through the invitation of other white “club

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members,” the race traitor chooses to abandon his or her putative whiteness in order to claim solidarity with racially subordinate groups. (7) This action will be manifest, behavioral, disruptive, and absolute. Examples include violating racial preferences when providing social services, demonstrating solidarity in protesting racial exclusion from public places or social institutions, publicly denying one’s whiteness, living in urban areas, intermarriage, and speaking up about racist educational, legal, employment, and policing practices. The difference, Ignatiev explains, between appropriation of black culture and acting as race traitor is the willingness to “pay the dues” that inevitably results when a so-called white refuses to claim the dividends that accrue to whiteness.15 While I generally support the idea that race and difference are the effect rather than the cause of inequalities played out through racial lines, Race Traitor makes the error of attacking the effect to the neglect of the cause. For race traitors, whiteness is nothing more than a false identity based on unjust practices and a collective conformity to a white exclusiveness. Whiteness and white privilege are thus the correct loci for radical opposition: “The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race. . . . Race itself is a product of social discrimination; so long as the white race exists, all movements against racism are doomed to fail” (Ignatiev and Garvey 1996, 10). This solution to the problem is a facile one for those who believe that working through whiteness must be thoroughly contextual. Yet this is precisely what Race Traitor fails to do. It disregards how racism is elaborated in our society, the myriad ways it reticulates with subjectivity and personal choice, what racism means and how it is experienced by blacks and whites both (and other groups, the specificities of which Race Traitor lets recede into the background), the deep investment whites have in sustaining their race privilege and the mechanisms and justifications they employ to do so,16 the way society is “structured in dominance,” and the roles that language and ideology play in reproducing racism and racialized difference. Racism must be understood not as overt, recognizable and public acts of exclusion or hatred, but as complex overdetermined processes that engage macro and micro phenomena simultaneously. The network of racism delimits the overall impact made by singular challenges to any one of its dimensions.17 Howard Winant concurs: “On the practical level, the argument goes, whites can become ‘race traitors’ by rejecting their privilege, by refusing to collude with white supremacy. When you hear that racist joke, confront its teller. When you see the police harassing a nonwhite youth, try to intervene or at least bear witness” (1997, 48).

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Whiteness is sufficiently powerful a social category (if not a biological one) to effectively resist even concerted efforts at its dismantling, argues Winant. It is embedded not only as a cherished belief and collective identity to which unspoken claims confer innumerable perquisites, but it is also embedded within complex systems of social structures and significations that are resistant to challenge. Moreover, as Winant points out, as long as whiteness is permeated with other dominant cultural markers like religion, individualism, socioeconomic status, social mobility, nationalism, and so on, it will likely continue to erect robust defenses for its own survival however disingenuous that survival may be. It is ironic to note the connection between Race Traitor and Ignatiev’s work on social history that specifies the context in which a compelling whiteness was constructed. Yet Race Traitor stifles the very context from which it evolved. This fundamental neglect of social context underlies other issues of concern in Race Traitor. As we have seen, some critics argue that systems of privilege do not accrue unconditionally to whiteness (specifically in the case of poor and working-class whites). Ignatiev and Garvey, however, do not support the idea that white privilege is mitigated by class (1996, 9–10), and they acknowledge their neglect of whiteness and gender (275). In addition, Race Traitor adapts more easily to individual acts than to coordinated and presumably more effective collective social action. Implicit in Race Traitor is the reduction of racism to a concatenation of individual racist acts just as easily undone by public acts of opposition by whites working to abandon their white status. In the actuality of racism as lived experience, however, it is doubtful whether individualistic public acts of opposition to equally individualistic public acts of racism would make a significant difference in the lives of racialized groups. Finally, Race Traitor tells whites to break the rules of the “white club membership” but fails to describe the nature of those rules and how they operate. It infers that treason to whiteness can be accomplished perhaps through some mystified change in consciousness in which whites might become aware of their “true” identity and role in the transformation of society. The Race Traitor manifesto does not recognize that for most whites, whiteness is axiomatically void of meaning or that it is suggestive of profound contradictions between power and neutrality: “It is our faith—and with those who do not share it we shall not argue—that the majority of socalled whites in this country are neither deeply nor consciously committed to white supremacy; like most human beings in most times and places, they would do the right thing it if were convenient” (Ignatiev and Garvey 1996, 12).

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George Yúdice (1995) points out that if, as Race Traitor contends, it were simply a matter of whites doing the right thing given the opportunity, racism would be a simple thing indeed. The failure to adequately contextualize racism—and ultimately what race treason might really require—means that Race Traitor dismisses the siege mentality of many whites who are concerned with diminishing opportunities in the current economy. This oversight is especially troubling since disaffected white youth in particular (and angry whites in general) comprise a key group to whom Race Traitor is directed (Delgado 1997, 617; Ignatiev and Garvey 1996, 95, 43; Newitz 1997). Marilyn Frye articulates another criticism of race treason for whites, though she makes no reference to that movement by name. This excerpt follows a discussion of the will to “dissolve or dismantle the race as such” as well as the monumental loss incurred for “members of the oppressor groups” in the decision to “abolish races” (1992, 164-5). Here, she refers to the directive for whites to voluntarily relinquish their membership in whiteness while noting the racial inequity upon which such a recommendation is based. In addition, she notes another possibility that such a choice might represent for some: This strategy of “separation” is vulnerable to a variety of criticism. A white woman cannot cease having the history she has by some sort of divorce ritual. Furthermore, the renunciation of whiteness may be act of self-loathing rather than an act of liberation. And disassociation from the race-group one was born into might seem to be an option for white folks, but seems either not possible or not politically desirable to most members of the other groups from which the whites set themselves off. This criticism suggests that my thinking of disassociating from membership in the white fraternity is just another exercise (hence, another reinforcement) of that white privilege which I was finding so onerous and attempting to escape.” (1992, 150)

Frye correctly realizes that the option to choose the terms of one’s racial membership in social relations is a function of white privilege itself. Disaffiliation from whiteness is exercised through the racial domination from which the race traitor attempts to withdraw.

Conclusion Of what value is this tripartite framework—the critical, the relational, the contextual? To begin in a negative mode, I would prefer to believe that its value lies not in its power to classify works into one of three types. Nor does it exhaust possibilities for categorizing all of the literature. This would require far more space and more of those euphemistic

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resources. My hope is that, even in its brevity, the critical/relational/ contextual framework may have heuristic value with applications in reading, writing, teaching, and researching whiteness. Perhaps this effort is best regarded as a step toward a model for analyzing and evaluating the growing and disparate corpus of work on whiteness and white racialization. I suspect there is no escaping the normativity of this movement “toward.” It is clear that I endorse a critical/relational/contextual approach to working through whiteness or at least encourage its exploration in readings, professional work, or social action. My discussion of the examples found in this chapter, both positive and negative, illustrate this point. I obviously support the work of Hurtado and Stewart, Elizabeth Ellsworth, George Lipsitz, David Roediger, and the others mentioned in these pages. I am disturbed on the other hand by developments in some white studies programs and workshops. Race Traitor also raises some concerns, though of a different order. And what of the number of examples? Surely, they could have been far greater, and in an earlier (and much longer) draft of this chapter it was so. At one time, I wanted to write an annotated bibliography or a more comprehensive literature review, perhaps prematurely some would say. That project already threatens with exclusion, particularly the classic works of black writers like W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Audré Lorde who have been so instrumental in teaching whites about whiteness.18 It could be that all texts are, in a sense, about whiteness. Toni Morrison (1992) has argued this point most convincingly with respect to English literature. Whiteness has tended to render the world through epistemic reflection of itself. This point notwithstanding, this volume contributes to whiteness as a distinct “research agenda” (Bonnett 1996). Its relationship with established work on racism and social inequality is one of both interdependence and asymmetry. The recent “discovery” of whiteness among some white scholars testifies to its peculiar power to know itself only now (and in proliferation at that). At least the work has begun, albeit in its necessarily problematic way.

Notes 1. In this critically informed project, structural and cultural dimensions can be integrated to form a comprehensive picture of the way racism is experienced and established. I am arguing here that the macro dimensions of structural racism or the way it has been organized through broad historical, economic, legal, political, and educational systems, and the micro dimensions of cultural approaches to racism that elaborate social actors’ consciousness, their active engagement with an inequitable social order, and their struggles against the everyday experience of racism actually converge to produce the processes that

344 Cynthia Levine-Rasky define social difference and sustain racial inequality. A theoretically and methodologically integrative approach not only addresses the full spectrum of racist practices, but accounts for the overdetermination of racism in the lives of all social actors. Leslie Roman is describing an integrative approach to analyzing whiteness when she advises that “we begin to destabilize the concept of ‘race,’ supplanting it with analyses of our own locations within the cultural processes and structural effects of racism” (1993, 78 emphasis added). In a more recent publication, she confirms this integrative strategy with these remarks: “If we take seriously the idea that the defensiveness of individuals is not unrelated to institutional defensiveness and its systemic effects, then the rich theoretical resources within postcolonialism, materialism, feminism, and psychoanalysis may need to form a new hybrid relationship” (1997, 276). The theoretical perspectives associated with each of the examples selected for this chapter are only occasionally commensurable. I am less concerned about providing absolute consistency in this regard than I am in introducing and drawing together potentially disparate views for how whiteness may be examined critically, relationally, and contextually. I hope that whatever value is gleaned from this consolidation of material on whiteness might override or even justify the problem of theoretical inconsistency. 2. Other examples of writing on critical whiteness are too abundant for elaboration here. They include Bhabha (1998), Kincheloe and Steinberg (1988), Fine (1997), Giroux (1997), and McLaren (1997). In addition, see the collections edited by Fine, Weis, Powell, and Wong (1997), Delgado and Stefancic (1997), Hill (1997c), Frankenberg (1997b), and Kincheloe, Steinberg, Rodriguez, and Chennault (1998). 3. This trend reflects a Celtic revival in its home countries in the United Kingdom as well. Gabriel (1998) describes the rise in public demands to learn Gaelic, for Celtic television stations, and for Celtic dance, music, and literature in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. 4. Klezmer is a genre of predominantly East European Jewish instrumental folk music, early forms of which date back to the sixteenth century. A revival of the genre is well under way in major North American cities which have large Jewish populations. 5. For this useful and perhaps more meaningful version of the term that escapes much of the baggage of its use in education and other areas, I attribute Britzman, Santiago-Válles, Jiménez-Múnoz, and Lamash (1993). 6. In his work on white youth, Charles Gallagher (1994) challenges the assertion that whiteness has meaning only in relation to the meaning of other. Articulating elaborate narratives of immigrant oppression, economic vulnerability, and continued faith in equal opportunity, Gallagher argues that white youths fabricate a white totality greater than the sum of its parts and not contingent upon a relation to the racialized other. There is an irony, however, in Gallagher’s findings evident in the youths’ “racist fantasies” of

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white persecution. In their quest to forge a redeemed white identity, these white youth fall back upon entrenched racist notions of a vilified racialized other rebuked for their personal “failure” in a presumably fair meritocratic system. See Hill (1997b) for an argument that diverges in content from Gallagher’s but is similar with respect to fashioning a critical nonrelational whiteness as a “lateral critique by white folks” (156). 7. Bailey (1999) notes two organizations offering similar programs: The People’s Institute for Survival in New Orleans, and Joan Olsson’s “Cultural Bridges” in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. 8. From Dyer (1997, 10). 9. Analysis goes beyond the observation that whiteness is inexorably bonded to social class and gender (see Hurtado and Stewart 1997, 300; Frankenberg 1997a; Gabriel 1998). This section reviews works on the intersections between whiteness and class and gender to the exclusion of work on whiteness and religion, ethnicity, and disability. Space was the determining factor in this decision. 10. See Levine-Rasky (2000) for discussion of this point. 11. There may be contradictions embedded even in marginality. Newitz (1997) describes white trash as framed by the contradiction of self-hatred (evident in the pop music lyrics of some white grunge bands) that, in its preemptive strike, conceals a white superiority. The humility of white trash doubles as a kind of grace if it is self-inflicted, she claims. 12. Frye uses the term “whiteliness” to link the purely racialized marker “white” to a specifically social signification. I believe her term can be used interchangeably with “whiteness.” 13. Cherrié Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, for example, state that “white women of economic and educational privilege have used that privilege at the expense of Third World women. . . . Racism affects all of our lives, but it is only white women who can ‘afford’ to remain oblivious to these effects. The rest of us have had it breathing or bleeding down our necks” (1983, 61–62). 14. See www.postfun.com/racetraitor/welcome.html and also www. alliswell.com/newabolition. The idea of “race traitor” for whites may have emerged in this formulation in the 1990s but versions of it have appeared in earlier feminist work. In an essay on the overlaps between feminism, racism, and gynephobia, for example, Adrienne Rich (1979) commends a response to the tandem problems of gender and race oppression that has obvious convergences with the idea of race traitor. “Disloyalty to civilization” also serves as title for the essay but she neglects to expound on the meaning of that project. Marilyn Frye’s call for white feminists to “cease being white” (1992, 148) could favor the principles of Race Traitor, but seems to have come from beyond its ranks. In addition, it is important to note that Frye’s prescription is given with the proviso that it is no “panacea for the eradication of racism” and that more must be done to meet that end (1992, 163). Still, Frye has a great deal to

346 Cynthia Levine-Rasky say about taking a stance that is remarkably similar to that of Race Traitor. Some excerpts will demonstrate my point: What this can mean to white people is that we are not white by nature but by political classification, and hence it is in principle possible to disaffiliate. If being white is not finally a matter of skin color, which is beyond our power to change, but of politics and power, then perhaps white individuals in a white supremacist society are not doomed to dominance by logic or nature. (1983, 118) We might then include among our strategies for change a practice of unlearning whiteliness, and as we proceed in this, we can only become less and less well-assimilated members of that racial group called “white.” (1992, 163) I have some hope that if I can manage to refuse to enact, embody, animate this category—the white race—as I am supposed to, I can free up my energies and actions from a range of disabling confinements and burdens, and align my will with the forces which eventually will dissolve or dismantle the race as such. (1992, 164) 15. For an elaboration of what this may mean, I draw from Marilyn Frye in a statement with strong parallels to Race Traitor: “If it is objected that it is an exercise of white privilege to dissociate myself from the white race this way, I would say that in fact this project is strictly forbidden by the rules of white solidarity and white supremacy, and is not one of the privileges of white power. . . . [I]t can sound very threatening to some of the people whose races are thus to be erased. . . . For members of oppressor groups to suddenly turn around and decide to abolish races would be, it seems, genocide, not liberation” (Frye 1992, 164–5). 16. See for example, Peeple’s “catechisms of apologetics” in Ignatiev and Garvey (1996, 82). 17. See Alcoff (1998) for another discussion of these points. 18. See David Roediger’s (1998) book Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to Be White.

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Contributors David Bedford is a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick. He has published his work in the journals Review of International Studies, Alternatives, and History of European Ideas. His book, The Tragedy of Progress: Marxism Modernity and the Aboriginal Question (with Danielle Irving) was published in 2001 (Fernwood Press, Halifax). Email: [email protected] Alastair Bonnett is a reader in social geography at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He is the author of White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives (Prentice Hall, 2000), Anti-Racism (Routledge, 2000), and How to Argue (Prentice Hall, 2001) and is currently working on a history of western modernity. Email: [email protected] Helen Harper is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario, where she teaches English, cultural studies and critical and feminist pedagogy. She is author of Wild Words/Dangerous Desires: High School Girls and Feminist AvantGarde Writing (Peter Lang, 2000). Her research concerns issues of social difference, representation, and identity in relation to schooling. Most recently this work explores the discursive and material history of white and aboriginal women teaching in aboriginal communities of northern Canada. Andrew Jakubowicz is a professor of sociology at the University of Technology Sydney. He has also served as coordinator of international development in the faculty since 1996. Andrew has provided consultation on a number of major government policy issues such as the National Inquiry into Racist Violence and the New South Wales Migrant Heritage Centre. He is the editor and joint author of Racism Ethnicity and the Media (Allen and Unwin 1994), and was executive producer and research director on Making Multicultural Australia—A Multimedia Documentary (released in February, 1999). His current research involves developing Internet strategies in multicultural education and exploring the value of new media for the social sciences. The website for Making Multicultural Australia was launched in May 2001. Email: [email protected] Stephanie Kellington works as a community-based research consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she also engages in 353

354 Contributors

activism for social change and makes art. The research on which her chapter is based was done in partial fulfillment of the requirements for her M.A. degree in experimental psychology at Simon Fraser University. Cynthia Levine-Rasky is a sociologist and currently an instructor in the Division of Social Science at York University, Toronto. Her research on whiteness and educators has appeared in Race, Ethnicity and Education and International Studies in Sociology of Education. She has also published in the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, British Journal of Sociology of Education, The Urban Review, and elsewhere. Working Through Whiteness is her first book as editor. She is currently involved in a Social Science and Humanities Research Council-funded research project on the practice of social domination among a parent group in an urban elementary school. Email: [email protected] Marika Lindholm is a visiting professor in the Sociology Department at Northwestern University where she teaches courses on diversity and inequality. She has published in the area of Scandinavian welfare state formation and feminist politics. Renisa Mawani completed her doctoral dissertation at the Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto. Her interests are in the areas of race and law, postcolonial legal studies, moral regulation, and geography and law. Her current research explores the links between public health policies, immigration law, and deportation practices through the creation of D’Arcy Island, Canada’s first and only “Chinese” leper colony established off the coast of Vancouver Island. She has published in Canadian Journal of Women and the Law and Canadian Journal of Law and Society. She recently joined the Department of Sociology at Brock University. Email: [email protected]. Anoop Nayak is a lecturer in social and cultural geography in the Department of Geography at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has completed doctorate research on the cultural identities of white youth and continues to write about issues of whiteness, racism and ethnicity in young lives. He has recently published his work in Thinking Identities: Ethnicity, Racism, and Cultures (edited by Brah, Hickman, and Mac an Ghaill, 1999) and in the journals International Studies in Sociology of Education, and Body and Society. Jennifer A. Reich is a doctoral candidate in sociology, with a designated emphasis in feminist theory and research, at the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation is a study of how the State and parents experience and define each other within the context of the child protective services system.

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Jessica Ringrose is a Ph.D. candidate in the graduate program in sociology at York University. Her doctoral research is an ethnographic study of the dynamics of teaching and learning in a women’s studies course focused on issues of difference in race, class, and gender. Email: [email protected] Michael Alan Sacks is visiting assistant professor of organization and management at the Goizueta Business School and the Department of Sociology at Emory University. His research interests lie in the areas of economic sociology, social networks, and stratification. His current research investigates how patterns in U.S. venture capital funding from 1965 to 1998 shape opportunity structures for funding new entrepreneurial firms. Recent publications include analyses of repeated alliance ties among producers in the leather garment industry, methodological challenges in negotiation and dispute resolution research, and social network analyses of global trade. He received his Ph.D. in sociology and organization behavior at Northwestern University. Email: [email protected] L.A. (Livy) Visano is an associate professor at the School of Social Sciences, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, at York University. Recognized for his important contributions to antiracism, criminal justice, and teaching, he has contributed to numerous edited volumes on deviance, criminal justice, policing, and related issues. His work has been published in journals such as Identity, the Journal of Human Justice, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the International Journal of Comparative Sociology. He is the author of Crime and Culture: Refining the Traditions (Canadian Scholars Press, 1993). His forthcoming publication (with L. Jakubowski) is Teaching Controversy (Fernwood Press, Halifax). Email: Livy.Visano@mail. atkinson.yorku.ca W. Thom Workman teaches critical political economy and global studies at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. He is the author of The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War (Lynne Rienner, 1994) and Banking on Deception: The Discourse of Fiscal Crisis (Fernwood Books, 1996).

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Index Adoption Anti-Discrimination Act (U.S.), 180, 204 n. 1 affirmative action, 136–7 Allen, Theodore, 330–1 antiracism, 74, 81, 83, 86–7, 153, 155, 167, 169–171, 183, 258; and local history, 257, 261–2, 263 n. 6; and mostly white schools, 247; policy in schools, 242, 244, 248, 255, 257, 263 n. 9; and resistance, 243, 248–250, 254, 255–257, 262, 263 n. 10; and white youth, 242, 251, 254, 261; and whiteness, 254, 257, 303–4; workshops, 328–330 antiracist education, 271, 272; and teacher education, 270, 286. See also multicultural education Asian values, 92 n. 6 Australia: and Asians, 107–8; early population of, 107–8; ethnic composition of, 119; and globalization, 119; as a white settler colony, 107–8, 110, 123; and Indigenous people, 108–111; and multiculturalism, 108–10, 117; and opposition to immigrants, 118, 120; and refugees, 108, 120–2; and social hierarchies, 108; and social problems, 119 Australia, government of: and China, 120–1; Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 122; and immigration, 107–8, 110, 117–123, 124 n. 2; and lobby groups,

118–9; and multicultural departments, 110–11; and multicultural policy, 108–9; and the 1996 Wik case, 111, 116; and opposition to multicultural policy, 109–10, 117; and political leadership, 109–10; and political parties, 116, 118, 123 n. 1; and rights of Indigenous people, 109–111 Ballhatchet, Kenneth, 57 Bandung Conference, 91 Bannerji, Himani, 8, 292–3, 305–6 Bhabha, Homi, 324 black families, 180, 194–195 Blauner, Robert, 329 Bogardus, Emory, 129 Bonnett, Alastair, 5, 13–14, 303, 330 Brazil: and black consciousness organizations, 77, 83–4; and immigration policy, 79–80; national culture and the TV industry, 87; and racial democracy, 76, 83–4; and racialization, 80–2; and whiteness, 82; and the Xuxa Show, 87–90 British Columbia: and early European settlement of male workers, 46–7; and early Native populations, 45–6 British Columbia, government of: and contempt for Native peoples, 50–57; and fear of “race–mixing,” 44, 47–9; and immigration of white women, 49; and potlatch, 52–3; and

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Index

regulation of Indian status, 48–9; 57; and spatial segregation of Native peoples, 44–5, 49, 54, 60–4; as a white settler colony, 44–7, 49, 63–4 Britzman, Deborah, 298–9 Burnage Report (U.K.), 242, 244, 255, 258, 262 n. 2 Butler, Judith, 272 capitalism, 213–4; and whiteness, 69–72, 90, 95, 100 Children’s Aid Society (Canada), 43, 48, 53–4 China, 91–3 color-blindness , 163–4, 183–6. See also white defensiveness community activism, 227–30 Creighton, Millie, 96–7 Criminal Code of Canada, 58–9, 62 criminal justice system: and inequality, 215–6, 225; officials in, 215, 224; and race, 215–6, 225, 230–1; and racial disparities, 216, 221–4; texts in, 216; and whiteness, 215–6, 221–5, 230–1. See also juries; law; policing criminalization, 212, 214–5, 230 critical theory, 320 Department of Indian Affairs (Canada), 48–9, 51, 53, 55–6, 59, 61 diversity training, 147. See also antiracism Du Bois, W. E. B., 91 Dyer, Richard, 6–7, 304, 325 Ellsworth, Elizabeth, 4, 297, 303, 319, 334 eugenics, 78. See also racism European culture, 26–7, 40 n. 6; and whiteness, 69, 82. See also white culture

feminism: and antiracism, 296, 309, 310; ‘first wave,’ 291; and identity, 293, 296; problems in, 291, 293, 296; and psychoanalysis, 293–4; and race, 293, 298, 308; and racism, 291, 295, 297–9; ‘second wave,’ 291, 296, 297–8, 310; and whiteness 293, 310; and women’s studies, 291–2, 311 n. 4. See also women’s studies Foucault, Michel, 171 n. 3, 230, 244, 293–4, 323 Frankenberg, Ruth, 5, 140, 163, 165, 337–8 Frye, Marilyn, 8, 171 n. 2, 336–7, 342, 345 n. 14, 346 n. 15 Gallagher, Charles, 344 n. 6 Gallup poll, 138 Giroux, Henry, 246, 278, 303–4 Gramsci, Antonio, 226–7 Great Law of Peace: and adoption of foreigners, 35–6; and clan, 29–30; defined, 25, 27–8; and democracy, 30; and Europeans, 35; and intergroup relations, 26; and leadership, 29–30; and nature, 31–4; and ontological place, 29–31; and peace, 34–8; and property, 29; and reasoned moderation, 26, 28, 30, 37; and ritual, 31, 33; and war, 37–8 Habermas, Jürgen, 230 Hage, Ghassan, 117 Hanson, Pauline, 111–118. See also Australia, government of Hawke, Bob, 109 Haymes, Stephen, 322–3 Hegel, G. W. F., 28–9 Helms, Janet, 155–156 Hobbes, Thomas, 34 hooks, bell, 141, 197, 202, 291, 304, 309 Howard, John, 109–117, 121

Index 359 identity, 293–4, 306–8; and agency, 135; alternative, 132–3, 134; and collective struggle, 142; and ethnicity, 133, 139–140; in feminism, 293, 295–6; and Jewishness, 133; and psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, 290, 294, 307–8; and social class, 133; and social movement theory, 141, 142–3; and stratification, 145; symbolic, 131–5. See also racial identity; white identity Immigration Restriction Act (Australia), 107 Inca, 25 Indian Act (Canada), 48–9, 56–9, 62 Indian agents (Canada), 50–56, 58–61, 64 interracial marriage, 205 n. 9 Japan: and advertising, 96–8; and African Americans, 97; and capitalism, 91, 94; and China, 93; enlightenment period, 93; and national identity, 92, 95, 98; and racial identity, 92–93; and resistance to the West, 91, 101 n. 4; as Third World, 91–2; and westernization, 93–6; and whiteness, 91–9 juries, 220 Keating, Paul, 109 Kristeva, Julia, 115 law, 210–211, 215; and culture, 210–13, 231; defined, 211; and government, 211; language of, 209–210, 213; and liberalism, 210; and media, 211; as mythology, 210; and privilege, 211; and racial injustice, 210; 212–13, 215; and whiteness, 210–11, 214,

215–25, 230–1. See also criminal justice system liberal humanism, 186–7. See also liberalism liberalism, 209–210, 214, 229–30. See also neoliberalism; Western thought Lipsitz, George , 327 Loo, Tina, 52 Lorde, Audre, 195 Mahoney, Martha, 336 McIntosh, Peggy, 130, 143, 181, 187 McIntyre, Alice, 162, 168 Mercer, Kobena, 153 Mestizaje (“racial mixture”), 74–6, 81–3 Mill, John Stuart, 214 missionaries, 47–9, 52, 62–3; Methodist, 48, 50, 54 Morrison, Toni, 343 multicultural education, 271; and whiteness, 248, 271. See also antiracist education multiculturalism, 86–7, 227; programs in schools, 248 Multiple Occupancies Collective (U.K.), 260–61 National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia, 109–110 National Association of Black Social Workers (U.S.), 180, 203 Native men, 45, 54–5, 61 Native people, 43; and alleged immorality, 50–7; and alleged polygamy, 51; and education, 276–7, 282; and reserves, 50; and views on white teachers, 277. See also Native men; Native women Native title (Australia), 109 Native women: in Canadian literature, 275; constructed as prostitute, 43–45, 50–64; and

360 Index European intermarriage, 46–47; constructed as social problems, 50; as teachers, 275–6 neoliberalism, 85–7; and whiteness, 84–7. See also liberal humanism; liberalism New World, conquest, 25 Ng, Roxana, 302, 333 Oliart, Patricia, 85–6 One Nation Party (Australia), 111–116, 118. See also Australia, government of Palmer, Howard, 332 policing: of Aboriginal peoples, 217; of blacks; 216–19; and police brutality, 216–19; and whites, 216. See also criminal justice system; law psychological research, 153–159; and Q methodology, 158–9, 161; and race, 154, 172 n. 10; and white racial identity research, 155–6; and whiteness, 153–6 race: and individualism, 186–7; language of, 2–6; and psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, 306–7, 309; in psychological research, 154, 172 n. 10; as a social construction, 154, 167, 169, 179, 263 n. 4. See also color; racial identity; racism race relations, 9–11, 212, 242. See also antiracism; multiculturalism; racism race traitor, 339–342; problems in, 340–342; tenets of, 339; and white mothers of multiracial children, 188–189, 190–3; 197, 201–2 racial identity, 272; of children and youth, 191–4, 243, 245–248, 250–2, 258–61; as complex, 244, 258–62; ethnic, 191; as

multiple, 295, 303; and postcolonial literature, 307; and psychoanalysis, 272, 290, 294; and state bureaucracy, 193–4; and white mothers of racialized children, 183, 189–92; of white teachers, 269, 271. See also identity racism, 137; in Canada, 160–1, 164, 171 n. 4; and colour-blindness, 185; comparative, 83; and the criminal justice system, 215–225; defined, 10, 253–4, 340; forms of, 253–4; among judges, 219–220; among juries, 220–221; modern, 137; and name–calling, 247–255; in policing, 216–219; political economy of, 326–328, 330; and postcolonialism, 304, 307; and power, 244, 250–1, 253–4, 306; in prisons, 222–223; and psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, 244–5, 310; among racialized youth, 254; and schooling, 195–7, 242, 244, 247–9, 252; scientific, 82, 84; in the U.S., 83; and white defensiveness, 248–50, 252, 262; and white mothers of racialized children, 188, 190, 198–201; and white youth and children, 244–255; and whiteness, 232, 299, 305–6; and whites, 225–6; and women’s studies, 290, 296–8, 300–2, 311 n. 5 Rains, Frances, 322 Razack, Sherene, 62 reasoned moderation, 26, 28, 30, 37, 38 Rich, Adrienne, 307, 344 n. 14 Roach, Charles, 215 Roediger, David, 308, 330–332 Roman, Leslie, 171 n. 4, 301–2, 311 n. 3, 344 n. 1 Schick, Carol, 326

Index 361 schools: and multicultural programs, 248, 254; and racial identity, 247, 258; and racism, 242, 244–5, 247–9, 252, 254. See also antiracist education; multicultural education Social Darwinism, 71, 78, 107 Stoler, Laura Ann, 47 Swann Committee (U.K.), 247 teacher education, 270, 285–6 Third World, 91–92, 102 n. 5 transracial adoption, 179, 203, 204 n. 1, 205 n. 8 Twine, France Winddance, 162, 165, 167, 172 n. 7, 201–2 Valverde, Mariana, 332 Van Kirk, Sylvia, 46–7 Vasconcelos, José, 74–6, 81 Venezuela: and immigration policy, 79–81; and racial democracy, 76; and racialization, 78, 80–81; and whiteness, 77, 82 Weber, Max, 214 Wellman, David, 137, 182, 321, 327–8 Western thought: and individualism, 28–9; and nature, 32, 34; and ontological place, 28–9; and peace, 34–35; and the racialized other, 34, 39. See also liberalism; neoliberalism white culture, 162, 165–7, 212; and Canadian culture, 166–71. See also whiteness; European culture white defensiveness, 161–2, 164, 171 n. 4, 301, 309, 344 n. 1; and affirmative action, 137; and antiracist backlash in Britain, 255; and nationalism, 166–8; in privileged men, 183–9, 143; and youth, 248–50, 252, 255–7; in women’s studies, 300, 302,

309; in working–class men, 336. See also whiteness white identity: as “borderland,” 280, 285; and psychological research, 155–6, 170; and white femininity, 269, 271, 272; and youth, 243, 245–8, 250–2, 258–262. See also identity; racial identity white mothers: and colour-blindness, 183–7, 190–2, 197, 200–203; and experiences with racism, 190, 198–200, 201; and liberal humanism, 186–187, 190–1, 193, 196, 199–203; and privilege, 183, 189, 191, 202–3; as race traitor, 188–189, 190–1, 193, 197, 201–2; and racial identity, 183, 189–192; and racial strategies, 183–189, 191–4, 198–203; and racialized children, 179–181, 192–8, 201–3; and relationships with families, 187, 197–200, 205 n. 8 white privilege, 19 n. 8, 131, 212, 214, 153, 160–1, 164, 167–9, 181, 183, 209, 212–4, 227, 231, 253, 272, 303–9, 321–2, 326–8; and affect, 167; and “alternative” identity, 134; and class and gender, 334–338; and the criminal justice system, 211, 214; and cultural imperialism, 139–145, 146; denial of, 142; and disjunctures between belief and behaviour, 135–9, 145–6; and feminism, 310; and heterosexuality, 148 n. 1; and identity, 131–4, 140, 143; and Race Traitor, 339–42, 346 n. 15; and racism, 137; and resistance to equity policy, 136–7, 142–3; and social distance, 129–36, 139, 143, 145–6; and spanning boundaries between groups, 146–7; and “symbolic” identity,

362 Index 131, 132–5; threats to, 131, 137, 139–140, 142, 145; and “triple privilege,” 130–2, 135, 140, 144–7; and the women’s movement, 147; and youth, 244, 252. See also identity; white identity; white culture; whiteness white teachers: and antiracist education, 270, 272; biographies of, 277–280; and colonialism, 273, 286; and gender, 269, 271–2; and historical relations with Native students, 276, 282; and “Janey Canuck” and “Lady Bountiful,” 273–5, 277, 281–1, 283–6; new challenges for, 277, 285; and professional identity, 269, 281–285; and racial identity, 269, 271, 281; as regarded by Native people, 277, 282; and social activism, 270; and teaching in First Nations schools, 270, 277, 281–3, 286; and whiteness, 270, 276, 281 white youth: and backlash, 248–50, 255–7; and black culture, 245, 249–50; and criticisms of antiracism and multicultural policies, 248–9, 252, 254–7; and racist name-calling, 249–255; and white ethnicity, 242, 245–6, 258–261 whiteness, 27, 181, 243, 253, 271, 303–4, 308, 310, 319–20, 324–5, 338; and antiracist racial consciousness, 160–1, 165, 169; and class; 242, 244–5, 248–9, 252, 254, 256, 258, 262, 308, 330, 334–6; in colonialism; 70–2; and consumerism, 85–9, 96–7, 165–6; and cultural dominance, 209, 212, 226–7, 231; defined, 209, 231; and difference, 209, 213; and Durga, 99; effects, 27, 34;

and English ethnicity; 241–2, 245–6, 255, 257–262, 263 n. 6; and “immoderation,” 26–7, 39; and individualism, 157–8, 160, 162, 164, 172 n. 10; and Jewishness, 299–300, 309; and legal discourse, 209, 213; and the legal system, 209–225; as “liability,” 142; in mass media, 87, 100; and military power, 103; and national geography, 78; and national identity, 71–2, 100; and normalization, 162–165; and other categories of identity, 244, 249, 253, 304, 338; and pedagogy, 302, 307–9; problems with, 299, 303, 310; and property interests, 48, 57; and psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, 309–10; and power, 155, 157, 167–70; and racial classification, 71, 73–4, 92, 100; and the racialized other, 302, 309; and sexuality, 88–9, 97; social construction of, 18 n. 1, 260, 263 n. 4; and social status, 71–3, 76–7, 82, 84; and spatial relations, 44–45, 49, 62, 64; stereotypes, 246; and subjectivities, 157–9, 162–4, 168–71; and “symbolic identity,” 132–4; and violence, 225; and western modernity, 69–72, 77–9, 84–5, 93, 96, 99; and white antiracists, 303; and white men, 129–131, 138, 143, 335; and white mothers of racialized children, 183; and “white trash,” 165; and white women, 158, 160–170, 336–338; working through, 1–2, 12, 18, 209, 225–227, 229, 231, 319, 330; and youth, 242–3; 245–9, 254, 260; and the Xuxa Show, 87–90. See also racism; white

Index 363 culture; white defensiveness; white identity; white privilege; white studies whiteness, comparative: in Brazil, 74, 78–85, 87–91; in Canada, 166–171, 332–333; in Japan, 90–99; in Latin America, 71–90; in Mexico, 73, 75–6; in Nicaragua, 73–4; in Peru, 85; in Rio de Janeiro, 79; in the U.S., 81, 83, 100; in Venezuela, 76–82; and white defensiveness, 171 n. 4 white studies, 310; and class, 330, 334–6; and contextuality, 330–8; defined, 2, 11; and Empire, 332; examples of, 321–3, 325–8, 330–8, 343; and gender, 325–8; and identity, 333–4; language of, 2–7, 18 n. 1; problems in, 2, 6–7, 11–13, 18, 273, 323–4, 328–330; and relationality, 325–8; and social history, 330–2; and state formation in Canada, 332–3; and subjectivity, 7–8; in the U.S.,

11, 13; and white privilege, 19 n. 8. See also whiteness Winant, Howard, 340–1 women’s studies: and antiracism, 296, 299, 302; and critical pedagogy, 294; curriculum for, 297–8; and defensiveness, 297; and emotion, 290, 299–300, 309; and identity, 292, 308; and Jewishness, 298; and lesbianism, 292; and memory, 298–9; problems in, 289–90; 292–3, 295–8, 300, 302; and psychoanalysis and poststructuralism, 308–10; and race, 296, 308; and racialized students, 296; and racism, 290, 296–8, 300–2; 311 n. 5; and the subject, 293; and white students, 296–7, 299; and whiteness, 290, 296, 305. See also feminism Xuxa Show, 87–90 Yúdice, George, 342