“MARKING WHITENESS” FOR CROSS-RACIAL SOLIDARITY

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-319
Author(s):  
Greta Fowler Snyder
Keyword(s):  
White Male ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
White People ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Dramatic Difference ◽  
Sketch Comedy ◽  
Racial Solidarity ◽  
Popular Texts

AbstractThe dramatic difference in typical Black and White lifeworlds—or sets of “cultural givens” assumed by Black and White Americans and used to interpret experience—impedes the development of a cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice. If such a cross-racial solidarity is to be realized, actors must reorient the average White lifeworld in ways that make Whites more receptive to Black claims. I identify, theorize, and assess a particular strategy for transforming the dominant White lifeworld, and thus facilitating cross-racial solidarity, that directly confronts contemporary Whiteness: “marking Whiteness.” The idea of “marking Whiteness” is abstracted from three different texts—the blog-turned-book Stuff White People Like, a satiric essay entitled “I Am a Martyr (And So Can You!): A Guide to White Male Victimhood” published in Esquire magazine, and the sketch comedy phenomenon Chappelle’s Show. Interventions that “mark Whiteness” make Whiteness hyper-visible—as is characteristic of “marked” groups—and portray average White behavior and ideas as integral to the systemic reproduction of racial injustice. “Marking Whiteness” renders the racial polity visible, and makes contemporary Whites’ complicity in racial injustice undeniable. While there are good reasons to be skeptical of the progressive credentials of any mass cultural product and popular texts are often subject to misinterpretation, popular culture should be recognized as an important site in lifeworld and solidarity construction and reconstruction.

scholarly journals Review of "American Allegory: Lindy Hop and the Racial Imagination"

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Wade
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Black Youth ◽  
Black Culture ◽  
White Americans ◽  
White People ◽  
Social Dance ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Lindy Hop ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

American Allegory uses lindy hop—a social dance invented in the 1920s by black youth in Harlem and now practiced mostly by white dancers—to gain insight into the relationship between black and white Americans and their cultural forms. It aims to contribute to theory about how superordinate groups manipulate culture to maintain power, while also accounting for cultural change and exchange. On page 204 Hancock begins to ask sophisticated theoretical questions but, by then, it is far too late to answer them. While Hancock’s central premise is one to which I am sympathetic—that the community of primarily white people who dance lindy hop today are participating in an appropriation of black culture—he’s never able to move past his premise to a useful contribution.

scholarly journals Christian America in Black and White: Racial Identity, Religious-National Group Boundaries, and Explanations for Racial Inequality

2018 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel L Perry ◽  
Andrew L Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Group Identities

Abstract Recent research suggests that, for white Americans, conflating national and religious group identities is strongly associated with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, prompting some to argue that claims about Christianity being central to American identity are essentially about reinforcing white supremacy. Prior work has not considered, however, whether such beliefs may influence the racial views of nonwhite Americans differently from white Americans. Drawing on a representative sample of black and white Americans from the 2014 General Social Survey, and focusing on explanations for racial inequality as the outcome, we show that, contrary to white Americans, black Americans who view being a Christian as essential to being an American are actually more likely to attribute black–white inequality to structural issues and less to blacks’ individual shortcomings. Our findings suggest that, for black Americans, connecting being American to being Christian does not necessarily bolster white supremacy, but may instead evoke and sustain ideals of racial justice.

scholarly journals Trends in Black-White Church Integration

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Q. Yang ◽  
Starlita Smith
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
White Americans ◽  
White People ◽  
Civil Rights Act ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Martin Luther King ◽  
The Church

Historically, the separation of blacks and whites in churches was well known (Gilbreath 1995; Schaefer 2005). Even in 1968, about four years after the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still said that “eleven o'clock on Sunday is the most segregated hour of the week” (Gilbreath 1995:1). His reference was to the entrenched practice of black and white Americans who worshiped separately in segregated congregations even though as Christians, their faith was supposed to bring them together to love each other as brothers and sisters. King's statement was not just a casual observation. One of the few places that civil rights workers failed to integrate was churches. Black ministers and their allies were at the forefront of the church integration movement, but their stiffest opposition often came from white ministers. The irony is that belonging to the same denomination could not prevent the racial separation of their congregations. In 1964, when a group of black women civil rights activists went to a white church in St. Augustine, Florida to attend a Sunday service, the women were met by a phalanx of white people with their arms linked to keep the activists out (Bryce 2004). King's classic “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” was a response to white ministers who criticized him and the civil rights movement after a major civil rights demonstration (King [2002]).

scholarly journals Christian America in Black and White: Racial Identity, Religious-National Group Boundaries, and Explanations for Racial Inequality

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Perry ◽  
Andrew L Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Racial Inequality ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Group Identities

Recent research suggests that, for white Americans, conflating national and religious group identities is strongly associated with racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, prompting some to argue that claims about Christianity being central to American identity are essentially about reinforcing white supremacy. Prior work has not considered, however, whether such beliefs may influence the racial views of nonwhite Americans differently from white Americans. Drawing on a representative sample of black and white Americans from the 2014 General Social Survey, and focusing on explanations for racial inequality as the outcome, we show that, contrary to white Americans, black Americans who view being a Christian as essential to being an American are actually more likely to attribute black–white inequality to structural issues and less to blacks’ individual shortcomings. Our findings suggest that, for black Americans, connecting being American to being Christian does not necessarily bolster white supremacy, but may instead evoke and sustain ideals of racial justice.

scholarly journals Towards Abolition: Undoing the Colonized Curriculum

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Angela Maria Leslie ◽  
Vajra M. Watson ◽  
Rose M. Borunda ◽  
Kate E. M. Bosworth ◽  
Tatianna J. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Health Indicators ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
White People ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Racial injustice has traditionally been observed from the viewpoint of its impact and outcomes. Subsequently, educators and policy makers have generally focused on outcomes; unequal oppor-tunity structures, disparities in educational achievement, the school-to-prison pipeline, dispropor-tional health indicators, incarceration rates, and harsher punishment in school and judicial sys-tems, are just a few of the contexts by which this nation’s racialized roots can be measured for present day mistreatment and disparate outcomes for minoritized populations. As policy makers and educators look to the impact of racial injustice, a true ontological vantage would reveal the cause as well as the perpetuation of these outcomes. As the current COVID-19 pandemic contin-ues, and with increased interest in online learning, it is vital that teachers and professors seek new pedagogy and tools to teach about racism. Our study examined whether a virtual 1-hour presen-tation on white humanists influences students’ understanding of racial justice. Our research demonstrates that a colonized curriculum impacts student’s outlook on the world and themselves. Inversely, when we expose students to humanists throughout history, we are able to show that white people have a legacy and responsibility to fight for racial justice. This provides students with alternative models – beyond those that perpetuate white supremacy.

scholarly journals Danger or Dislike: Distinguishing Threat from Negative Valence as Sources of Automatic Anti-Black Bias

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Scott March ◽  
Lowell Gaertner ◽  
Michael Olson
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Process Model ◽  
White Male ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Implicit Processing ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Positive Study ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Asian Men ◽  
Physical Threat

The Dual Implicit Process Model (March et al., 2018a) distinguishes the implicit processing of physical threat (i.e., “can it hurt or kill me?”) from valence (i.e., “do I dislike/like it?”). Five studies tested whether automatic anti-Black bias is due to White Americans associating Black men with threat, negative valence, or both. Studies 1 and 2 assessed how quickly White participants decided whether positive, negative, and threatening images were good versus bad when primed by Black versus White male-faces. Studies 3 and 4 assessed how early in the decision process White participants began deciding whether Black and White (and, in Study 3, Asian) male-faces displaying anger, sadness, happiness, or no emotion were, in Study 3, dangerous, depressed, cheerful, or calm or, in Study 4, dangerous, negative, or positive. Study 5 assessed how quickly White participants decided whether negative and threatening words were negative versus dangerous when primed by Black versus White male-names. All studies indicated that White Americans automatically associate Black men with physical threat. Study 3 indicated the association is unique to Black men and did not extend to Asian men as a general intergroup effect. Studies 3, 4, and 5, which simultaneously paired threat against negativity, indicated that the Black-threat association is stronger than a Black-negative association.

Count Me In!: Ethnic Data Disaggregation Advocacy, Racial Mattering, and Lessons for Racial Justice Coalitions

JCSCORE ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-124
Author(s):  
OiYan A. Poon ◽  
Jude Paul Matias Dizon ◽  
Dian Squire
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Racial Equity ◽  
Equity In Education ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Data Disaggregation ◽  
Racial Solidarity ◽  
The University

This article presents a case study of the 2006-2007 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) student-led Count Me In! (CMI) campaign. This successful campaign convinced the University of California (UC) to account for 23 AAPI ethnic identities in its data system. Celebrated as a victory for AAPI interests in discourses over racial equity in education, which are often defined by a Black- white racial paradigm, CMI should also be remembered as originating out of efforts to demonstrate AAPI solidarity with Black students and to counter racial wedge politics. In the evolution of the CMI campaign, efforts for cross-racial solidarity soon faded as the desire for institutional validation of AAPI educational struggles was centered. Our case study analysis, guided by sociological frameworks of racism, revealed key limitations in the CMI campaign related to the intricate relations between people of color advocating for racial justice. We conclude with cautions for research and campaigns for ethnically disaggregated AAPI data, and encourage advocates and scholars to address AAPI concerns over educational disparities while simultaneously and intentionally building coalitions for racial equity in higher education.

Free but fragile: Human relations amidst poverty and HIV in democratic South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Christina Landman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Black People ◽  
Hiv Treatment ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
White People ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Black Township

Dullstroom-Emnotweni is the highest town in South Africa. Cold and misty, it is situated in the eastern Highveld, halfway between the capital Pretoria/Tswane and the Mozambique border. Alongside the main road of the white town, 27 restaurants provide entertainment to tourists on their way to Mozambique or the Kruger National Park. The inhabitants of the black township, Sakhelwe, are remnants of the Southern Ndebele who have lost their land a century ago in wars against the whites. They are mainly dependent on employment as cleaners and waitresses in the still predominantly white town. Three white people from the white town and three black people from the township have been interviewed on their views whether democracy has brought changes to this society during the past 20 years. Answers cover a wide range of views. Gratitude is expressed that women are now safer and HIV treatment available. However, unemployment and poverty persist in a community that nevertheless shows resilience and feeds on hope. While the first part of this article relates the interviews, the final part identifies from them the discourses that keep the black and white communities from forming a group identity that is based on equality and human dignity as the values of democracy.

Disparities in Health Between Black and White Americans: Current Knowledge and Directions for Future Research

2018 ◽  
pp. 456-478
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Fuller-Rowell ◽  
David S. Curtis ◽  
Adrienne M. Duke
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Public Investment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Sociocultural Factors ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Biological Mechanisms ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Conceptual frameworks for racial/ethnic health disparities are abundant, but many have received insufficient empirical attention. As a result, there are substantial gaps in scientific knowledge and a range of untested hypotheses. Particularly lacking is specificity in behavioral and biological mechanisms for such disparities and their underlying social determinants. Alongside lack of political will and public investment, insufficient clarity in mechanisms has stymied efforts to address racial health disparities. Capitalizing on emergent findings from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study and other longitudinal studies of aging, this chapter evaluates research on health disparities between black and white US adults. Attention is given to candidate behavioral and biological mechanisms as precursors to group differences in morbidity and mortality and to environmental and sociocultural factors that may underlie these mechanisms. Future research topics are discussed, emphasizing those that offer promise with respect to illuminating practical solutions to racial/ethnic health disparities.

scholarly journals P224 Loneliness Among Older Black and White People Living with HIV

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Berko ◽  
J Berko ◽  
T Loo ◽  
L MacLaren ◽  
G Huhn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
People Living With Hiv ◽  
White People ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Living With Hiv
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