Measuring Whiteness: A Systematic Review of Instruments and Call to Action

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 530-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Schooley ◽  
Debbiesiu L. Lee ◽  
Lisa B. Spanierman
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Modern Racism

The psychological study of Whiteness provides one avenue for researchers to help combat racial injustice in the United States. This article is a call to action for counseling psychologists to engage in much needed scholarship and critical examinations of Whiteness. In this systematic review and content analysis, we provide an overview of 18 quantitative measures focusing on various aspects of Whiteness published between 1967 and 2017. We summarize the constructs and psychometric properties of these measures. Our content analysis indicated that constructs assessed by Whiteness measures have shifted in focus over time across four themes: (a) Attitudes Toward Black People/Integration, (b) Modern Racism, (c) White Racial Identity, and (d) White Privilege and Antiracism. We conclude with suggestions on how advancement, development, and use of Whiteness measures could further our knowledge through research examining present-day racial justice issues. The issues highlighted include police brutality, xenophobia, immigration, White supremacy, activism, and training in the field.

The Black Lives Matter movement: A call to action: Acts 10:11–16, 25–28, 34–35

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Alfred Smith
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Black Life ◽  
Black Christians ◽  
American Society ◽  
Justice Movements

The Black Lives Matter movement is one of the most dynamic social justice movements currently emerging in the USA. This movement led by young Blacks unapologetically calls out the shameful, historical legacy of American racism and White supremacy while asserting the humanity and sacredness of Black lives, particularly those of unarmed persons senselessly murdered by police officers. While Black Lives Matter is a new movement, it is also an extension of the 400-year struggle of Black people in America to affirm Black dignity, equality, and human rights, even while the major institutions of American society have propagated doctrines and enforced unjust rules/laws to denigrate Black life. Black Christians have found hope and inspiration from the Gospel to claim their humanity and to struggle to gain justice for Black lives and for the lives of all oppressed people. In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement provides a helpful critique of many Black churches, challenging them to confront their biases, which label young Black males as “thugs” (the new N-word) and which cruelly demonize the LGBTQ community. The story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 provides a scriptural basis for Christian introspection and responses to God’s vision for beloved community, and for the call to action from the Black Lives Matter movement.

Critical Whiteness Studies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Applebaum
Keyword(s):  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
White People ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Black President

In 1903, standing at the dawn of the 20th century, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that the color line is the defining characteristic of American society. Well into the 21st century, Du Bois’s prescience sadly still rings true. Even when a society is built on a commitment to equality, and even with the election of its first black president, the United States has been unsuccessful in bringing about an end to the rampant and violent effects of racism, as numerous acts of racial violence in the media have shown. For generations, scholars of color, among them Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Franz Fanon, have maintained that whiteness lies at the center of the problem of racism. It is only relatively recently that the critical study of whiteness has become an academic field, committed to disrupting racism by problematizing whiteness as a corrective to the traditional exclusive focus on the racialized “other.” Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) is a growing field of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege. CWS presumes a certain conception of racism that is connected to white supremacy. In advancing the importance of vigilance among white people, CWS examines the meaning of white privilege and white privilege pedagogy, as well as how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism. Unless white people learn to acknowledge, rather than deny, how whites are complicit in racism, and until white people develop an awareness that critically questions the frames of truth and conceptions of the “good” through which they understand their social world, Du Bois’s insight will continue to ring true.

Racial Justice

2021 ◽  
pp. 500-522
Author(s):  
Traci C. West
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
German Immigrant ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Probing Questions

Reinhold Niebuhr’s ideas invite us to confront problems of racial justice. Probing questions of method that consider whiteness and white supremacy in US-American life yields guidance for identifying how Christian ethics produces useful approaches to questions of racial justice. Examples from Reinhold Niebuhr’s twentieth-century Christian ethics commentaries on white dominance and his methodological assumptions spark an exploration of how related arguments in twenty-first century Christian ethics and theology analyses of white dominance can contribute. Besides method, concrete racist attitudes and practices in need of Christian ethics disruption are revealed in the politics of immigration seen in Niebuhr’s 1920s claims about German immigrant ethnic identity struggles and addressed by current Christian ethicists on twenty-first-century opposition to welcoming impoverished, migrant brown peoples into the United States.

Understanding “Place” in Social Marketing

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 230-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Edgar ◽  
Marian Huhman ◽  
Gregory A. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Marketing ◽  
Communication Channels ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marketing Mix ◽  
Information Delivery ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
The Social

Critiques of the social marketing literature have suggested the place strategy is a key component within the 4 Ps of the marketing mix that simultaneously has been misunderstood and underutilized. This study sought to conduct a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature to better understand how place has been conceptualized and operationalized over multiple decades. Application of inclusion criteria resulted in a sample of 84 articles published from 1988 to 2015 representing work in 20 different countries in North America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. Content analysis showed that almost half (46.4%) of the descriptions of place strategies operationalized the component by including at least one element of placing messages within communication channels or information delivery such as print, interpersonal, traditional broadcast, or digital. The heavy emphasis on communication channels and information delivery contrasts sharply with definitions of place that thought leaders have offered historically. Results revealed that authors from the United States especially have a tendency to operationalize place as message placement. Discussion speculates on why conceptualization and operationalization have diverged and considers the implications for clarity within the field of social marketing as a whole.

scholarly journals Statements issued by academic medical institutions after George Floyd’s killing by police and subsequent unrest in the United States: cross-sectional study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathew V. Kiang ◽  
Alexander C. Tsai
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Medical Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Academic Medical

AbstractBackgroundThe horrific nature of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis Police Department officer on May 25, 2020 has sparked more than a month of nationwide protests against police brutality and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. At critical junctures of the nation’s public health such as these, academic medical institutions may exert leadership by issuing public statements to communicate institutional values.MethodsWe obtained statements issued by 56 leading U.S. medical schools relevant to George Floyd’s killing and subsequent protests. We tokenized statements into words, n-grams of sizes 2 and 3, and sentences; removed non-informative stop words and words that would compromise de-identification; and stemmed the remaining words using the Porter algorithm. We followed a predefined set of rules for identifying important elements of these statements related to leadership in antiracism and public health.ResultsNearly all named George Floyd (50 [89%]), a majority noted the role of racism (43 [77%]) and acknowledged the Black community specifically (41 [73%]). Fewer ╌ slightly more than half ╌ referenced the act resulting in Floyd’s death (31 [55%]) or made explicit reference to the police (29 [52%]). Only 7 (13%) explicitly used terms denoting active support, like “antiracism” or “Black Lives Matter.” Most (45 [80%]) included references to negative sequelae resulting from racism like “disparities” or “inequality”. All included hopeful language.ConclusionOnly a minority of institutions made reference to the killing of George Floyd by the police, and most failed to address this country’s targeted, historically engrained, and sustained oppression of Black people through white supremacy. Thus, our study identifies significant opportunities for U.S. medical schools to exert meaningful leadership in health.

A Study of Black Female Principals Leading through Twin Pandemics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie Weiner ◽  
Daron Cyr ◽  
Laura Burton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Female ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Leadership Practice ◽  
Female Principals ◽  
Real Change ◽  
Black Female Principals

In 2020, the United States experienced twin pandemics disproportionately impacting BIPOC communities and their schools and school systems—one new, COVID-19, and one longstanding, that of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. This phenomenological study of 20 Black female principals in two states provides insights into how these leaders, who so often center racial justice and caring for BIPOC children and communities in their leadership practice, grappled with these pandemics and how doing so impacted their leadership and work. Findings suggest that leading through these twin pandemics further cemented these women’s commitments to engage in advocacy and justice work on behalf of their communities and students. They also reported, regarding racial inequity and white supremacy, feeling both a cautious optimism stemming from seeing the work they had long engaged in being taken up at scale, and by white colleagues in particular, and frustration, experiencing this engagement often as “performative” and thus unlikely to lead to real change. And yet they also spoke of their deep commitment to advocacy and social justice moving forward and their role in ensuring that all their students receive the education, opportunities, and outcomes they deserve.

Leaving Home

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Leaving Home ◽  
New Developments ◽  
American Colonization Society ◽  
Free Black ◽  
Back To Africa

In late 1852, twenty-four year old Church Vaughan boarded a ship bound for Liberia. The vessel had been chartered by the American Colonization Society, an organization founded by white philanthropists and politicians to send African Americans “back” to Africa. As this chapter details, the Society’s mission and efforts were fraught with racist condescension. Since its beginning, African Americans and their allies were repelled by the white supremacy inherent in the Society’s mission and its kowtowing to slaveholders, and relatively few enrolled in the emigration scheme. By the early 1850s, however, new developments pushed increasing numbers of African Americans, like Vaughan, to look toward the continent of their ancestors. As sectional divisions tore at the United States, southern politicians devised new laws to limit free black people’s mobility, inhibit their ability to make a living, and generally equate them with slaves. As Church reached adulthood, predatory officials threatened his family’s livelihood, while the old ties of patronage that had protected them in an earlier era disappeared. Even if emigration did offer a chance for a new life where black people governed themselves, it was a hard bargain to make. This chapter includes an account of some of Church Vaughan’s Liberia-bound shipmates, who chose to leave the United States only under terrible duress. Church Vaughan almost did not leave either.

Black Embodied Wounds and the Traumatic Impact of the White Imaginary

2018 ◽  
pp. 142-162
Author(s):  
George Yancy
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Black People ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Black Body ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
Traumatic Impact ◽  
White Racist

This chapter theorizes racialization as an interstitial process. In the context of white supremacy, white privilege, and white power, whiteness functions as the transcendental norm that obfuscates its own racialization and normative constitution vis-à-vis Blackness, thereby marking the Black body within the socio-political matrix as “dangerous,” “evil,” “suspicious,” and “disposable.” It analyzes racialization as a site of trauma, a wounding, and a felt terror of both symbolic and existential annihilation. The experience of trauma thus is the result of a violation and violence that attempts to reduce Black people to a state of pure facticity, the very absence of transcendence, where Black alterity is reduced to the white racist imago. This paper contextualizes the historical backdrop of anti-Black racism through the examples of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and the author’s personal experience with racial hate speech. This demonstrates how the Black body has undergone a long and enduring history of racialized somatic trauma.

White Supremacy: Will the Present be Prologue?

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 168-185
Author(s):  
Mark William Westmoreland
Keyword(s):  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
New Concepts

Abstract In recent years, there has been a rethinking of the concept of white privilege and a development of new concepts like white fragility. At the same time, discourse around ‘white supremacy’ has mostly remained stagnant. Some claim it is anachronistic and no longer applicable. Others fear it will discourage whites from supporting the quest for racial justice. In this article, I advocate for using the term ‘white supremacy’ to name the problem that racial justice theorists and activists seek to dismantle. More specifically, I utilize the work of Charles Mills to defend the use of ‘white supremacy’ against Marxist critics.

Anti-Catholicism, Islamophobia, and White Supremacy in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-292
Author(s):  
Scott C. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Construction Of Whiteness

This essay applies an intersectional approach to the analysis of the history of anti-Catholicism and Islamophobia in the United States as manifestations of White supremacy. It offers a comparative analysis of these two phenomena in an attempt to suggest that a certain intersection exists between each and the social construction of Whiteness and the maintenance of White power and privilege in US American history. It concludes with observations on progress in the development of Catholic–Muslim relations through concerted efforts by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and various US Muslim organizations, noting that the majority of Catholics in the United States have benefited from White privilege.

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