The promise of political blackness? Contesting blackness, challenging whiteness and the silencing of racism: A review article

Ethnicities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 202-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline-Sophie Abbas
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Review Article ◽  
White People ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Politics Of Place ◽  
Race Identity ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
National Imaginary ◽  
Negative Impacts

This article reviews three books that examine black discourses and perspectives on whiteness and delineate the negative impacts of structural, institutional and interpersonal racism on the life chances and inclusion of people of colour within the national imaginary through both epistemic and material violences. The books explore practices of silencing which surround racism, facilitated by post-racial and colour blind frames which deny people of colour’s lived experiences of racism: Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race; Hirsch’s Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging and Andrews’ Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century. The review focuses on the British context. It explores the politics of place and the journeys undertaken by those marked as racially Other to belong and the recuperative potential of a form of intersectional politics as a means of understanding and navigating how we might overcome divisions between differentially marginalised groups to challenge the system of racism premised on white privilege and dominance more effectively. It concludes with arguing that a politics of discomfort is required to dislodge white privilege from its seat of comfort.

Racial Prejudice Predicts Less Desire to Learn About White Privilege

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 310-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Conway ◽  
Nikolette P. Lipsey ◽  
Gabrielle Pogge ◽  
Kate A. Ratliff
Keyword(s):  
White Privilege ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Affective Responses ◽  
White People ◽  
Total N ◽  
Desire To Change

Abstract. White people often experience unpleasant emotions in response to learning about White privilege ( Phillips & Lowery, 2015 ; Pinterits, Poteat, & Spanierman, 2009 ). Two studies (total N = 1,310) examined how race attitudes relate to White people’s desires to avoid or learn information about White privilege. White participants completed measures of their race attitudes, desire to change White privilege, and their desire to avoid learning information about White privilege. Study 1 showed that participants who preferred their racial in-group reported less desire to change White privilege and greater desire to avoid learning information about White privilege. Inconsistent with expectations, Study 2 showed that participants who anticipated negative affective responses to learning about White privilege reported greater desire to change White privilege.

scholarly journals Making Whiteness Visible and Felt in Fairview

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Michael Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Political Context ◽  
White People ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Audience Responses ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I analyse how Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play Fairview makes white audience members feel white. As a play that exposes whiteness and calls white people to account for their racism, Fairview speaks to contemporary global antiracist activism efforts. Therefore, I begin by situating Fairview in the transatlantic cultural and political context of Black Lives Matter. I then discuss the theatrical devices Drury employs in Fairview in order to make whiteness felt before going on to analyse a range of white audience responses to the production at London’s Young Vic Theatre in 2019/2020. I reflect on these responses in relation to how white people react to accusations of white privilege and power in the public sphere and identify shared strategies for sustaining whiteness. In conclusion, I consider Fairview as a model of affective antiracist activism.

Talking about race, identity, and change

2020 ◽  
pp. 65-94
Author(s):  
Harris Beider ◽  
Kusminder Chahal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Black People ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Race Identity ◽  
Rapid Changes ◽  
Diverse Area

This chapter presents an edited transcript of a focus group discussion in Phoenix, Arizona, soon after the inauguration of President Trump. It highlights the views and opinions held by the participants, which became key themes emerging from the research. More importantly, it shows a group of white residents talking about their new president, his immediate actions, and the turmoil that these actions unleashed in the United States soon after he was elected. The new president was a divisive figure in the discussions. Support for Trump was not overwhelming, but he was seen as a change candidate. Meanwhile, the disruption being witnessed on the ground was seen negatively. The new president was seen as making rapid changes that were having direct, real-life consequences. Moreover, his focus on holding binary positions was seen as avoiding complexity and without nuance. “White” as an identity emerged through the actions and experiences of “black” people and the lived experiences of differences and diversity. Claiming to live in a racially and ethnically diverse area was challenged.

Migrant solidarities and the politics of place

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 1066-1080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Bauder
Keyword(s):  
International Migration ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
Politics Of Place ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
Recent Arrival ◽  
Urban Contexts ◽  
Geographical Perspective

International migration and refugee scholars have made extensive use of the concept of solidarity in light of the recent arrival of migrants and refugees in Europe and elsewhere. They observe multi-dimensional solidarity practices and interpret solidarity from a variety of disciplinary and conceptual angles with different philosophical underpinnings. In this review article, I assume a geographical perspective to argue for a Marxian-Hegelian understanding of solidarity as a process of subject formation. I illustrate how solidarity relates to a politics of place that shapes migrant struggles in urban contexts and that promise to facilitate Indigenous reconciliation and decolonization in settler societies.

scholarly journals Pedagogies of Race: The Politics of Whiteness in an African American Studies Course

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina V. Jones
Keyword(s):  
White Students ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
White People ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Historical Texts ◽  
And Gender ◽  
American Society

This paper evaluates students' arguments for a color-blind society to avoid discussions related to the continued existence of racism in USA culture. Relatedly, this writer finds that as an black woman her status as facilitator in the classroom is directly challenged, on occasion, and that race and gender play a primary role in students' perception of classroom material and how she is perceived. Classroom discussions related to historical texts reveal that structures of domination have slanted perception of black and white people in U.S. culture. Finally, a key to open dialogue about race and racism, primarily for white students, is to explain and demonstrate the invisibility of whiteness or white privilege in American society.

‘It's about being safe and free to be who you are’: Exploring the lived experiences of queer migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 86-110
Author(s):  
John Marnell ◽  
Elsa Oliveira ◽  
Gabriel Hoosain Khan
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
Arts Based Research ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Refugees And Asylum Seekers ◽  
Participatory Arts

This article presents findings from three arts-based studies conducted by the African Centre for Migration and Society, in partnerships with Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action and the Sisonke National Sex Worker Movement. Drawing on participant-created visual and narrative artefacts, the article offers insights into the complex ways in which queer migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in South Africa negotiate their identities, resist oppression and confront stereotypes. It reveals the dynamic ways in which queer migrants, refugees and asylum seekers forge a sense of belonging in spite of concurrent vulnerabilities and structural discrimination. It also reflects on the benefits and limitations of using participatory arts-based research with marginalised groups.

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.

`White privilege': A mild critique1

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Blum
Keyword(s):  
Health Education ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Racial Disparity ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
White People ◽  
Unjust Enrichment ◽  
Normative Foundations

White privilege analysis has been influential in philosophy of education. I offer some mild criticisms of this largely salutary direction — its inadequate exploration of its own normative foundations, and failure to distinguish between `spared injustice', `unjust enrichment' and `non-injustice-related' privileges; its inadequate exploration of the actual structures of racial disparity in different domains (health, education, wealth); its tendency to deny or downplay differences in the historical and current experiences of the major racial groups; its failure to recognize important ethnic differences within racial groups; and its overly narrow implied political project that omits many ways that White people can contribute meaningfully to the cause of racial justice.

scholarly journals How Are They Racialized? Racial Experiences of Chinese Graduate Students

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Ying Wang
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Chinese Students ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Chinese Graduate Students ◽  
Racial Experiences

The present study explores the lived experiences of Chinese graduate students at a Southwestern University in order to find out how they experience race in daily life, what their interpretations of the racial experience are and how do racialized experiences shape their perceptions of life chances. The results indicate that the racialization process plays an important role in Chinese students' life through their lived experiences. Most Chinese students have noticed race and some of them have experienced racial discrimination. However, Chinese students still hold up the importance of education and believe that education will blunt the racial edge

scholarly journals Mainstreaming Disability in Water and Sanitation Programmes in Madziwa Community (Shamva District, Zimbabwe): A

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Tom ◽  
Emmanuel Munemo
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Population Coverage ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Analytical Research ◽  
Qualitative Data Collection

The purpose of the study was to analyse the extent to which disability has been mainstreamed in water and sanitation programmes that were implemented by both state and non-state actors in Madziwa community under Shamva district in Zimbabwe. Enhancing the wellbeing of people living with disability in relation to water and sanitation was the overarching aim of the study. The researchers applied the Transformative Social Policy conceptual framework. This conceptual framework emphasises that social policy programmes and projects should be protective, preventive, promotive and transformative. Water and sanitation programmes are components of social policy in Zimbabwe. An analytical research design based primarily on qualitative research methods was applied. The researchers aimed to go beyond statistics on geographical and population coverage, which often shrouds the situated meanings and lived experiences of the often marginalised groups such as people living with disabilities. This focus inclined itself to qualitative data collection and analysis. The results of the study show that disability was never considered in designing and implementing water and sanitation programmes. There is need to design and implement disabilityfriendly water and sanitation programmes in Madziwa community and other parts of Zimbabwe to enhance the wellbeing of people living with disabilities.

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