`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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

scholarly journals Occupational Differences by Race and Ethnicity in the United States, 2007-2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Kusum Singh
Keyword(s):  
Racial Differences ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Racial Disparity ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Disparities ◽  
Occupational Differences ◽  
The U.S

This study examines the extent and reasons for differences in occupational distributions by race and ethnicity in the U.S. labor market from 2007 to 2018. Using IPUMS data, the study found that racial differences in occupational distributions were lower than ethnic disparities in occupational distributions. Racial disparity in occupational distributions increased slightly, while the ethnic disparity in occupational distributions decreased from 2007 to 2018. Most importantly, racial and ethnic disparities in occupational distributions were found to be not only due to observed socio-demographic variables of workers but also due to other unexplained factors. The effect of unexplained variables had more pronounced effects on the racial differences in occupational distributions than on the ethnic differences in occupational distributions. 

A Passionate Addiction to Lincoln

2018 ◽  
pp. 99-122
Author(s):  
Nina Silber
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
State Building ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
White People ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
Political Interests

No historical figure became as prominent in 1930s America as Abraham Lincoln. Once seen mainly as a figure of moderation and reconciliation, Lincoln became a more powerful figure associated with state building and the broadly defined work of emancipation. Under the influence of poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, important parallels were drawn between Lincoln and FDR. Yet, because of Roosevelt’s limited attention to racial oppression, there was a tendency to make Lincoln a more race neutral figure, one who freed white people more than black. At the same time, African Americans, who were increasingly shifting their political interests to the Democratic Party, invested Lincoln with more of a racial justice agenda. Conservatives, for their part, took aim at the way New Dealers and Popular Fronters re-imagined Lincoln, especially on the Federal stage.

Racial Attributions in the Justice System and Support for Punitive Crime Policies

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 1032-1058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Peffley ◽  
Jon Hurwitz ◽  
Jeffery Mondak
Keyword(s):  
Justice System ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Issue Framing ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
Original Survey

How do members of racial groups explain the large disparity in the way Blacks and Whites are treated by the criminal justice system in the United States? And how do such explanations (attributions) influence support for punitive crime control policies in America, as well as arguments against such policies? Our study of the structure, sources, and consequences of racial attributions in the justice system, using original survey data in Washington state, contributes to the literature in several ways. First, unlike traditional measures of racial prejudice—that is, racial resentment and stereotypes—our measure of racial attributions distinguishes cleanly between dispositional explanations (e.g., Blacks’ aggressive nature) and discrimination. Second, we examine the attributions of three pivotal groups with different experiences with legal authorities: Latinos, Blacks, and Whites. Third, an issue framing experiment demonstrates the power of both attributions for shaping support for the death penalty and arguments against the policy based on racial justice.

scholarly journals Reparations for Black American Descendants of Persons Enslaved in the U.S. and Their Estimated Impact on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene T. Richardson ◽  
Momin M. Malik ◽  
William A. Darity ◽  
A. Kirsten Mullen ◽  
Maya Malik ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transmission Risk ◽  
Black American ◽  
Absolute Difference ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Incidence And Mortality ◽  
The U.S

AbstractBackgroundIn the United States, Black Americans are suffering from significantly disproportionate incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19. The potential for racial-justice interventions, including reparations payments, to ameliorate these disparities has not been adequately explored.MethodsWe compared the COVID-19 time-varying Rt curves of relatively disparate polities in terms of social equity (South Korea vs. Louisiana). Next, we considered a range of reproductive ratios to back-calculate the transmission rates βi→j for 4 cells of the simplified next-generation matrix (from which R0 is calculated for structured models) for the outbreak in Louisiana. Lastly, we modeled the effect that monetary payments as reparations for Black American descendants of persons enslaved in the U.S. would have had on pre-intervention βi→j.ResultsOnce their respective epidemics begin to propagate, Louisiana displays Rt values with an absolute difference of 1.3 to 2.5 compared to South Korea. It also takes Louisiana more than twice as long to bring Rt below 1. We estimate that increased equity in transmission consistent with the benefits of a successful reparations program (reflected in the ratio βb→b / βw→w) could reduce R0 by 31 to 68%.DiscussionWhile there are compelling moral and historical arguments for racial injustice interventions such as reparations, our study describes potential health benefits in the form of reduced SARS-CoV-2 transmission risk. As we demonstrate, a restitutive program targeted towards Black individuals would not only decrease COVID-19 risk for recipients of the wealth redistribution; the mitigating effects would be distributed across racial groups, benefitting the population at large.FundingETR and LW are supported by NIGMS MIDAS grant R01 GM130900. ETR is also supported by NIAID K08 AI139361. WAD is supported by NIMHD R01 MD011606, NSF SES 1851845, and IES R305A190484. MMM is supported by the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund.

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