Becoming White Teachers: Symbolic Interactions and Racializing the Raceless Norm in Predominantly Black Schools

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-222
Author(s):  
Marcus Bell
Keyword(s):  
Effective Teachers ◽  
White Teachers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Black Schools ◽  
Interview Method ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Symbolic Interactions ◽  
The Invisible

Under the banner of critical whiteness studies, scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum have spent the past several decades investigating whiteness and white racial identity, both in the United States and abroad. Of the numerous findings, perhaps none is more pervasive than that of white racelessness: the idea that whites do not see themselves in racial terms but instead think of themselves as just normal. This article complicates white racelessness by examining whiteness that is spatially situated as the racial minority. Using an inductive interview method, the author interviews 32 white teachers who currently work in urban, predominantly black schools. Despite previous socialization as the invisible norm, white teachers were effectively racialized by repeated and continuous symbolic interactions with black students and their families. Through a multistep and mutually reinforcing process, teachers went from thinking of themselves as the invisible, raceless norm to seeing themselves as the hypervisible, racial other. Findings also show that white teachers devised ways to navigate their personal racial identities, all while trying to remain effective teachers to nonwhite students. The experiential loss of white privilege is also discussed.

Whiteness Interrupted

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Bell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
White Privilege ◽  
White Teachers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Black Schools ◽  
Upstate New York ◽  
Racial Privilege ◽  
American Society ◽  
Depth Interviews

In Whiteness Interrupted Marcus Bell presents a revealing portrait of white teachers in majority-black schools in which he examines the limitations of understandings of how white racial identity is formed. Through in-depth interviews with dozens of white teachers from a racially segregated, urban school district in Upstate New York, Bell outlines how whiteness is constructed based on localized interactions and takes a different form in predominantly black spaces. He finds that in response to racial stress in a difficult teaching environment, white teachers conceptualized whiteness as a stigmatized category predicated on white victimization. When discussing race outside majority-black spaces, Bell's subjects characterized American society as postracial, in which race seldom affects outcomes. Conversely, in discussing their experiences within predominantly black spaces, they rejected the idea of white privilege, often angrily, and instead focused on what they saw as the racial privilege of blackness. Throughout, Bell underscores the significance of white victimization narratives in black spaces and their repercussions as the United States becomes a majority-minority society.

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 Notes on the uses of sport in Trump’s white nationalist assemblage

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle W. Kusz
Keyword(s):  
National Football League ◽  
White Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Friend ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
White Masculinity ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Popular Appeal

AbstractUsing conjunctural analysis and informed by insights drawn from critical whiteness studies, sport studies, and masculinity studies, I offer some developing interpretations on two inter-related questions. First, how sport has been used to cultivate and popularize the proto-fascist white nationalist project(s) currently gripping the United States. And second, how sport facilitates the production and popularization of the unapologetic and omnipotent performance of white masculinity that seems central to the popular appeal of this contemporary American white nationalist assemblage. To address these questions, I critically examine the patterned ways Donald Trump, first as candidate and then as President, has used sport to promote his white nationalist project. Additionally, I critically unpack the writings and performances of two white male cultural figures who are key figures within Trump nationalist assemblage. The first, Richard Spencer, coined the label ‘alternative right’. The second, National Football League superstar, Tom Brady, is a man who Trump loves to call a ‘good friend’. I contend that, like Trump, they venerate (in Spencer’s case) and normalize (in Brady’s case) an idealized performance of white masculinity I call white male omnipotence, that is central to explaining the appeal of Trump’s nationalist project to “Make America Great Again” for many anxious white Americans.

Who Receives Drug Education in Our Schools?: A Paradox

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-136
Author(s):  
Russell Eisenman
Keyword(s):  
Predominantly White ◽  
Central City ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Department ◽  
Drug Education ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
Black Schools ◽  
Predominantly White Schools ◽  
White Schools ◽  
To Receive

Data from a national survey by the United States Department of Justice of 47,000 households reveals a paradox regarding who receives drug education in primary and secondary schools. Those who would seem to need it the most are least likely to receive it. Thus, blacks receive drug education classes less often than whites, students in central city classes less often than those in other regions, and students who report that drugs are available are also less likely to receive drug education classes than students who report that drugs are not available. The results are paradoxical, but consistent with a study by Denson, Voight, and Eisenman which found that predominantly black schools in Louisiana provided less AIDS education than predominantly white schools [1].

The Calculus and Quotients of Social Illiteracy: Equations of Race, Responsibility & Critical-Ethical Literacy in Schools

2020 ◽  
pp. 001312452096208
Author(s):  
J. Kalonji Rand
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
White Students ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
White Teachers ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Antiracist Education ◽  
American Students ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Critical Literacy Pedagogy

Should students in public schools learn to think critically about racial (in)justice and social (in)equity? The results of a recent mixed methods survey for educators revealed that a significant number of teachers did not believe they were responsible for helping their students develop the skills to critically analyze and respond to social injustice. Quantitative data showed that most of the educators who responded unfavorably, self-identified as “White” teachers of mostly White students; while most of the White teachers of mostly African American students held the opposite belief. Qualitative data provided some context for the rationales informing the divergent beliefs of these White teachers. Utilizing a combination of grounded theory and coding methods, I explore, illustrate, and analyze the responses of both sets of White teachers in an effort to illuminate and contextualize their articulated beliefs. Then, I interrogate the findings in light of their emergence along racial strata, using insights from scholarship in Critical Whiteness Studies and Critical Literacy/Pedagogy. Then I discuss their implications with reference to Robert Starratt’s “Virtue of Responsibility” and current theories of antiracist education. I conclude with a call for improving the educational experiences and societal outcomes of all students by naming and disrupting social illiteracy, championing critical-ethical literacy and encouraging an antiracist ethos.

White Teachers, Racial Privilege, and the Sociological Imagination

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (10) ◽  
pp. 1462-1488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Crowley
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
White Teachers ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Racial Privilege ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Personal Experiences

The author draws from critical Whiteness studies and the sociological imagination to show how three White preservice teachers in an urban education program used personal experiences with racial privilege to understand structural racism. These stories depart from portrayals of race-evasive White teachers who struggle to engage with critical perspectives on race and racism. The participants’ stories—which openly critique meritocracy and color blindness—not only demonstrate possibility, but they also raise concerns about the use of personal experience by dominant groups and note how considerations of White privilege do not necessarily lead to an understanding of how one is complicit in the reproduction of White supremacy.

scholarly journals European Whiteness? A Critical Approach

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bolette B. Blaagaard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

Born out of the United States' (U.S.) history of slavery and segregation and intertwined EUROPEAN WHITENESS? 21 with gender studies and feminism, the field of critical whiteness studies does not fit easily into a European setting and the particular historical context that entails. In order for a field of European critical whiteness studies to emerge, its relation to the U.S. theoretical framework, as well as the particularities of the European context need to be taken into account. The article makes a call for a multilayered approach to take over from the identity politics so often employed in the fields of U.S. gender, race, and whiteness studies.

Critical Whiteness Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
White Femininity ◽  
European Colonialism

Critical whiteness studies can be understood in terms of three overlapping waves ranging from the national to the international and from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Beginning in the Reconstruction era in the United States, the first wave criticized whiteness in the form of protection of white femininity, possessive ownership, and the public and psychological wages paid to white people during Jim Crow America. The second wave began after the end of World War II, when challenges to legalized racial segregation and European colonialism flourished. The third wave, whose beginning can be marked roughly at the end of the 20th century, is distinguished by increased examination of nonblack immigrants’ relation to whiteness, the growing number of white authors contributing to the field, and a blossoming international range of critical studies of whiteness.

scholarly journals The Critique of American Racism in Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-67
Author(s):  
Danica Čerče
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Whiteness Studies ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
American Racism

Written in the light of critical discourse about the social value of literary sympathy and against the backdrop of critical whiteness studies, the article deals with John Steinbeck’s non-fiction book Travels with Charley in Search of America. Framed by an interest in how the writer responded to the racial separation in the United States, the article demonstrates that this work, which is often dismissed as a “charming portrayal of America,” is a serious intervention in all sites of discrimination and domination.  

A Case for Decentering Whiteness in Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Jamie Utt
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
White Students ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Traditional Curriculum ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Critical Whiteness Studies ◽  
Cultural Wealth ◽  
Critical Whiteness ◽  
Social Studies Textbooks

Ethnic Studies undermines and challenges the racism inherent in dominant education systems by centering identities and epistemologies of people of Color. While much focus has been paid to the damage done to students of Color by White teachers and the White standard curriculum, this paper addresses the intellectual and material benefit White students disproportionately gain from this curriculum. Through a mixed-methods empirical study examining social studies textbooks and standards from Texas and California, the author argues that the standard White canon acts as a form of White/Western studies that directly privileges White students. Critical Race Theory, Critical Whiteness Studies, Pierre Bourdieu cultural reproduction, and Tara Yosso’s community cultural wealth provide theoretical frameworks in calling for a broader implementation of Ethnic Studies programs and pedagogies while calling for reform of traditional curriculum and standards that act as couriers of dominant capital for White students.

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