Whiteness and Colour-Blindness

Whiteness can be defined to be a shifting and malleable (and often transparent) socially constructed group, comprised of members who often fail to recognise their membership, but nevertheless benefit not only from the group being the dominant and normative sociological catagory in the United States, but also from a system of favours, exchanges and courtesies which remain unavailable to people excluded from the grouping.1 In conjunction with this, colour-blindness can be defined as the equal treatment of each individual person, by negating all racial characteristics and focusing purely on, and judging them solely by, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘the content of their character’.

The unmistakable existence of whiteness in the United States is a worrying phenomenon. What the characteristics of whiteness ‘do’ in relation to and in conjunction with the advocacy of colour-blindness is something of an unexplored frontier in race studies. It is my intention in this essay to demonstrate why no truly colour-blind philosophy can exist in the United States alongside and parallel to whiteness.

When advocated as part of a neo-conservative philosophy (Reaganism, for example, in the 1980’s), colour-blindness takes on the mantle of preserving the privileges associated with whiteness. As Winant (2001) puts it:

‘[M]any whites came to support a conservative and individualistic form of egalitarianism, thus upholding a supposedly “colourblind” (but actually deeply race-conscious) position.2’

Whether or not this mantle is assumed consciously or subconsciously is difficult to know, and is probably down to the individual believer, but the end result is the same: colour-blindness becomes a vehicle for the protection of whiteness and the privileges that are associated with it.

Yet while Winant asserts this position to be a ‘deeply race-conscious’ one, it is also important to recognise that the quality of whiteness within an individual’s make-up is not always recognised by the proponent of the ideology. Reason and Evans (2007) phrase it as: ‘[w]hiteness is not a salient feature of [white student’s] identities and remains unexamined. These students subscribe to a colour-blind ideology.3’ It is this hidden unconscious facade of whiteness which leads Williams to assume that the white children who forced her to see her blackness as a mark probably never learned to see that their whiteness was a mark.4 This is even more extraordinary, of course, when we consider that while both whiteness and blackness are dangerous social constructions, void of any scientific grounding or meaning, the former is infinitely more false than the latter.5

We are presented at this point with two fundamental issues: one is the danger of whiteness as a social construction, and the second is an unsalient understanding of it within the white conceptualisation of race, and specifically a colour-blind ideology. The emerging issue which thus presents itself before us is the abolition of whiteness (and how it is possibly going to be achieved), and what the consequences are for any notion of colour-blindness.

David Roediger is the most prominent scholar on the issue of eliminating whiteness and white privilege. What he advocates in his 1994 Towards the Abolition of Whiteness is a complete reconceptualisation of race to incorporate a fuller understanding of whiteness. The institutionalised nature of race and more specifically whiteness creates a form of alienation which is ‘produced by bureaucratic structures and commercialised culture [and] helps to undergird ersatz ethnicity among whites.6’ The deduction from this that systemised changes are required might not be a new insight, but to view the process of change as one of ‘unwhitening’ is crucial in order to negate the othering of non-white people in US society.

Lewis’s (2004) observation that ‘the racialisation of whites is inherently at some level about domination because the category’s very existence is dependent on the continuation of white supremacy7’ underscores the importance of the infrastructure of the United States being a ‘white’ one. White supremacy is now subvertly expressed in post-transformation America through institutionalised channels. Furthermore, unwhitening the US system and making it more ethnically diverse would: first, make institutionalised systems more representative of the nation as a whole and serve the country more effectively; and second, and most importantly for us, deal a severe blow to the concept of whiteness. If Lewis is right about the invention of the ‘white race’ (Ted Allen’s phrase) relying upon its institutional dominance for survival, then unwhitening the system would drastically reduce the lifespan of the notion of whiteness.

When the power structures are so dominated by ’white’ people and people who passively benefit from the privileges of whiteness and do not realise it (as they are at the moment, even though Barack Obama is looking certain to be the Democratic nominee for the Presidency), the notion of colour-blindness cannot be a true and authentic one. Indeed, it takes on neo-racist undertones as it does when expressed as part of a neo-conservative agenda. At the present time, advocates of colour-blindness within the power structures, who stress that there is no need for race-specific policies, make the bold and wrong assumption that current distributive shares are the fair outcome of individual initiatives. The fact that ‘white’ people benefit and continue to benefit from institutional racism is not acknowledged.8 Ultimately, within these power structures, ‘the rhetoric of equal treatment and colo[u]r blindness operates to normalize whiteness.9’

The qualities of whiteness which underpin the institutionalised structures are built around a categorisation which is, plain and simply, false. The ‘invention of the white race’, is, in the words of Roediger, nothing but oppressive and false.10 One by one, ‘specific ethnic cultures always stand in danger of being swallowed by the lie of whiteness.11’ As George Yancy puts it, ‘in short, whites frequently lie to themselves.12’ Yancy goes on to note:

‘A key feature of the social ontology of whiteness is that whites attempt to avoid discussing their own social, political, economic, and cultural investments in whiteness. Many whites fail to see their complicity with the systemic workings …13’

This failure to see just about anything within the self or the system is an issue for colour-blindness. It is colour-blindness which has morphed into simple complete and utter blindness. Popular culture often portrays whiteness as being in association with or one and the same as goodness and innocence; darkness and blackness, in contrast, often carry connotations of evil and menace.14 I mention this here because it is fair to cast these portrayals as lies as well. Whiteness is an inherently false categorisation built on and perpetuating lies, both about itself and blackness, and while this is the case, colour-blind ideologies exist only as lies as well. An honest move would be to abolish whiteness and the privileges associated with it; if this could be achieved, it would be far easier for each individual to be honest with themselves and this would be a great step towards an honest colour-blind society.

Morrison offers us an explanation of why specific ethnic cultures become ‘white’. New immigrant populations entering the United States for the first time understood their ‘Americanness’ as an opposition to the resident black population, because ‘America means white.15’ I would assert that this is due in part to the institutionalised and systemisation of whiteness already outlined. What in effect happened was once new immigrant populations (such as the Irish16 or the Italians) arrived, they gradually grew to be part of the ‘white race’ and learnt to see themselves as, first and foremost, white. As Jay (1998) noted when describing the development of the United States, ‘the American race originated as a white race.17’

Breaking the connection between perceived Americanness and being ‘white’ will not be easy. Culturally, steps have already been taken, but more needs to be done. Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘American Skin (41 Shots)’ for example, about the shooting of Amadou Diallo by New York City police officers in February of 1999, is just one explicit attempt to rebrand what it is to be ‘American’: Diallo had moved to New York City only three years previous, after growing up in Singapore, Liberia, Togo, Bangkok and Guinea. One Bruce Springsteen song -- a song which is yet to be recorded on a studio album -- cannot make much difference, but the portrayal of people like Diallo is crucial if colour-blindness is going to mean anything. Colour-blindness in the United States can mean very little if being ‘white’ is a pre-condition to being seen as truly American. The abolishment of whiteness would serve to break the connection between being ‘white’ and being American, and perhaps once that has happened it will be easier for people like Toni Morrison to see themselves as American. ‘Africanist people struggle,’ she writes, ‘to make the term [American] applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen.18’

One of Roediger’s principle concerns about other races and ethnicities coming to see themselves as ‘white’ is the cultural impact it has. If each various ethnicity comes to the United States and puts on the mask of whiteness, then they are not developing into another culture because, as Roediger says,

‘whiteness describes … not a culture, but precisely the absence of culture. It is the empty and therefore terrifying attempt to build an identity based on what one isn’t and on whom one can hold back.19’

The cultural losses of assuming whiteness far outnumber the cultural gains, but the day-to-day benefits make it worthwhile.

Roediger insists that whiteness is, in all honesty, void of culture. As a result of this, it has been argued that ‘white’ people try and usurp other cultures and claim their activities as their own. Dalton Conley tells how ‘white’ teenagers shirk ‘white’ cultural practices (whatever they happen to be at the time), and gravitate towards blackness in the form of hip hop. This, he claims, is no romantic kinship, but is in fact just one example of whites exerting their cultural dominance.20

Nevertheless, Roediger is wrong to argue that whiteness has absolutely no culture whatsoever. The question has to be asked that, if this is the case, then is the power of whiteness in no way cultural? This is probably not so, because, as Yancy notes, ‘the power of whiteness (white supremacy) manifests itself in many forms, but it still remains whiteness (white supremacy).21’ It is, of course, possible for whiteness to exert its power through cultural forms often associated with non-white races and ethnicities.

The far-fetched assumption is also made by a number of neo-abolitionists that cultures ‘belong’ to racial groups, and that there are clear and identifiable lines that separate racialised peoples22. The hybridity argument is damaging to this assumption. As Vron Ware notes:

‘… kinds interviewed by The Sunday Times could not think of anything that was purely English because all national cultures are in fact ‘irretrievably hybrid’ and constantly evolving.23’

In addition to this, Toni Morrison makes some fascinating and relevant observations about the development of nineteenth century American literature. It is true that the writers were mostly white males, (Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), but there was some female representation in the form of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson, and, slightly later, Willa Cather. (Indeed, Morrison argues that the architecture of a ‘new white man’ has forever been the principle concern of American literature.24) Furthermore, the subject matter of these writers was very often influenced by a ‘dark presence’ and novels and poems repeatedly dealt with the black population. ‘Africanism,’ claims Morrison, was ‘the staging ground and arena for the elaboration of the quintessential American identity.25’ Moreover, Morrison writes:

‘Whatever their personal and formally political responses to the inherent contradiction of a free republic deeply committed to slavery, nineteenth century writers were mindful of the presence of black people. More important, they addressed … their views on that difficult matter.26’

While ‘white’ people were the ones becoming writers and making use of the privileges bestowed on them by society (the only black writers at the time were authors of slave narratives, and many works were discredited until the latter part of the twentieth century), the black population was one if their most prominent topics. The substance of the work produced revolved around a black presence (think of the run away slave, Jim in Huck Finn), even though it was written by white people who were more often than not male. In addition to this, the connection between whiteness and blackness is of great importance. When it was in the process of getting acclimated with dominance in society, ‘whiteness’ was defined subconsciously by its instigators as being in direct opposition to ‘blackness’.

Another feature of whiteness is the denial which comes with it. Whites can too easily see themselves as unracialised and completely untouched by race. We are living through a paradox where ‘white’ people can ‘not have’ race, but can still be racists. Williams highlights the fact that ‘whiteness as ‘race’ is almost never implicated27’ as being a central frustration of the race issue. The fact that whiteness is unnamed, suppressed, beyond the realm of race allows white people to come to the conclusion that race lives ‘over there’.28 Tied up in this is also a policy of politeness. As Williams notes, ‘race matters are resented and repressed in much the same way as matters of sex and scandal: the subject is considered a rude and transgressive one…29’

Moreover, for many of the women interviewed by Ruth Frankenberg for her study White Women, Race Matters, colour-blindness constitutes the polite language of race.30 Frankenberg’s later observation that ‘colour-evasion actually involves a selective engagement with difference, rather than no engagement at all31’ is probably an accurate critique of the philosophy of colour-blindness as it stands at the present time.

I would argue that this is currently so because of the issue of whiteness itself. ‘White’ people in the United States often convince themselves that the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s corrected the issue of inequality within US society. Furthermore, they convince themselves that the legislation that came out of the civil rights movement was a sufficient measure to correct the issues raised during that period. Various government statistics suggest that this is most definitely not the case (the number of African Americans in jail is disproportionate to the number of African Americans living in the United States, for example), but ‘white’ people fail to recognise such facts, unless it suits them to. It is not my intention, here, to be monocausal about why so many African Americans are behind bars, but the belief of the white people that since the transformation in US society, everything is now ‘alright’ is clearly a contributing factor to many misgivings such as this.

Frankenberg’s preference for the term ‘colour-evasiveness’ in place of colour-blindness is telling. Her desire to use the former is driven partly out of not wanting to place too much emphasis on a physiological disability (this is, after all, a sociological and a psychological problem), but also because some issues do not remain completely unseen32; they are often identified, but are strategically evaded. Within the realm of whiteness, this is done for a plethora of reasons, but the two most common reasons are the preservation of the dominance of ‘white’ people, and the aim of maintaining politeness. The implication of this is a dishonest ‘living out’ of a colour-blind paradigm, and the existence of a neo-racist ideology. Many of the things are seen but are not recognised as part of the same issue: minority suffering.

So where does all this leave whiteness and colour-blindness?

The tragic reproduction of whiteness is, in the eyes of Roediger, due to the privileges that come with it.33 This is understandable because the privileges enable power, but, as detailed by many academics (most forcefully Frankenberg), power itself, and where it rests and who has it, is often an evaded subject in public discourse, and especially when not spoken of in terms of race:

‘… for some women, descriptions of people of colo[u]r that evaded naming race (and therefore power) differences formed what one might describe as a ‘polite’ or ‘public’ language of race that contrasted with other private languages.34’

The antidote to such privileges, Roediger suggests, is an explicit and visible campaign for expanded affirmative action.35 The success of such a campaign would revolve around whether or not it got people talking openly, in public, about the issue of race. As Morrison summarises, ‘ignoring the issue of race is understood to be a graceful, even generous, liberal gesture.36’ This, of course, simply cannot be the case when so many sociological problems in the United States have the issue of race as a central factor. Many problems are still caused by racism, but the problem now is that racism, like whiteness, is not a salient feature of US society. The fact that the racism is, at times, made invisible by colour-blindness does not make it any less hurtful or wrong. Indeed, it probably makes it harder to remove. Institutionalised racism, which is due in large part to the manifestation of whiteness within the American system, causes minority groups of various ethnicities (not just African Americans) much trouble on a daily basis. The overwhelming majority of American people are unaware of such problems because the system disproportionately benefits them, allowing them to believe that they, along with numerous institutions, are colour-blind, when in actual fact they are causing much hurt and not realising it.

Colour-blindness, where-by people genuinely are treated equally by the ‘content of their character’ not only by individuals but by systems as well, remains a very real hope for the United States. A colour-blind paradigm could flourish in the US in the not too distant future, but before that can happen whiteness first has to be understood by those whom it unevenly benefits, then it has to be systematically dismantled. Roediger has observed that ‘whiteness is now a particularly brittle and fragile form of social identity and … it can be fought.37’ The first step to fighting off the privileges of whiteness in order to adopt a colour-blind philosophy is to dispel the myth that racism is located in colour consciousness and that racism is absent from colour-blindness38. The reverse is probably closer to the truth at the present time, yet this remains the hope for one day in the distant future. For now, the goal for the short term should be the dismantling of whiteness after a process of reconceptualising ‘race’ to include notions of whiteness and to realise that ‘white’ people are, in fact, racialised. After that, the goal for the long term -- a United States which is, in all truth, a colour-blind nation -- will be achievable.

Until then, whiteness will continue to make colour-blindness a myth as it stands today. As Omi notes, ‘many white believe that the goals of the civil rights movement have been achieved, that we are a colour-blind society.39’ This belief, like whiteness itself, is a false and dangerous myth.


Bibliography

Allen, Theodore W. The Invention of the White Race: Volume One: Racial Oppression and Social Control. London: Verso. 1994.

Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York U.P. 2001.

Fossett, Judith Jackson and Jeffrey A. Tucker. Ed. Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the new Century. New York: New York U.P. 1997.

Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. London: Routledge. 1993.

Jay, Gregory. “Who Invented White People? A Talk on the Occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1998.” Whiteness Studies: Deconstructing (the) Race. Jan 15, 1998. Mar 24, 2008.

Lewis, Amanda E. “”What Group?” Studying Whites and Whiteness in an Era of “Colour-Blindness”.” Sociological Theory. 22:4. (December 2004): p 623 - 646.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard U.P. 1992.

Rasmussen, Birgit Brander, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica and Matt Wray. Ed. The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness. London: Duke U.P. 2001.

Reason, Robert D. and Nancy J. Evans. “The Complicated Realities of Whiteness: From Color Blind to Racially Cognizant.” New Directions for Student Services. 120. (Winter 2007): p 67 - 74.

Roediger, David. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics, and Working Class History. London: Verso. 1994.

Williams, Patricia J. Seeing a Colour-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. London: Virago. 1997.

Yancy, George. Ed. What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. London: Routledge. 2004.


1 Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York : New York U.P. 2001. p 75 - 78

2 Winant, Howard. “White Racial Projects.” The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness. Ed. Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica and Matt Wray. London: Duke U.P., 2001. p 103

3 Reason, Robert D. and Nancy J. Evans. “The Complicated Realities of Whiteness: From Colour Blind to Racially Cognizant.” New Directions for Student Services. 120. (Winter 2007): p 68

4 Williams, Patricia J. Seeing a Colour-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. London: Virago. p 5

5 Roediger, David. Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics and Working Class History. London: Verso. p 12

6 Roediger, David, p 9

7 Lewis, Amanda E. “”What Group?” Studying Whites and Whiteness in the Era of “Colour-Blindness”.” Sociological Theory. 22:4 (December 2004): p 625

8 Headley, Clevis. “Delegitimizing the Normativity of “Whiteness”.” What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. Ed. George Yancy. London: Routledge. 2004. p 96

9 Oliver, Kelly, as quoted by Clevis Headley, p 96

10 Roediger, David, p 13

11 Ibid.

12 Yancy, George. “Fragments of a Social Ontology of Whiteness.” In George Yancy, p 1

13 Ibid. p 4

14 Delgado, Richard et al., p 75

15 Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard U.P. 1992. p 47

16 For a detailed account of how the Irish became white in the United States, see Ignatiev, Noel. How The Irish Became White. London: Routledge. 1995.

17 Jay Gregory. “Who Invented White People?”

18 Morrison, Toni, p 47

19 Roediger, David, p 13

20 Conley, Dalton. “Universal Freckle, or How I Learned to be White.” in Birgit Brander Rasmussen et al., p 28

21 Yancy, George. “Fragments of a Social ontology of Whiteness.” In George Yancy, p 7

22 Rasmussen, Birgit Brander et al. p 11

23 Ware, Vron. “Perfidious Albion: Whiteness and the International Imagination.” in Birgit Brander Rasmussen et al., p 210

24 Morrison, Toni, p 14

25 Morrison, Toni, p 44

26 Ibid. p 49 - 50

27 Williams, Patricia J., p 4

28 Williams, Patricia J. p 5

29 Ibid. p 6

30 Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. London: Routledge. 1993. p 142

31 Ibid. p 142-3

32 Frankenberg, Ruth, p 268 n.31

33 Roediger, David, p 17

34 Frankenberg, Ruth, p 149-150

35 Roediger, David, p 17

36 Morrison, Toni, p 9-10

37 Roediger, David, p 12

38 Omi, Michael. “(E)racism: Emerging Practices of Antiracist Organisations.” in Birgit Brander Rasmussen et al., p 267

39 Ibid., p 268