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Whiteness studies is the study of the structures that produce white privilege, the examination of what whiteness is when analyzed as a race, a culture, and a source of systemic racism, and the exploration of other social phenomena generated by the societal compositions, perceptions and group behaviors of white people. It is an interdisciplinary arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the United States from white trash studies and critical race studies, particularly since the late 20th century. It is focused on what proponents describe as the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of "whiteness" as an ideology tied to social status.
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Timothy Jacob Wise is an American activist and writer on the topic of race. He is a consultant who provides anti-racism lectures to institutions.
White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With roots in European colonialism and imperialism, and the Atlantic slave trade, white privilege has developed in circumstances that have broadly sought to protect white racial privileges, various national citizenships, and other rights or special benefits.
Male privilege is the system of advantages or rights that are available to men on the basis of their sex. A man's access to these benefits may vary depending on how closely they match their society's ideal masculine norm.
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Robert William Jensen is a former professor of journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1992 to 2018 he taught graduate and undergraduate courses in media law, ethics, and politics.
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Whiteness theory is a field under whiteness studies, that studies what white identity means in terms of social, political, racial, economic, culture, etc. Whiteness theory posits that if some Western societies make whiteness central to their respective national and cultural identities, their white populations may become blind to the privilege associated with White identity. The theory examines how that blindness may exclude, otherize and perhaps harm non-white individuals and segments of the population.
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Theodore William Allen was an American independent scholar, writer, and activist, best known for his pioneering writings since the 1960s on white skin privilege and the origin of white identity. His major theoretical work The Invention of the White Race was published in two volumes: Racial Oppression and Social Control (1994) and The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America (1997). The central ideas of this opus however, appeared in much earlier works such as his seminal Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race, published as a pamphlet in 1975, and in expanded form the following year. He claimed that the notion of white race was invented as "a ruling class social control formation."
A critical theory is any approach to humanities and social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. Some hold it to be an ideology, others argue that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory, cultural studies, history, communication theory, philosophy, and feminist theory.
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to create equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination and/or working to change personal racial biases. Major contemporary anti-racism efforts include the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and workplace anti-racism.
Abolitionist teaching, also known as abolitionist pedagogy, is a set of practices and approaches to teaching that emphasize abolishing educational practices considered by its proponents to be inherently problematic and oppressive. The term was coined by education professor and critical theorist Bettina Love.
References
- 1 2 Genzlinger, Neil (November 4, 2019) "Noel Ignatiev, 78, Persistent Voice Against White Privilege, Dies". The New York Times
- ↑ Stohry, Hannah (2021) "Race Treason" in Casey, Zachary (2021) Encyclopedia of Critical Whiteness Studies in Education. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 9789004376304 pp.521-523.
- ↑ Preston, John; Chadderton, Charlotte (2012). "Rediscovering "Race Traitor": Towards a Critical Race Theory informed public pedagogy". Race Ethnicity and Education . 15: 85–100. doi:10.1080/13613324.2012.638866. S2CID 146278511.
- ↑ Quoted in Leonardo, Zeus (2009) Race, Whiteness and Education. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415993173 p.100
- ↑ Kang, Jay Caspian (November 15, 2019) "Noel Ignatiev’s Long Fight Against Whiteness" The New Yorker
- ↑ Flores, Lisa A.; Moon, Dreama G. (2002). "Rethinking race, revealing dilemmas: Imagining a new racial subject in race traitor". Western Journal of Communication . 66 (2): 181–207. doi:10.1080/10570310209374732. S2CID 144460400.