EDLD 565: Race, Gender & Culture in Higher EducationDr. Athena Perrakis, Professor Presented by: Jacqueline Che, Roxanne Eisermann, Khalia Ii, Jasmine LeFever

What does it mean to be a Person of Color?

“An ideology of white dominance that marginalizes and oppresses people of color, ensuring existing privileges for

white people in this country” (McIntyre, 1997)

Meaning lies solely on the hierarchical placement advantage it conveys

Constructed as the standard or norm against which all other racial categories are measured.

(Dr. Derald Sue)

Socialization Inheritance

Benefit To have a stake

Denial

Unaware Right Privilege

Possession Human Being Oppressor

More importantly, being a White American means living in a world of self-deception, “color blind” in the sense that you do not see that in this world your skin color is an asset while all other colors are a liability.

(Dr. Derald Sue)

An institutional (rather than a personal) set of benefits associated with being white.

Name for the unearned advantages and benefits that accrue to “white” (or lighter skinned) people by virtue of a system that establishes the experiences, values, and perceptions of their group as the norm and what is most desired or esteemed.

Operates within an invisible veil of unspoken and protected secrecy.

Means not having to think about race all the time--the privilege to enjoy the benefits of whiteness without acknowledging those advantages and while denying that “race matters”

(Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins, 2nd ed. Race, Class, and Gender, pp. 41-46.)

(Dr. Sue)

A societal goal; a concept that symbolizes the effort to deconstruct the meaning of race by highlighting their absence.

Denies the existence of racial, ethnic, and cultural barriers in the larger society.

i.e. the seeking to systematically expunge from African-American students’ cultural repertoire those aspects of their group identity that might be associated with their African and African-American ancestry.

Whiteness =

the real, normal humanity…?

Whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law.

Following the period of slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege

Whites as Citizens…Blacks as Others

Slave Codes, enacted from 1680 through 1705Bacon’s Rebellion U.S. Civil War (1861– 1865)Citizenship Naturalization Act of 1870 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, 1892 (renewed in

1892 and in 1902)Court petitioned citizenshipThe tyranny of the Jim Crow era in American life

(from Reconstruction through the 1960s)

No families for Chinese (1880's – 1914)The Dawes Land Allotment Act (1887) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of

Education (1954)“Three Strikes You’re Out” in California (1994)The passage of Proposition 209 (1996)

“White” is a political term “White privilege” is a relational term “White” was originally a class term

A study of the historical origin of the term white suggests that:

Two Models:Status PEOPLE OF COLOR WHITE

1 Conformity Conformity

2 Dissonance Acceptance

3 Immersion Resistance

4 Emersion Retreat

5 Internalization Emergence

6 Integrative Awareness Integrative Awareness

Helms, J.E. (1990) (Ed.). Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research and Practice. CT: Greenwood Press

And some people think, “Well, why bother? All you’re going to get out of this experience is pain.”

I know it’s horrible. I feel bad about it. I wish it hadn’t happened. What else am I supposed to do?

What is the legitimate role of White folks in social justice, and race, and related to race issues and racism?

I want to help. How can I help? How can I help promote change and equality for African Americans and for all people of color? And he just turned to me and said,

“Educate your own people.”

I demonstrate my distance of Whiteness by rejecting my own group.

There is a theory that talks about racial context and that it needs to be between equals.

I wanted to teach these White kids that they’re racist... You want to blame your own group. In other words, the way I connect with some sense of purity in myself is by rejecting my own community, which is the White community.

Using the experience of a white person as true for everyone.

“I’m not followed around in the store by a guard, what makes you think you are?”

Reinserting oneself into the conversation if it is felt that it has drifted to focus on a person of color or on an issue of others’ race.

“I don’t really think the issue is race as much as it is class.”

Kendall, F.2. (2001). Understanding White Privilege

Defining the parameters of “appropriate” conversation and communication.

“I’d like a “safe” space before I’ll feel open to talk about race and racism.”

“You always focus on race. I remember at two meetings last year…”

“I know we have a way to go, but things have gotten better.”

Kendall, F.2. (2001). Understanding White Privilege

Determine for yourself what issues may be at play without disempowering people of color for

having a different point of view.

Kendall, F.2. (2001). Understanding White Privilege Brazaitis, S.J. (2004). White women - Protectors of the Status quo, positioned to disrupt it. In S. Cytrynbaum and D. Noumair,

(Eds.), Group Relations Reader 3 (pp. 99-116). Washington, D.C.: A.K. Rice Institute.

Let’s examine the lens which we view interactions with.

Know that exposing whiteness and white privilege will threaten your power and

privilege too. But…

There is an opportunity for a shift to take place. People of color can be freed of the “diversity

expert” role.

Activity:• Make a list of 10 things you usually do during

the week.

What is your social responsibility to understand whiteness and white privilege?

What role does leadership play in all of this?