US Historic-Social Construct of Whiteness and White Privilege

1. US Historic-Social Construct of Whiteness and White Privilege

2. Today’s Objectives: • Class Group Activity • What is privilege? • How do privilege and difference correlate with one another? • Importance of studying, understanding, and acknowledging white male privilege.

3. Why learn about whiteness white privilege? • Impossible to understand history and socio-cultural effects of racializing classifications without studying the category of “whiteness.”

4. “The Invisible Knapsack” • White privilege is a real thing. It’s the default setting (a.k.a - normativity). • White privilege functions as “immunity”. • Immune from certain life experiences, internal and/or external, big and small, based solely on the racial classification born into.

5. Hallmarks of Privilege • White privilege, like male privilege, means being oblivious (and allowed to remain oblivious) to the social constructs of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. • Privilege “gives permission to control, because of ones race or sex.” • Peggy McIntosh, pp. 21

6. Historical-Social Construction of whiteness “getting caught up in this racial thing” • Eastern and Southern European immigrants in early 20th century • Italians, Greeks, Hungarian, German, Jewish • Ethnicity (nationality, culture, dialect, clothing, food) was how early immigrants to US were classified/compared amongst eachother. • As process of US assimilation took place, these “differences” were subsumed to the identity of white. • “How White People Became White” by Barret and Roediger

7. Usefulness of Learning about White Privilege/Immunity • A tool to understand “other” people’s experiences & realities. • Provides insight to the experiences of people of color. • Allows for society to recognize how systemic inequalities have evolved and what we can do about it.

8. Usefulness of Learning about White Privilege/Immunity • Studying whiteness means studying institutional and cultural racism. • White privilege is systemic; not (simply) personal. • Whiteness oppresses when it operates as the invisible regime of normality.

9. Making Connections • 8. “I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.” • 15. “I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.” • 32. “My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.”