On Being White: A Series (3)

I began this series on race in America (see here) with a personal anecdote, because personal stories and subjective accounts are de rigueur in writings in the field of “whiteness studies.” The Wages of Whiteness by the labor historian David Roediger, for instance, opens with a conversion narrative concerning his journey from his racist past. Marilyn Frye, a retired professor of philosophy who has established an academic reputation with work on racism and sexuality, likewise appears to have suffered much from being a white woman, always aware, as she writes, that every choice or decision she makes is “made in a matrix of options,” that all decisions are “an exercise of race privilege.” (My emphasis.)  In the end, however, what it all comes down to is Marilyn Frye: “Does being white make it impossible for me to be a good person?”

The takeoff of whiteness studies occurred less than two decades ago, with Roediger’s study, but the field has had enormous influence over public discourse, especially in the media. The articles and books it has generated, and especially the jargon of the field — white privilege, white racism, and so on — have become self-propelling. This jargon has penetrated the consciousness even of folks who have never heard of Jacques Derrida: the assumptions of whiteness studies have become the “new natural.” Observe a hedge fund manager enjoying a cognac at a smart bar on the Upper West Side (where I live and which is also the throbbing heartbeat of liberal America). If the TV monitor is featuring a rant by MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry about “blaming the victim,” you and I might turn away, but he will nod sagely, at least if anyone is watching. Even people who would seem to be the object of scorn of whiteness studies pay lip service to the proposition that they are oppressors of blacks and other minorities.

The white professional classes, however, wear this scorn lightly, like anyone who acts with noblesse oblige. No one is going to take away the privileges they enjoy, even if Bernie Sanders becomes president. “Matrix of options,” indeed. As for the laborers in the the field of whiteness studies, they will fight to their dying breath to retain tenure or, as they call it, “academic freedom.” It is not, however, the fellow-privileged who are the targets of whiteness studies. The object of their scorn is the white working class.

The next installment discusses the political goals of whiteness studies.

Picture credit: Free Republic