Understanding Whiteness - November 2017
A Brief History
Whiteness exists as assumed, as the status quo, as normal. In order to challenge and complicate it, we must first name it and render it visible.
Whiteness is systemic and not personal. In this course, we’ll move away from the personal feelings and attitudes to the systemic and structural. In other words, how does whiteness exist in law and order, social institutions, economic value, and cultural practices? It is important to understand whiteness as institutional, structural, and cultural, rather than solely interpersonal. Without the former, the latter becomes a conversation of “reverse racism,” a term which does not and cannot exist. It is also important to talk about whiteness as something that is present and visible, rather than absent and invisible. For example, whiteness can only exist with an opposition, in this case blackness. Whiteness exists and is defined by what it is not - blackness. Where blackness is defined as primitive, irrational, and criminal, whiteness then becomes civilized, rational, and law-abiding.
Studying whiteness also allows us to have a conversation about diversity through an anti-racist lens. How is colonialism, genocide, sexism, and slavery related to whiteness and how do these forms of oppression produce notions of diversity and multiculturalism? How do we frame diversity and multiculturalism as a consequence and invention of white supremacy?
The goal of this course is to critically examine and center whiteness as a system of power that reproduces normalized, yet invisible, notions of what it is by relying on and erasing those it oppresses.
Course Curriculum
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1
Week 1: Who invented “white”? A Brief History of Whiteness and Housing
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George Lipsitz - The Possessive Investment in Whiteness - CHAPTER 1
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Reading Questions
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Week 1 Slides
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2
Week 2: Who invented "white"? A Brief History of Whiteness and the Legal System
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Cheryl Harris Whiteness as Property
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Class Discussion Questions
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3
Week 3: Who invented "white"? A Brief History of Whiteness and Science
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E. Frances White "The Dark Continent of Our Bodies"
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"The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement" from the New Yorker
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Seeing White Podcasts
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4
Week 4: Whiteness and the Racial Contract
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Charles Mills - The Racial Contract (Introduction and Overview)
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Ta-Nehisi Coates - "The First White President"
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About the instructors
Instructor, PhD Candidate
Chip Chang
Chip Chang started playing ultimate her freshman year at UC San Diego, where she majored in ultimate, History and Political Science. After graduating as a Psycho, she attended UCLA to use her fifth year of eligibility and to pursue her Master’s in Asian American Studies. In 2015, Chip moved to Minneapolis, MN where she currently resides. She is a third year doctoral student in American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her research looks at the ways in which popular culture, the model minority narrative, and the language of multiculturalism produce, inform, and reinforce our ideas of race, belonging, and citizenship. Her research fields include critical ethnic studies, history, and Asian American studies.