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BEING WHITE (On-line Extra Credit Project #1)

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Jeff Hitchcock and Charley Flint

3. WHITENESS AND THE MAINSTREAM: by Jeff Hitchcock and Charley Flint
 
4. Whiteness in its contemporary form in United States society is culturally based. It controls institutions, which are extensions of white American culture, and which are also bounded, that is, governed by the values and precepts of white American culture.
 
5. There exists in the United States a mainstream culture that is less white than it used to be. The mainstream forms the "center" of American society. This does not mean all people adhere to that center, or that the center is truly multiracial. It is not. We contend that it is still very white, and more similar to its historical position of being nearly all-white than to some future time when the mainstream might be truly multiracial.
 
6. A quick glance at the "top" of our central, or mainstream culture in the United States confirms it is still very white and male. Dominance by men has long been a characteristic of white society. Our Presidency is all white and male. The United States Senate is virtually all-white and all male. Fortune 500 CEOs are virtually all-white and all male.
 
7. The mainstream-as-white-male has long been challenged by women. In recent years some inroads have been achieved by women at all levels of our society. There are women as senators and CEOs for instance. Dominance by white men and white women has been challenged by people of color throughout American history and recent history continues to present this challenge. Access to the mainstream has been wedged open by men and women of color at nearly all levels.
 
8. Multiple locations of dominance and oppression The mainstream society in America is still quite white and male. It is also heterosexual, Christian, abled, and middle-class. Dominance and oppression do not come in discrete packages. Individuals may be dominant on one status and oppressed on another. It is possible to do an analysis of the intersections of all these statuses of dominance and oppression. But it is also unwieldy. Race in the lives of people in the United States remains the focus of our paper. This is not to rank one form of dominance-oppression above any other but simply to give more detail to the area of our focus in this brief work.
 
9. The Experience of Centrality Those in the center, those who occupy a dominant status such as whiteness, experience the center not so much as a consciously acknowledged status, but rather a complex of features in their social experience that have surrounded them since inception. Centrality is experienced by insiders as:
 
10. A. The standard
 
11. Cultural values are applied to all areas of human experience, often unconsciously, but sometimes not. The white standard of feminine beauty, for instance, is to be light-skinned, thin, full-breasted, devoid of obvious body hair, and blond with European facial features.
 
12. B. Background
 
13. The culture itself is not a point of discussion, focus, or examination. Rather, things different from the culture become the objects of attention. White people, for instance, overwhelmingly concentrate on discussing and studying other racial groups. Whiteness and white people as a racial group are not discussed or studied. Taboos are present in white culture against bringing the discussion and study of whiteness into the foreground.
 
14. C. Normal
 
15. That which is expected of the average person. White people, often living in isolation from contact with people of color, view the customs and practices of white people as normal, and those of people of color as deviant.
 
16. D. The "common" understanding
 
17. That which the average person is expected to know and accept without question. Discussion is viewed as unnecessary, complicating issues which are already and firmly resolved. White people react negatively when another white person, or a person of color, questions some "common" understandings.
 
18. E. Undifferentiated
 
19. Differences and rankings exist among white people, and various European immigrant groups have transformed themselves from "foreigners" to being white people, but a white person, once that status is achieved, is assumed to be the same as any other white person with regard to whiteness.
 
20. F. Distinguished from other, outsider
 
21. Often the most conscious part of a cultural self-identity, white people spend a lot of time comparing themselves to people who are not white.
 
22. G. "Glue" that holds things together
 
23. The values of the central culture are seen as interwoven and establishing order on social events. In white culture, this is often expressed in the belief that multiculturalism will "Balkanize" the country, i.e. lead to conflicting and contending power centers.
 
24. H. Comfort
 
25. Beliefs and values help the individual feel good about himself or herself. In white culture, this often means suppressing or reinterpreting efforts to discuss issues of dominance, conquest and exploitation of cultures of color.
 
26. I. Growth
 
27. The culture provides avenues for economic support and professional advancement. White culture makes these available to white people who have access to the culture, but not people of color.
 
28. J. Familiarity
 
29. Cultural learning takes place from birth onward, as part of one's living experience. It is an outgrowth of day to day life. As such, it is very familiar, and even a little bland and commonplace to insiders. In white culture, this is expressed by people saying they "have no culture," are “bland," "whitebread."
 
30. K. Obviousness
 
31. Cultural values learned by children are not presented as if they are alternatives from which to choose, but rather simply the way things are done. The fact that "everyone" acts that way makes it seem "obvious" that is how people act.
 
32. L. The way everyone does it
 
33. Cultures will only permit one set of values, rather than competing sets. Part of the function of culture is to let everyone interact through some shared basis of meaning and understanding. Within a culture, "everybody" does tend to do things the same way, to use the same language, celebrate the same events, etc. In white culture this is sometimes expressed as a belief that people of color must automatically know how "people" do things, i.e. how white people do things.
 
34. M. Not open to contradiction
 
35. The center of a culture tends to defend its values and to place negative sanctions upon people who question them. White culture is antagonistic to people of color who contradict its values, or who take espoused values of white culture and demonstrate that white culture has not lived up to them.
 
36. N. Affirmation Being in the center offers a feeling of belonging, of being an OK person, and having a place in society and in the world. White culture sometimes expresses this affirmation in terms of being "American," when in fact it is affirming people as white Americans.
 
37. O. Morally correct
 
38. The values of the center are seen as morally correct and those of other cultures are viewed as less morally sound. White culture frequently conveys stereotypes of cultures of color that attempt to place these cultures on a lower moral plan than white culture.
 
39. P. Not marginal A negative way of defining one's cultural self-definition. White people characteristically see themselves as not "black," not "people of color," and not "foreigners."
 
40. Q. Essentialized as dominant
 
41. That is, not subject to commonalties that all human cultures share. Not having some measure of both good and bad characteristics. Viewed as an extreme in terms of goodness or evilness. By some, whiteness is viewed as inherently and entirely evil, comprising only power and privilege. This view generally sees no possibility for white culture to transform itself to a less central and more enlightened form. Others view whiteness as exclusively good, unique, and deserving of its rewards. This view generally believes whiteness can transform itself, but sees no reason to do so. Any transformation is viewed as a threat.
 
42. R. Ordained by God
 
43. Clearly evident in the past, and sometimes present, practice of white Americans. The pulpit has often been used to justify whiteness.
 
44. S. Access to power and resources
 
45. Access depends on adhering to the central values of the culture, and showing a willingness to act in its defense. White culture, having defined people of color as outsiders, never fully accepts the claims of people of color to share its central values, or to defend these values faithfully.
 
46. T. Secure from disruption from the margins and beyond
 
47. No culture can tolerate continual disruption of its internal processes and hope to retain its form and structure. The central part of a culture is that part which is most defended by members of the culture. Some values may be important aspects of cultural self-definition, but other, more central, values are worth dying for. In white culture, for instance, the value of individuality is often felt by white people to be a central point of defense.
 
48. U. Adopting values of others through choice or environmental necessity, not by coercion from another cultural group
 
49. All cultures change and evolve, often under the influence of changes in the environment, and/or through contact with other cultures. White culture has operated this way vis-à-vis cultures of color, but it has not extended the same courtesy or freedom of self-directed change to cultures of color.
 
50. V. A self-centeredness that says all the above features makes one "better" than marginal groups.
 
51. In white people, this is termed "racism," "prejudice," "white supremacy," and "internalized dominance." As a general cultural process it might also be called "ethnocentrism." People in the center tend to absorb an attitude of superiority. If the center is power, and if power corrupts, this feature describes a sort of psychic corruption often shared, sometimes unconsciously and other times consciously, by people who occupy the center.
 
52. No single person might experience all these features in their entirety. Some white people, for instance, decidedly do not feel a sense of affirmation from white society. Many white people disavow any internalized sense of white identity, in an explicit act of disaffirmation from whiteness.
 
53. People not at the center are likely to experience these features, not as unconscious, but as impositions on their own cultural experience, impositions of which they are quite conscious. The central culture, given enough power, is able to project its view and make it the prevailing one in mainstream media and institutions.
 
54. Taken together, these features capture much of the experience of centrality in the United States in the 1990s. Central cultures, or the central culture (however it may be defined) have also displayed features of meanness, violence and destruction directed toward cultures of color, and other cultural groups that occupy its margins, such as women; lesbians, gays and transsexuals; people with disabilities; non-Christians such as Jews, Moslems, and Baha'i; and many others.