I regularly talk about social justice to friends and family (but sadly not my nan, anymore. And by sadly I don't mean she has passed away, I mean she remains a staunch racist despite my efforts).
I also talk to colleagues involved in all areas of education from library staff and lecturers, to senior leaders and support and cleaning services (one of my priorities in my personal and professional life is to hold myself and others to account in our efforts to fight racism and dismantle white supremacy).
When the topic of race equity comes up, people are often unsure of what I mean when I refer to 'whiteness'. Thanks, National Curriculum. This is because the system is not-so-cleverly designed to disguise itself. Some people I talk to know far, far more about it than me (unsurprisingly, not my nan). Anyway, here's an infographic that might help us understand whiteness as key in perpetuating white supremacy. Free PDF available by request @Cole_Therapy_Ed.
Did I just say 'white supremacy'? Yes. Yes, I did. This brief blog represents my current, developmental understanding of 'whiteness'. But to understand whiteness, one must understand 'white supremacy'.
White supremacy refers to a racially hierarchical system - legally, culturally, economically, and politically - where white people occupy the majority of power positions. But it is not just about these white persons. It is much, much more than that. It is the seen and unseen power dynamics and norms that helped them to those positions and continues to do so (see white privilege). So if there were more Global Majority people in those positions things would be ok, right? Wrong. Because it's not just about white skin, or even just about white privilege either. Unless the structures, processes and behaviours manifested as 'whiteness' are dismantled, not much will change at all. Systemic racism will continue.
White supremacy names the system of (to draw upon Ruth Gilmore) the unchecked production and exploitation of white-differentiated vulnerability to inequities, including morbidity and mortality.
‘‘'race’ is a specific form of violence that is enacted differentially, and in a manner that (re)produces group differentiated distributions (along with different perceptions and experiences) of vulnerability to police/state violence, criminal punishment, homelessness, joblessness, exploitation, poverty, stress, morbidity and mortality’
(Nikhil Pal Singh)
There are certain ways of living within this system that sustains it. These ways of being - our attitudes and behaviours - are the working parts of the system as a whole. This is our whiteness. When someone tweets that the system is broken because Black people are murdered by the police, or that Black people are disproportionately incarcerated, they are erroneous. For this is in fact proof that the system is working precisely as intended.
Here's a handy infographic summarising key terms when talking about racism. Free PDF available by request @Cole_Therapy_Ed.
Whiteness is hard to summarise because it is shifting and shifty, not always tangible, and often only evidenced by what it leaves in its wake. This is why it is so pernicious. It has been said to be many things, from a shifting paradigm of unspoken norms and values, to a set of unearned advantages and complicity in oppressive systems; to property, rights, and a state of mind. For a body of work that illuminates the legacy of colonialism in the racism of British society, see, for example, Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and Ambalavaner Sivanandan.
‘Races’ are socio-economic constructions; they are “traces of colonial history”
(Patrick Wolf)
Whiteness is not the same as (limited to, or a co-requisite of) 'white' skin. As James Baldwin said, "white people are imagined", and it is this imagination, this social construction, inextricable from the material, political and cultural history of imperialism, slavery, and colonialism in producing white supremacist capitalism, that manifests in unarguable material and metaphysical violence, oppression and inequity for people racialised as other-than-'white'. I say 'unarguable', because the data is there. As W.E.B Du Bois inferred, you cannot pretend it isn't:
Fools, who in the presence of plain facts, cannot think straight; and hypocrites, who in the face of clear duty, refuse to do the right thing and yet pretend to do it.
(W.E.B. Du Bois)
So, whiteness can be conceived as individual thoughts, beliefs and actions. But to stop there would be folly, because whiteness is also collectively performed and behaved by institutional and national policies and practices.
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