The Strengths and Limitations of Critical Whiteness Studies

Whiteness studies is an emerging field of discourse, arising in the late 20th Century in both the US and the UK respectively. It can be viewed as a concrete body of literature which exposes the importance of considering whiteness and white privilege in contemporary society, as well as alerting us to the ways in which systems of white privilege operate, and how white racial identity is constructed (Byrne 2006; Dyer 1997; Frankenberg 2001; Garner 2007; McIntosh 1988). I will explore the strengths of critical whiteness studies and I will  offer an explanation as to how critical whiteness studies is applied to render whiteness visible, disrupt white privilege and racism, and problematise whiteness. I will also examine the limitations of the discourse, such as how it can be said to re-centre and reify whiteness, and how it may not achieve anti-racist aims. My own view on the contributions of critical whiteness studies will be posited with reference to contemporary examples. 

Firstly, it is important to clearly define whiteness located within the body of critical whiteness literature. As Andersen (2003:25) states, “whiteness can be conceptualised as an unacknowledged norm and defined as a system of racial privilege”. Byrne (2006:3) suggests that “whiteness is not only a conscious identity; it is a position within racialised discourses as well as a set of practices and imaginaries''. Additionally, Nayak (2007) posits that whiteness is an outcome of a racialised structure of society. Frankenberg (2001:73) views whiteness as an “unmarked category or norm”, and a term birthed by colonialism and relational in opposition to ‘blackness’, marked in by it’s ‘not-Otherness’. Frankenberg (2001) further highlights the many forms whiteness can take, with its primary role being a socially constructed term, a product of history and a location of a superior standpoint. In this way, the meanings of whiteness cannot be reduced to a homogenous category due to its malleability. Garner (2010), for example, uses the example of the Irish experience to express the idea that whiteness is fragmented along intersectional boundaries such as class and gender. Similarly, Dyer (2000:543) poses the idea that there are “gradations of whiteness”, meaning that certain individuals and groups are perceived as whiter than others. Moosavi (2015) explores the contrasting experiences of white British converts to Islam and how by “retaining their whiteness” they are placed in a privileged, or often fetishized position. Simultaneously, converts are exposed to Islamophobia and become re-racialised, for example, they become ‘Pakistanised’ which in turn, makes it difficult to describe them as “only privileged” (Franks 2000, Kose 1996; Moosavi 2015, Moosavi 2011:1924). 

The first major contribution that emerges from new whiteness literature is the recognition that ‘white’ is ubiquitous, though typically not acknowledged (Andersen 2002). The principal goal of whiteness studies is therefore to reveal the socially constructed nature of whiteness, which can engender the sharing of new knowledge about a seemingly “under-investigated social phenomenon” (Byrne 2006:6). McIntosh (1988:14) describes white privilege as an “an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks”. McIntosh highlights the invisibility and privilege awarded to white people through identifying everyday normalised activities which are experienced differently along racialised lines. Andersen (2003:26) further points out that the list of everyday white privileges reveals the “unacknowledged privilege associated with being white and shows how this structures a system of advantage and disadvantage”. McIntosh acknowledges that white people enjoy unearned advantage through being systematically privileged on the basis of their whiteness. It is this that inspires Andersen’s (2003:26) suggestion that this argument can be used as a “particularly powerful pedagogical tool in teaching about race and racism”, in particular within today’s multicultural society. 

Critical whiteness studies also reveal that “whiteness is a system of privilege, mapped on to the domination of ‘others’ and thereby can be said to disrupt and challenge white privilege” (Andersen 2003:24). Exposing white privilege allows for greater examination of the social system of privilege. As stated by Andersen (2003:21) it has been asserted that “analysing structures of white privilege must be part of the analysis of racial stratification”. Thus, if we are to move towards achieving racial justice, collectively challenging white privilege is important for destabilising the white identity and allowing whiteness to be rejected as an assumed and normative identity (Morrison, 1992). Furthermore, Morrison (1992:90) argues that the gaze of whiteness as an unacknowledged and invisible norm maintains its hegemony by remaining unquestioned. Consequently, the sense of whites as non-raced is evident. (Dyer 1997; Frankenberg 1993). Dyer (1997:1) identifies that white people only see the ‘other’ as raced; “other people are raced; we are just people'', whilst Frankenberg’s account stresses how whiteness has always been seen as unraced and ‘human’, further reinforcing the invisible character of whiteness. 

Choosing to challenge white privilege is therefore crucial for dislodging whiteness from its normative position of power (Patterson 1998). A contemporary example of the unacknowledged and invisible character of white privilege and whiteness as a race is when reporter Jon Snow, expressed that he had “never seen so many white people in one place” at a pro-Brexit rally. However, he recently publicly apologised for the statement after facing heavy backlash (The Guardian, 2019). This example can be seen as a reflection of how white people rarely have their race used as a homogenising collective descriptive. It also draws parallels with Eddo-Lodge’s (2017) argument that white denial can be viewed as the ubiquitous politics of race which operates on its inherent invisibility. 

In addition, critical whiteness studies examine the fragmentations and intersections of whiteness through looking at complex and variegated formations of whiteness that go beyond the black and white binary. It can be argued that critical whiteness studies provide a post-colonial understanding of whiteness. It allows us to highlight the role of empire, and how the colonial encounter has contributed to preferential shades of whiteness. It does this by drawing attention to colourism within the BAME community and ‘othering’, revealing how it may have contributed to constructing the meaning of whiteness. In spite of this, it has also been argued that this retains a eurocentric outlook. (Dyer 1997; Garner 2010; Mohanram 2007; Moosavi 2015). As aforementioned in Moosavi’s (2015) account of the post-conversion experiences of white British Muslims, whiteness itself can be seen to have “borders”. Further examples of this can also be seen through the lived experience of Latinos, Irish, Jews and Eastern Europeans who are viewed as less ‘securely’ white than their Anglo counterparts, reinforcing the operation of shades of whiteness as a set of contingent hierarchies, whereby racialisation works at the level of culture (Garner 2010). 

A final contribution that critical whiteness studies has made is the unsettling of whiteness and a reassignment and reposition of the privileged group within the racialised structure of society. For example, with regards to class, Roediger’s ‘wages of whiteness’ (1991) argues that the working class consciousness that developed between 1800 to 1865 was not solely based on class foundations, but also along racial lines, whereby the emergence of whiteness and white identity was socially constructed as a distinction between free people and enslaved black people. Thus, it is argued that as whiteness developed on these social constructionist foundations, what was “historically constructed can therefore also be undone” (Ignatiev and Garvey 1997:346). Thus, critical whiteness studies contribute to the emphasis of race as being a socially constructed category (Garner 2007). 

Despite these contributions, critical whiteness studies has its limitations. First, it is argued that it reinforces the cartesian duality of black and white by constantly referring and discussing race in a certain way within the literature (Ahmed 2004, Bonnett 1996; Nayak 2007), that can be seen to essentialise whiteness and naturalise it. By reproducing this binary, it is questionable whether denouncing whiteness helps “eradicate the racial structuring of society”, and whether it denies efforts of moving towards a post-racial society that holds the view that the concept of race needs to be transcended (Andersen 2003:29). Nevertheless, Lentin (2011) is critical of the possibilities of moving towards a ‘post-racial’ society and Ahmed (2004:58) argues that more work should be done on “attending to forms of white racism and white privilege that are not undone and may even be repeated and intensified through declarations of whiteness or recognising privilege as privilege”, rather than making claims for moving beyond race.  She further posits that declaring whiteness is not in and of itself an anti-racist act, and that this ‘non-performativity’ of critical whiteness studies can be seen as a way of defending white privilege. 

Furthermore, whiteness studies is also thought to re-centre whiteness, as Fine et al. (1997) explain: ‘”we worry that in our desire to create spaces to speak, intellectually or empirically, about whiteness, we may have reified whiteness as a fixed category of experience; that we have allowed it to be treated as a monolith, in the singular, as an "essential something"’. Consequently, it can be argued that whiteness studies is itself a manifestation of white privilege, as well as exhibiting a narcissistic tendency since its primary focus is on the white identity and white consciousness rather than the experience of people of colour (Ahmed 2004, Andersen 2003). This is further ratified by Hooks (1997) and Byrne (2006) who identify that the majority of writers within the body of work appear to be white. Additionally, Frankenberg (2001), Ahmed (2004) and Hooks (1992) speak of how critical whiteness studies only makes sense from the view point of those who view whiteness as invisible. Frankenberg’s (2001) scholarship for example, interrogates “to whom is whiteness invisible?” and expresses the way in which people of colour have always experienced whiteness as visible, thus the literature disregards the experience of ethnic minorities with regards to whiteness’ visibility and through this, re-centres white people. 

Finally, whiteness studies are also said to inadequately address an anti-racist agenda, and thus the literature raises issues surrounding its implications for classroom pedagogy and multiculturalism (Andersen 2003, Byrne 2006, Fine et al. 1997; Frankenberg 1997). For example, Byrne (2006:2) states that “merely marking whiteness does not achieve anti-racist aims” and it is plausible that whiteness studies have instead aided the construction of white victimhood and discourses of reverse racism (Ahmed 2004). As seen in the previous example given, the backlash to Jon Snow’s comments can be seen as problematic and his apology an unhelpful step for progressive politics for the kind of anti-racist change which whiteness studies seemingly argues for. 

In conclusion, I believe in the relevance of critical whiteness studies in the way that it aims to denounce whiteness and to make whiteness ‘strange’ and how it can provide an avenue for new intellectual and relational understanding (Back 2010). In addition, through examining whiteness, we are able to ignore the construct on which race, racism and racial inequality are built and thus can use it as a starting point for dismantling the racialised structure of society. Studying whiteness matters because that way we can “see its power, particularity and limitedness, put it in its place and end its rule” in order to reach genuine hybridity and multiplicity without (white) hegemony” (Dyer, 1997:4). Despite this, I also agree that a more nuanced approach towards understanding whiteness is needed, in particular for classroom pedagogy and progressive politics for racial change. In saying this however, it is difficult to believe whether the racism at the present scale can be disrupted and whether this is achievable if whiteness cannot be brought further to the fore without running the risk of essentialising whiteness and evoking the manifestation of white privilege (Ahmed 2004; Fine et al. 1997). For this reason I believe in the relevance of critical whiteness studies on the grounds that it problematises whiteness and can be used to revolt against colour blind politics. However, I also think it is necessary to understand it’s limitations so that we will not re-inscribe white hegemony by “merely interrogating subjectivity and particularism, but that we will create new intellectual space for relational understanding and, more importantly, racial justice…what will whites think, be, and do when they are no longer white?” (Johnson 1999:5). I also argue for the need of a new analysis of whiteness, for example as suggested by Back (2010) an analysis of whiteness that is sociable, outward looking and neither confined to racism or narcissism and for a more inclusive body of literature that adequately engages with the anti-racist agenda. 

Hannah Rustomjee

BA Geography with International Study

University of Manchester

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