Mrs. Weaver: Sure. Well, now I watch every word that comes out of my mouth and sometimes I slip up, I have to admit. And I'd slip up no matter what, I would say like, you know, you're being an idiot or you know, cause kids just are, I say that to my own kids. But when I do and they still kind of pounce on me and call me a racist or whatever. Um, I find that I tend to play up racism more, you know, against blacks. I mean, I do think there’s still racism against blacks, but there’s racism by blacks too, you know. So I tend to play that up more, especially with black teachers.
After becoming a teacher at an almost exclusively black middle school, it did not take long for Mrs. Weaver to recognize her own whiteness, to experience whiteness as both a detrimental feeling and a genesis for racialized mistreatment, and to develop performative strategies that were designed to avoid such experiences. Protective performances of whiteness, for Mrs. Weaver, as well as my other conversational partners, included the careful monitoring of discourse, the careful monitoring of behavior, and presenting an artificial – or spatially
appropriate – version of oneself so as to avoid the appearance of racial prejudice. Any actions that could possibly be perceived as racist were to be avoided at all costs. Any words that could possibly be connected to racial stereotypes about African Americans were to be stricken from the white lexicon. Lastly, white teachers learned to distance themselves from whiteness through spatially specific behaviors, such as overemphasizing their concern for racial inequality, and underemphasizing their belief in colorblindness and/or American individualism.42
Mrs. Weaver’s experience exemplifies the process by which white teachers came to see the need for – and ultimately adopt – protectionary white performances. This process typically
involved student-teacher interactions that were interpreted differently, falling almost exclusively along racial lines. That is, for white teachers, controversial words, actions, and interactions were seen one way, while for black students, these very same words, actions and interactions were seen in a different, highly racialized way. Once race became the focal point of any student- teacher conflict, my conversational partners felt misinterpreted, misrepresented, and unfairly subjected to anger and hostility, largely due to their race. In this sense, more than anything else, it was their status as white teachers – the racialized other – that engendered such a vicious, and for some, enduring backlash whenever conflict arose between white teachers and black students. As a result, the teachers I interviewed decided to do whiteness on their own terms. They
developed performance strategies that were designed to protect themselves from what they perceived to be unfair and unnecessarily racialized forms of criticism.43
Discussion
In the broader critical whiteness literature, it is largely taken for granted that whiteness, as an organizing principle, is invisible to whites, and that white people rarely, if ever, think about their own race. What is more, it is argued, that due to the context of a white supremacist society, one in which whites enjoy political, cultural, and economic domination, the invisibility of
whiteness leads to the normalization of whiteness, meaning that whiteness is socially constructed as the invisible norm, the default American, and the stand-in, or spokesperson, for the human race. Taken together, these interlocking processes present a false view of the social world, and, particularly for whites, it skews their perception, not only about the myriad ways that race and racism shape society, but also about themselves as racial beings. As Joe Feagin writes,
“whiteness is so widely taken for granted that for many whites it does not require attention or explanation” (Feagin, 2006, p. xviii).
My interview data complicates this narrative by interrogating the social construction of whiteness in nonwhite racialized spaces. In interviewing white teachers that work in
predominantly black schools, I did find considerable support for the normalization of whiteness, particularly when speaking about whiteness in a broad or abstract sense. When asked general questions about whiteness, my conversational partners – consistent with the critical whiteness literature – struggled mightily, both in structure and in content. Not only did they admit to never having thought about what it means to be white, but they struggled with basic sentence structure, as well. That is, highly educated and well-spoken teachers began to stutter and stammer their way through sentences, repeatedly pausing, and in some cases, starting over altogether. In terms of content, my interviews found it very difficult to articulate a coherent position, struggling to translate thoughts into words, and at times, making very little sense in their responses. Thus, at some point in the interview, nearly all of my conversational partners exhibited rhetorical incoherence, reinforcing whiteness as the invisible, raceless norm.
In contrast, when asked specifically about being white teachers in predominantly black schools, my interviewees answered in ways that challenged, and at times, completely
contradicted the broad consensus within the critical whiteness literature. Where they stuttered, stammered, and struggled before, my interview respondents suddenly spoke in complete
sentences, providing clear answers, quick responses, and a multitude of examples to illustrate the points they were trying to make. Here, the data suggests that being white is something that my interviewees thought about constantly, as it was highly salient to their day-to-day experiences as white teachers within predominantly black schools. For these teachers, whiteness, far from being invisible, became hyper-visible, and far from being normal, was clearly and firmly constructed as the racialized other. That is, within the context of predominantly black schools, being white was
both visible and meaningful, so much so that my conversational partners actively strategized about how best to navigate their personal whiteness in what, for them, often felt like a racially hostile environment.
Complicating matters further, is the fact that the effects of spatial socialization appeared to be localized to the particular space in question. The white racial awareness exhibited by my conversational partners within predominantly black schools did not follow them once they exited nonwhite racialized spaces. Each observation of, emotional response to, and conclusion reached about, whiteness, was in reference to past experiences. Still, even after making said observations, experiencing said emotions, and reaching said conclusions, my conversational partners struggled to talk about whiteness – or even talk, cogently – when initially asked what it means to be white. Only once they contextualized whiteness within nonwhite racialized space, when they couched themselves within predominantly black schools, were they able to recognize whiteness and discuss white racial identity, fluently. Therefore, the effects of nonwhite racialized space on white racial awareness are not straightforward or clear-cut, illustrating the need for more research on racialized space and racial identity.
Conclusion
The contradictory answers provided by my conversational partners – as well as the disparate ways in which they provided them – suggests that racialized space adds complexity to the already incredibly complex social category of whiteness. The twin notions that 1) whiteness is the invisible, raceless norm and 2) whites, themselves, do not consider whiteness to be a meaningful racial identity, are both incomplete. While, generally speaking, whiteness may be invisible or constructed as the raceless norm, in nonwhite racialized space, however, it can be highly visible and even constructed as the racialized other. The teachers I interviewed provided
data that supports and challenges the existing critical whiteness literature, meaning that
racialized space – in this case, predominantly black schools – is an important, if under-analyzed variable in how whiteness is seen, understood, and experienced by whites in the United States, today. In order to gain a more complete, more nuanced, and, given the current and projected demographic changes, more relevant picture of how whites socially construct whiteness, scholars need to do a better job of incorporating racialized space into their analysis. This is especially true for scholars in the field of critical whiteness studies.
CHAPTER V
THE WHITE RACE CARD: EXAMINING THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF