The (dis)similarities of white racial identities: the conceptual framework of ‘hegemonic whiteness’

This article examines the processes of white racial identity formation in the United States via an examination of a white nationalist organization and a white antiracist organization. Findings indicate that the construction of white racial identity in both groups is based on the reproduction of various racist and essentialist ideologies. The realization that there is a shared ‘groupness’ to outwardly different white identities has the potential to destabilize the recent trend that over-emphasizes white heterogeneity at the expense of discussion of power, racism and discrimination. As a resolution to this analytic dilemma, this article advances a conceptual framework entitled ‘hegemonic whiteness’. White identity formation is thereby understood as a cultural process in which (1) racist, reactionary and essentialist ideologies are used to demarcate inter-racial boundaries, and (2) performances of white racial identity that fail to meet those ideals are marginalized and stigmatized, thereby creating intra-racial distinctions within the category ‘white’.     

Parenting during Ferguson: making sense of white parents’ silence

This paper examines what white, middle-class parents report saying to their children about racial tension and racial protest when events like Michael Brown’s death and the Ferguson protests are the top news stories. The data come from interviews with forty white, middle-class parents in 2014–15. The study results indicate that few parents recalled speaking with their children about racial tension or racial protest even when such discussions were highly visible in the news and on social media. I argue parents’ silence stemmed from a desire to create a protected, worry-free childhood combined with an inability to understand how such subjects related to their white life. However, not all parents were silent. Twelve participants reported speaking with their children about these subjects via a neutral or a defensive colour-blind frame. Only two participants drew attention to issues of power and privilege.     

‘They should hire the one with the best score’: White sensitivity to qualification differences in affirmative action hiring decisions

This paper uses innovative survey questions from the 1998 Detroit Area Study to examine how whites communicate their views about racial matters across three affirmative action hiring scenarios. Results suggest that most whites prefer explanations for not hiring blacks based on the abstract and decontextualized application of the principles of liberalism. Justifications that were initially offered emphasizing qualification thresholds, broad criteria, and contextual concerns, usually in support of hiring the black applicant, were largely withdrawn when the scenario was changed from one with equal scores to one with scores slightly favouring the white applicant. Concrete and contextualized concerns about workforce homogeneity and the slightness of score differences were raised in a conciliatory manner when scores were equal, but then were seldom maintained when scores favoured the white candidate. Whites also more readily voiced opposition when the reason for hire was changed from ‘diversity’ to ‘make up for past discrimination’, offering ‘reasonable’ responses about ‘the past is the past’ that don't deny concrete historical events, but dismiss their connection to today's racial order. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the language of universalism and minimization of racism allow most whites to communicate their views about affirmative action using rhetorical strategies that seem reasonable and moral.     

Gospel of Wealth, Gospel of Work: Counterhegemony in the U.S. Working Class

ABSTRACT  In this article, we marshal qualitative and quantitative evidence for a distinctive U.S. working-class perspective that criticizes and dissents from the society's consumerist orthodoxy. On the basis of ethnographic and archival research in white central New York and eastern Pennsylvania, Doukas suggested that the frugal, work-centered ideology of historical U.S. working classes—the "gospel of work"—persisted as counterhegemonic in today's "gospel of wealth" consumerism. Durrenberger quantitatively tested for "gospel of work" orientations and found confirmation among predominantly white central Pennsylvanian labor unionists. We argue that the combination of methods warrants a more confident generalization and that the "wage of whiteness" needs to be assessed in regional and historic context. We conclude that "gospel of work" values are widely held despite a century-long corporate-sponsored campaign to promote consumerism and caution against assuming consumerist hegemony in the United States.     

Both black and symbolically white: The ‘Bajan-Brit’ return migrant as post-colonial hybrid

The research presented in this article centres on an under-researched demographic group of young return migrants, namely, second-generation Barbadians, or ‘Bajan-Brits’, who have decided to ‘return’ to the birthplace of their parents. Based on 51 in-depth interviews, the essay examines the experiences of second-generation return migrants from an interpretative perspective framed within post-colonial discourse. The article first considers the Bajan-Brits and issues of race in the UK before their decision to migrate. It is then demonstrated that on ‘return’, in certain respects, these young, black English migrants occupy a liminal position of cultural, racial and economic privilege, based on their ‘symbolic’ or ‘token’ whiteness within the post-colonial context of Barbados. But this very hybridity and inbetweeness means that they also face difficulties and associated feelings of social alienation and discrimination. The ambivalent status of this transnational group of migrants serves to challenge traditional notions of Barbadian racial identity.     

‘It is hard being the different one all the time’: gringos and racialized identity in lifestyle migration to Ecuador

This paper explores the identities that North American lifestyle migrants in Ecuador adopt as they adjust to life in a new racialized social environment. It is based on qualitative interviews with migrants from North America, as well as ethnographic field notes. North Americans describe their growing community in racialized terms and adopt a series of practices that demonstrate anxiety about their position in the racialized social order of Ecuador. The paper discusses the strategies that North American migrants engage in to diminish the importance of their racialized identities in Ecuador. I identify two main practices that complicate North American incorporation in Ecuador: self-policing practices that aim to optimize Ecuadorians' perceptions of them; and desires for integration and ethnic mobility, which seek to erase their ‘Otherness’.     

From Jim Crow to racial hegemony: Evolving explanations of racial hierarchy

In recent years, scholars have worked to understand the persistence of racial inequality in societies characterized by the condemnation of explicit racism, growing diversity, and anti-discrimination policies. Many theorists generally agree about the multiple dimensions of racism and challenge assertions about the incipient colourblindness of the current context. However, they also disagree about the nature of the racial hierarchy in the USA. One approach continues to emphasize a bipolar model, with blacks at the bottom and whites on top, as sufficient to explain diverse patterns of inequality. An alternative formulation sees racialization as contextual, yielding a less stable and more complex ranking system. This article summarizes both positions and concludes that while the bipolar model continues to present useful insights, a more nuanced understanding of racial inequality is achieved when the bipolar approach is replaced by one that comprehends the multiple and even contradictory nature of racial disadvantage and racial inequality in contemporary societies.     

Out of bounds? Racial discourse on college basketball message boards

While the frequency of overt racism has decreased in most public spaces, being replaced by more subtly racialized narratives, the Internet appears to be an exception where explicit racism continues to proliferate. Online message boards dedicated to US collegiate basketball are sites where groups dominated by white male users discuss the lives and performances of young, primarily black, student-athletes. Against this backdrop, the current study investigated the racialized nature of discourse on college basketball message boards in cases where players were involved in disciplinary incidents. We found that, although overt mention of race was rare in these spaces, racialized assumptions and expectations often still shaped interpretations of players' actions. Reasons for the presence of such ‘colour-blind’ discourse are discussed.