Playing the White Ethnic Card: Using Ethnic Identity to Deny Contemporary Racism

Abstract

Draws on focus group data (N = 89 white college students) to argue that the immigrant analogy remains a facet of white understandings of race & ethnic relations & is deployed to deflect charges of white privilege & negate claims of racism. Four categories of respondents are identified on the basis of ethnic identity salience. While ethnicity was not a salient component of social identity for the majority of respondents, respondents from each category deployed immigrants stories directly or indirectly through critiques of racial but not ethnic identity politics. Respondents tried to present ethnic & racial histories as similar for all groups. Some look to minimize the legacy of slavery & deny the persistence of social costs of being a racial minority. Regarding racial & ethnic pride, some wish to avoid an "overexcessive" ethnic identity while others remark on the double standard that allows some groups to organize around race when any such organizing for whites is construed as racist. Viewing race relations from the perspective of ethnicity allows whites to present themselves as victims & unaccountable for current & historical social circumstances that reproduce white privilege. This color-blind lens works on an ideological level to negate that white privilege on the basis of skin color & blame racial minorities for their own problems. J. Zendejas