"Racing for Innocence": Whiteness, Corporate Culture, and the Backlash against Affirmative Action

Abstract

Examines whites' "possessive investment in whiteness" by exploring how it is created, maintained, & reproduced, discursive practices termed "racing for innocence," which is linked to a broader US cultural discourse on liberal individualism. Specifically, 1988/89 & 1999 ethnographic & interview data on the lawyers working (or formerly working) in a San Francisco Bay Area firm are drawn on to explore the ramifications of these practices, contending that this race for innocence is one dimension of affirmative action backlash. The literature on whiteness studies & affirmative action is briefly reviewed before comparing the narratives of white male lawyers who remained with their firm to those of a particular African American male lawyer who left. Revealed are very different narratives surrounding the African American's departure from the firm, exposing how the white lawyers, by virtue of their social position, unwittingly contributed to the working climate that pushed the African American out. Theorizing that whiteness is a set of unequal social relations & practices, it is asserted that these white lawyers' "race for innocence" reproduced the structural inequality of the workplace, denying accountability for racism while partaking in it. 1 Table. J. Zendejas