Suchergebnisse

Traces the history of racialized thinking in the US, focusing on social contexts & power relations that generate a rhetoric of whiteness, as well as its intersection with class, gender, & sexuality. The concept of whiteness is rooted in naturalistic racial classifications developed during the 18th & 19th century. Social & political uses of the Caucasian, Mongoloid, & Negro hierarchy are examined, showing how they were used to subjugate nonwhites during European global expansion & US westward expansion. Support by religious/political institutions of race theory that justified colonization/white domination helped to construct whiteness as an elitist category different from the racial designation. It is argued that whiteness indicates a historical, systemic, race-based superiority that ignores the plight of millions of nonwhites, as well as poor whites. Understanding how the shift from race to whiteness allows white privilege to function without identifying anyone as racist sheds light on human discourse that perpetuates structures of power/wealth & is the first step toward reconfiguring race relations. 41 References. J. Lindroth