Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness

Critical
Multicultural
Perspectives on
Whiteness

Views from the Past and Present

EDITED BY

Virginia Lea, Darren E. Lund, & Paul R. Carr

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lea, Virginia, editor. | Lund, Darren E., editor. | Carr, Paul R., editor.
Title: Critical multicultural perspectives on whiteness: views from the past and present /
edited by Virginia Lea, Darren E. Lund, & Paul R. Carr.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2018.
Series: Critical multicultural perspectives on whiteness, vol. 5
ISSN 2572-9616 (print) | ISSN 2572-9624 (online)
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017015160 | ISBN 978-1-4331-2151-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4331-2150-0 (paperback: alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4400-4 (ebook pdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-4401-1 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4402-8 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Whites—Race identity. | Multiculturalism. | Multicultural education. | Critical pedagogy.
Classification: LCC HT1575 .C75 2017 | DDC 305.809—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015160
DOI 10.3726/b11196

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

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About the editors

Virginia Lea is Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She received her Ph.D. in social and cultural studies in education from the University of California, Berkeley. Her published work with Peter Lang includes Undoing Whiteness in the Classroom: Critical Educultural Teaching Approaches for Social Justice Activism, co-edited with Erma Jean Sims (2008), and Constructing Critical Consciousness: Narratives that Unmask Hegemony, and Ideas for Creating Greater Equity in Education (2014). Virginia tries to live an active commitment to social justice. She sees her scholarship, research, teaching, and The Hegemony Project, which she co-directs (www.thehegemonyproject.org), as means of developing greater understanding about how cultural hegemony works to create and reproduce socioeconomic, cultural and educational inequities in our time; and to take social action for equitable social change. Virginia also co-directs the nonprofit The Educultural Foundation with her partner, Babatunde Lea.

Darren E. Lund is Professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, where his research examines social justice activism in schools, communities, and professional education programs. Darren co-founded the Service-Learning Program for Pre-Service Teachers, winner of the national 2012 Award of Excellence in Education from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. He is the Principal Investigator of a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research project entitled, "Teacher Education for Social Justice: Enhancing Community-Engaged collaboration and Cultural Humility Through Critical Service-Learning." Darren has been recognized with a number of awards, including the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s 2015 Educational Research Award, the inaugural 2013 Alberta Hate Crimes Awareness Award, the 2012 Scholar-Activist Award from the American Educational Research Association (Critical Educators for Social Justice), and was named a Reader’s Digest National Leader in Education. Before entering academia, Darren was a high school teacher, and formed the award-winning Students and Teachers Opposing Prejudice (STOP) program.

Paul R. Carr is Professor in the Department of Education at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada, and is also the Chair-holder of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education (DCMÉT). His research is broadly concerned with political sociology, with specific threads related to democracy, media literacy, peace studies, intercultural relations, and transformative change in education. He has sixteen co-edited books and an award-winning, single-author book (Does Your Vote Count? Democracy and Critical Pedagogy). He is the Principal Investigator of two Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research projects entitled, respectively, Democracy, Political Literacy and Transformative Education, and Social Media, Citizen Participation and Education. Before entering academia, he was a Senior Policy Advisor in the Ontario Ministry of Education, working on equity and social issues.

About the book

Whiteness is a narrative. It is the privileged dimension of the complex story of “race” that was, and continues to be, seminal in shaping the socio-economic structure and cultural climate of the United States and other Western nations. Without acknowledging this story, it is impossible to understand fully the current political and social contexts in which we live. Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness explores multiple analyses of whiteness, drawing on both past and current key sources to tell the story in a more comprehensive way. This book features both iconic essays that address the social construction of whiteness and critical resistance as well as excellent new critical perspectives.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Advance Praise for

Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness

“Readers will find the contributions in this book important to the discourse and understanding on how whiteness is played out in various contexts in society. Through a series of chapters inspiring authors offer a variety of perspectives that are necessary and important in educational discourse. Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness will be a valuable resource to teacher educators, and indeed all courses at colleges and universities as they engage students in some of the challenging issues of the day. The chapters in this book will encourage and stimulate dialogue on an important topic. This book is indeed a valuable contribution to this effort.”

Ann E. Lopez, Associate Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto;

President-Elect, the National Association for Multicultural Education

“This book is a treasure trove of classic and to-be-classic pieces on whiteness and white racial literacy. I can’t wait to get this into the hands of my students!”

Özlem Sensoy, Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University; Co-author of Is Everyone Really Equal?

“In this time of bolstered white supremacy locally and throughout the world, I can imagine few interventions as timely and urgent as Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness. Lea, Lund, and Carr have assembled a stunning range of writings—from both earlier and contemporary scholars—who lay bare the endemic and enduring nature of whiteness as normative ideology, its damage to educational and social justice, and our role in dismantling and reimagining race. Packed with troubling insights, this book is one I must read again. Read and reread this book and answer its call to action.”

Kevin Kumashiro, Author of Against Common Sense;
former Dean of the School of Education, University of San Francisco

“In Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness, Virginia Lea, Darren Lund, and Paul Carr present a marvelous collection of first-rate essays that probe the roots and workings of whiteness from multiple vantage points. The essays, ranging from classics in the field to new works reflecting on identity, teaching, and disruption of whiteness, should be in the hands of everyone who is trying to figure out how to dismantle white supremacy.”

Christine Sleeter, Professor Emerita, California State University, Monterey Bay

“Simply put, Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness is the most compelling collection on whiteness and racism I have read. Lea, Lund, and Carr have assembled a powerful collection of essays from a range of voices, vocations, and positionalities that together are equal parts challenging and accessible, philosophical and action-demanding. I could feel my consciousness growing as I read.”

Paul C. Gorski, Associate Professor of Social Justice and Human Rights,
George Mason University; Founder of EdChange and the Equity Literacy Institute

Contents

Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Critical Multicultural Perspectives on Whiteness

Virginia Lea, Darren E. Lund and Paul R. Carr

section I

The Social Construction of Whiteness and Critical Resistance

1. Romancing the Shadow

Toni Morrison

2. Whiteness as Property

Cheryl L. Harris

3. The Prehistory of the White Worker: Settler Colonialism, Race and Republicanism before 1800

D. R. Roediger

4. Slavery and Race: The Southern Dilemma

G. M. Frederickson

5. The Invention of the White Race—And the Ordeal of America

T. W. Allen←v | vi→

6. Obscuring the Importance of Race: The Implication of Making Comparisons Between Racism and Sexism (Or Other -isms)

Trina Grillo and Stephanie M. Wildman

7. More than Skin Deep: Understanding the Deep Sources of White Resistance and Key Tools for Addressing It

Heather W. Hackman and Susan Raffo

8. Deconstructing Whiteness: Discovering the Water

Kelly E. Maxwell

9. Disrupting Denial and White Privilege in Teacher Education

Darren E. Lund and Paul R. Carr

10. Imaging Whiteness Hegemony in the Classroom: Undoing Oppressive Practice and Inspiring Social Justice Activism

Virginia Lea and Erma Jean Sims

11. A Chronic Identity Intoxication Syndrome: Whiteness as Seen by an African-Canadian-Francophone Woman

Gina Thésée

12. Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions

Robin DiAngelo

13. The Elephant in the Room: Picturebooks, Philosophy for Children and Racism

Darren Chetty

section II

New Critical Perspectives on Whiteness

14. Stop Telling that Story! Danger Discourse and the White Racial Frame

Robin DiAngelo

15. Whiteness and Intersectionality Theory

Cynthia Levine-Rasky

16. No Place Like Home? Reconceptualizing Whiteness as Place│Space Within Teacher Education

Melissa Winchell

17. Academic Advising and the Maintenance of Whiteness in Higher Education

Geneva L. Sarcedo and Cheryl E. Matias

18. “We Acted Like a Genocidal Country When We Are Clearly Not One”: Exploring the Complexities of Racialization and the Structuring Forces of Whiteness in a High School Classroom

Tana Mitchell←vi | vii→

19. Whiteness and White Privilege: Problematizing Race and Racism in a “Color-blind” World, and in Education

Paul R. Carr

20. A Hidden Door Outside the Law: Mapping Whiteness and Symbolic Alibis for Crimes Against First Nations People

John L. Hoben

21. An Epistemic Instruction Manual: The Blinding Whiteness of the Australian National Curriculum

Glen Parkes

22. How Did We Get Here? The Role of Whiteness (White Privilege and White Supremacy) in the Current Environmental Crisis

Heather W. Hackman

23. “Does It Make Me White If…?”: Registers of Whiteness in the Blog “Stuff White People Like”

Nichole E. Grant

Contributors

←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Figures

Figure 10.1. The Whiteness Mainstream: Cultural Scripts That Function to Reproduce the Dominant Socioeconomic and Cultural Hierarchy. © Lea & Sims (2005)

Figure 10.2. Who Were Your Founding Fathers?

Figure 10.3. Truths I Never Learned In School.

Figure 10.4. Warning! Whiteness Causes Blindness.

Figure 15.1 Scheme for Theorizing Intersections of Whiteness, Middle Classness, Ethnicity, and Gender.

Figure 19.1 Fifteen Proposals for Education Students to Transform Themselves In/Through/With Education.

←ix | x→ ←x | xi→

Acknowledgements

Virginia: My warmest thanks to Babatunde, my three daughters, three grandchildren, and the rest of my supportive and inspirational network of family, friends, colleagues, and students, in California, Wisconsin, and Europe. Darren and Paul, the journey we have undertaken together to realise this book has been challenging but rewarding. I am grateful we could take it together. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with you.

Darren: I offer my sincere thanks to my family for their love and support over the years of doing this work, and to my many generous colleagues who continue to inspire me. I am also grateful for all of the students I’ve been fortunate to teach and supervise, and whose ideas inform this work. My dear friends Virginia and Paul have been a pleasure to work with on this venture.

Paul: I wish to thank and acknowledge, in particular, Gina Thésée for years of engaging debate around the issues of identity and racism, George Dei and Carl James for their support and guidance over the years, Noah and Luka, and Chelsea and Sarah, who make the journey all the more meaningful, and my two wonderful colleagues, Darren and Virginia, who have weathered the storm of many valleys and mountains throughout the process of completing this book.

We would also like to thank Peter Lang for supporting us and the project, which we believe is an important one. We recognize the many colleagues who have accompanied us over the years, through the Paulo Freire special interest group in particular, and who continue to provide enthusiastic support and engagement.←xi | xii→ ←xii | 1→

Introduction