What It Means to Be White
Relative to that of other identities, the study of Whiteness is still in its infancy. The problem with studying Whiteness is that it is invisible, particularly in the era of so-called “color-blindness.” Whiteness is an identity just like Blackness, Asianess, Native Americaness, femaleness, Gayness, etc. But, unlike those other identities, Whiteness plays a preeminent role in constructing racial hierarchies. Much of the what we study about Whiteness concerns either how it affords those who possess it with a type of invisibility as racial actors or the privileges associated with that invisibility. That is to say, unlike, say, African Americans, who are confronted with their blackness regularly throughout their lives, Whiteness is the norm — -the default racial category. This allows those possessing it to generally think of themselves as not a race, an unmarked identity. In other words, White people are generally not looked upon as being members of a social collective. They are just people. Being a member of a social collective means people within it have a keen understanding of the way race molds their collective life experiences.
Of course, the challenge of analyzing Whiteness is to avoid essentializing it.
Essentializing means attributing natural, essential characteristics to members of specific culturally defined (gender, age, ethnic, “racial”, socioeconomic, linguistic…)…
