Monica McDermott - Whiteness in America

Social networks are not the only structural factor creating the advantages of whiteness. Home ownership is the primary source of wealth for most Americans (Krivo and Kaufman 2004), and homes in majority black neighborhoods are likely to be devalued by comparison to homes in white-dominated neighborhoods—even after holding other housing and community characteristics constant (Perry, Rothwell, and Harshbarger 2018). In addition, blacks are less likely to have access to loans or gifts from family members that could help them make a down payment on a home. At every step of the home-buying process—from finding a real estate agent through having a mortgage application evaluated to closing the sale—they are victims of stereotypes and discrimination that give whites unfair access to resources and space (Korver-Glenn 2018). Delays in stepping into home ownership, coupled with slowly increasing (or even decreasing) property values, can make an initially small (or relatively small) racial gap in wealth between a white and a black individual become a huge difference by the end of life. This disadvantage is transmitted to the next generation and can accumulate throughout time even without any active discrimination.

Other forms of the structural advantage of whiteness are manifested in more subtle ways. The social burden of dealing with discrimination and reduced opportunities takes a toll on the health and well-being of many non-white groups. African Americans in particular have lower life expectancies than whites, even after controlling for social class (Franks et al. 2006). In and of itself, the process of dealing with the stress of increased scrutiny and lowered expectations can result in an increased likelihood of a host of medical conditions such as heart disease and depression. The fact that more blacks are concentrated in low-income groups that tend to live shorter lives than the affluent explains some health discrepancies, but there is also an independent contribution of race to health outcomes. For example, blacks who live in relatively affluent neighborhoods and suffer a heart attack live for fewer years afterwards than do whites who live in relatively affluent neighborhoods (Bucholz et al. 2015).

While these structural advantages of whiteness are fundamental, racial identity is also important to individuals’ conceptualization and understanding of themselves; it is a substantial component of whiteness. “Whiteness” and “white identity” can be used somewhat interchangeably, although identity refers more precisely to a conceptualization of race that centers on an individual, while whiteness encompasses the broader racialization of structures, culture, and institutions that manifest white racial privilege and expression. Identity, in other words, is how we (and others) think about our own relationship to racial categories, while whiteness is a broader concept, which includes both individual and societal racial definitions and processes.

Psychological as well as social benefits can be attached to racial identification. White identities—even when not consciously assimilated—can make individuals feel that they are normal and unremarkable. White identity facilitates other, non-racial identities to take on greater importance in white people’s lives. For example gender, sexual orientation, religion, political party, and region of residence are given the space to be prominent features of individuals’ lives. For many blacks, Latinos/as, American Indians, and Asians, on the other hand, racial identity is linked so prominently to daily experiences that it can be a near-totalizing component of their broader identity. Non-white identities need not be negative, however. People who do not identify as white can have a sense of pride and enhanced self-esteem as a result of their racial identities (Hughes et al. 2015).

While racial identity manifests itself differently not only among different subgroups of whites, it can do so for the same individual, over time. Knowing how whites understand what their racial identification means to them is important for a host of reasons. Self-identification with any group influences the ways in which we view the world and our place in it. It also influences the ways in which we treat members of other groups. Even when identity remains unacknowledged, it is nonetheless implicit, as individuals explicitly exclude themselves from other identities. For example, even though a middle-class white individual living in a racially homogenous neighborhood might explicitly identify as white only on rare occasions, such as when filling out a survey form (Martin et al. 1999) or a job application, their white identity is always implicit in their conceptualization of themselves as “not black” or “not Latino/a.”

It is important to think about the different ways in which white racial identity manifests itself across the broad, eclectic spectrum of those considered (by themselves and by others) “white.” By categorizing different understandings and experiences of whiteness, we can not only gain a deeper appreciation of racial self-awareness but also make linkages between forms of identity and social and political behavior. It is easy to be baffled by sudden acts of racial violence or by white assertions of superiority, especially as they coexist with white anti-racist activism and a desire to “save” poor blacks and Latinos/as from their difficult circumstances. What leads people to mobilize their racial identities in such different ways? Why aren’t all white people alike?

There are a range of answers to these questions. Social class, geography, social context, and degree of contact with non-whites all influence white racial identity. It is especially important to think about the ways in which the contexts and the statuses of others affect whiteness, as these ways demonstrate that whiteness is not a “natural, unchangeable phenomenon” (Alcoff 2015: 74). Contexts such as neighborhood choice not only are influenced by white identity but also shape it (Alcoff 2015). For example, whites who live in majority non-white neighborhoods or work in majority non-white settings will be routinely reminded of their whiteness, as it makes them stand in opposition to those with whom they frequently interact. In such settings, interactions between whites and non-whites can have a multilayered quality, shaped by class and spatial factors as they intersect with abstract understandings of race (Hartigan 1997). The same would be true of whites married to non-whites. White racial awareness will most likely be much greater among them than among the many whites who work, attend school and live in primarily white settings. Vasquez (2014) refers to this awareness as “racial cognizance,” a perspective that not only entails an awareness of white identity but also is explicitly aware of racial inequality. In the case of whites married to Latinos/as, the awareness of whiteness is generated not only by the continual contrasting racial classifications of those in one’s immediate environment, but also by the incidence of witnessing instances of discrimination against family members (Vasquez 2014).

Whiteness manifests itself differently in different regions of the country, racial identity often being experienced differently in the South and in the Southwest, for example. In addition, rural whites can have a different understanding of what it means to be white—different, that is, from that of urban or suburban dwellers. In part, this is a result of exposure to non-whites; many rural areas, especially those outside the South, tend to be racially isolated. Even though suburbs can be just as isolated, many residents commute to cities that have larger, often visible non-white populations. Regionally, the non-white groups that predominate can be quite different; thus whites might be counterpoised to American Indians in the Plains states, to Latinos/as in the Southwest and in the West, to Asians in the West, and to blacks in the South, Northeast, and Midwest. Owing to the association that many whites make between Latinos/as and Asians and immigration status and that prompts them to “over-include” devalued groups within the immigrant category (Kosic and Phalet 2006), whites in the West and Southwest who interact with large Asian and Latino/a populations there might attach a nativist or nationalist meaning to whiteness. Whites in the South have a very long history of living with a rigid racial dichotomy between whites and blacks that has structured every aspect of daily life. It is reasonable to expect vestiges of this rigid dichotomy to set strong boundaries around whiteness today.