Critical Whiteness Studies & Other Resources
“White People: I don’t want you to understand me better; I want you to understand yourselves. Your survival has never depended on your knowledge of white culture. In fact, it’s required your ignorance.”
Ijeoma Oluo, Author: "So You Want to Talk about Race"
“Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) is a growing field of scholarship whose aim is to reveal the invisible structures that produce and reproduce white supremacy and privilege. CWS presumes a certain conception of racism that is connected to white supremacy. In advancing the importance of vigilance among white people, CWS examines the meaning of white privilege and white privilege pedagogy, as well as how white privilege is connected to complicity in racism. Unless white people learn to acknowledge, rather than deny, how whites are complicit in racism, and until white people develop an awareness that critically questions the frames of truth and conceptions of the “good” through which they understand their social world, Du Bois’s insight will continue to ring true.”
“Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a theoretical framework in the social sciences, developed out of epistemic philosophy, that uses critical theory to examine society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.”
A non-comprehensive but thorough, scaffolded composition of white anti-racist resources laid out by differing levels of white identity development. Each level of development is provided with 1) resources for learning 2) next steps. The levels of awareness include:
Another compilation of anti-racist resources (does not take into account white identity development levels)
Non-Exhaustive Critical Reading List
How white supremacy thrives in organizations
Helpful articles and links:
- .Relevant CWS Resources
- “Hidden Identity of Whiteness”- a brief YouTube introduction to CWS
- “The Invention of Whiteness”- a brief YouTube commentary by professor and civil rights activist john a. powell
- "White on White: Communicating about Race and White Privilege with Critical Humility" Link here.
- "We define critical humility as the practice of remaining open to the fact that our knowledge is partial and evolving while at the same time being committed to speaking up and taking action in the world based on our current knowledge, however imperfect. The two parts of this definition capture a paradox. If we are to hold ourselves accountable for acting, we must have confidence that our knowledge is valid enough to shape actions that are appropriate. At the same time, we must stay consciously aware that our knowledge is distorted by hegemony and possible self-deception. In other words, we strive toward being a “good white person” while trying not to fall into the trap of thinking we actually have become that person."
- CWS/CRT Paper on the emotionality of whiteness.
- “What are the emotional dynamics white students undergo when learning about whiteness from a female Professor of Color and vice versa? : What are the emotional dynamics white students undergo when learning about whiteness from a female Professor of Color and vice versa? And, posit to what extent does understanding these emotional processes produce favorable conditions for antiracist teaching? And, posit to what extent does understanding these emotional processes produce favorable conditions for antiracist teaching? “
- “This reflective pedagogical analysis reconsiders the complexities of emotions, particularly the emotionalities of whiteness, so that as antiracist white educators can deconstruct their emotions and thus engage in prolonged projects of racial justice.”
- .“What is Critical Whiteness Doing in OUR Nice Field like Critical Race Theory?” Applying CRT and CWS to Understand the White Imaginations of White Teacher Candidates” Link here.
“Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a theoretical framework in the social sciences, developed out of epistemic philosophy, that uses critical theory to examine society and culture as they relate to categorizations of race, law, and power.”
- .Relevant CRT Resources
- “Avoiding Racial Essentialism in Medical Science Curricula” here
- “Medical schools need to draw on interdisciplinary university faculty to teach about the roots of structural racism. In a recent article calling for reform of health professions education, an interdisciplinary team of researchers underscore the urgent need to address how structural racism shapes medical institutions, including research and practices that focus on biological differences. Significantly, the authors argue that we need to “recognize racism, not just race”
- “Avoiding Racial Essentialism in Medical Science Curricula” here
A non-comprehensive but thorough, scaffolded composition of white anti-racist resources laid out by differing levels of white identity development. Each level of development is provided with 1) resources for learning 2) next steps. The levels of awareness include:
- CONTACT (“I don’t see color.” Belief that you aren’t racist if you don’t purposely or consciously act in racist ways)
- DISINTEGRATION (“I feel bad for being white.”)
- .REINTEGRATION (May notice yourself feeling defensive when talking about race.)
- PSEUDO-INDEPENDENCE (“How can I be white and anti-racist?”)
- IMMERSION (Is able to embrace their own white identity & what their whiteness means, while also working alongside BIPOC)
- AUTONOMY (Recognizes that growth is continual, and they might need to revisit previous stages)
Another compilation of anti-racist resources (does not take into account white identity development levels)
Non-Exhaustive Critical Reading List
- “White Fragility: Why it’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” a book by Robin DiAngelo that addresses the inherent fragility of white psyche’s ability to withstand challenges to our perceptions of racism, white supremacy, and our own white racial identities secondary to insulation from our racial privileges.
- Group guide to reading “White Fragility.”
- "So You Want to Talk about Race" by Ijeoma Oluo
- “How to Be An Antiracist” by Ibram X.Kendi
- “White Rage” by Carol Anderson, basically the history book that you have never got taught in school, importantly documents all the racist and discriminatory polices that have been formulated in response to Black progress and success.
- "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander- This book brings us through history to understand how racism and massive forms of oppression have never gone away, just changed forms, as we have seen with slavery, Jim/Jane Crow, and now mass incarceration.
- “High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self‐Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society” by Dr. Carl Hart. This book is helpful to understand the most pervasive myths regarding drugs in our society. In detail it discusses the “war on drugs” beginning in the 1980s, which through discriminatory policies and brutal militarizing of police tactics lead to a sextupling of the incarcerated population between the 1980s and 2010, disproportionately impacting communities of color despite no evidence for differences in crime rates among different racial groups, and despite the fact that crime rates have been actually decreasing.
- “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir” by Patrisse Khan Cullors
How white supremacy thrives in organizations
Helpful articles and links:
- “A 5-Step Guide for Macklemore and White Allies Afraid of Doing Anti-Racism ‘Wrong’”
- “6 Signs Your Call-Out Isn’t Actually About Accountability”
- Effective strategies for confronting racism in conversation.
- “The Sham of Meritocracy” interview with Daniel Markovitz