MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School
Certificate for Approving the Dissertation
We hereby approve the Dissertation
of Mark William Pontious
Candidate for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy
______Director Elisa S. Abes
______Reader Brittany A. Aronson
______Reader Kathy M. Goodman
______Graduate School Representative Jennifer E. Cohen
ABSTRACT
RACE THROUGH CLASS: ANTIRACIST WHITE IDENTITY FORMATION OF LOWER- CLASSED STUDENTS AT A HISTORICALLY WHITE INSTITUTION WITH A WEALTHY STUDENT POPULATION
by Mark William Pontious Resistance to systemic racism by white individuals is the subject of many articles, courses, and conferences. Yet, little research connects a marginalized identity with the formation of an antiracist white identity. Whiteness is not monolithic and is impacted by other identities. This study explores the influence of a marginalized social class identity on the formation of an antiracist white identity among college students.
I conducted a narrative study rooted in a constructivist paradigm with the critical influence of Critical Whiteness Studies. I interviewed eight lower-classed white women from various majors, hometowns, and social identities, all of whom possess a self-described antiracist white identity. I completed three interviews with each, exploring the formation of their antiracist white identity. Participants shared how their social class impacted this identity formation, as well as the influence of other identities and of experiences before and during college.
Participants’ stories revealed a varied impact of social class. Some participants drew parallels between their marginalized class identity and systemic racism. Experiences of marginalization helped them understand systemic racial privilege and oppression. For other participants, their class identity served as a barrier to overcome in the formation process. They were socialized into a narrative of success arising from individual effort, without mention of systemic forces. One participant’s social class identity did not have a discernible impact; her queer identity was the source of understanding systemic oppression. A queer identity was also meaningful for three other participants. Informal and formal experiences contributed to participants’ antiracist white identity formation, including classes and trainings, peers of color sharing experiences with racism, and white peers role modeling an antiracist white identity.
Implications for practice reinforce the importance of validating experiences of marginalization, in and outside the classroom, including structured support programs for lower-classed students and inclusion of social class marginalization in academic conversations. Institutions must foster sustained engagement with topics of systemic racial oppression and whiteness across multiple platforms and across the students’ college experience. Higher education must find ways to decrease the burden of education about racism placed on individuals of color. Resources abound for white college students to hear personal experiences of racism and ways white individuals can resist white supremacy. Implications for research include studying the antiracist white identity formation of lower-classed white men and the role of other marginalized identities, in combination with a lower-classed identity, in the formation of an antiracist white identity.
RACE THROUGH CLASS: ANTIRACIST WHITE IDENTITY FORMATION OF LOWER-CLASSED STUDENTS AT A HISTORICALLY WHITE INSTITUTION WITH A WEALTHY STUDENT POPULATION
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Faculty of
Miami University in partial
fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Educational Leadership
by
Mark William Pontious
The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2019
Dissertation Director: Dr. Elisa S. Abes
©
Mark William Pontious
2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ...... xi Dedication ...... xiii Acknowledgements ...... xiv Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1 The Continued Relevance of Race and Racism ...... 2 Income and Social Class in the United States ...... 3 White Racial Identity Development During College ...... 5 Statement of the Problem ...... 6 Purpose of the Study ...... 7 Significance of the Study ...... 8 Definitions of Terms and Notes on Language ...... 10 Conclusion ...... 13 Chapter Two: Literature Review ...... 14 What is Whiteness? ...... 14 Functional Properties of Whiteness ...... 15 White Colorblindness and Individualism...... 16 White privilege...... 18 Whiteness in Higher Education ...... 19 Institutional Whiteness...... 20 Individual Enactments of Whiteness by White College Students ...... 21 Overt acts of racism ...... 21 Avoiding discussions of race ...... 22 Use of hesitant and coded language ...... 23 White guilt and white fragility ...... 25 White Racial Identities ...... 25 Early Calls for Examinations of White Identity ...... 26 Theories of White Identity Development ...... 26 Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 32 Challenges to antiracist white identity formation ...... 33 The ongoing process of antiracist white identity formation ...... 34
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The Influence of Social Class on Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 36 Social Class and Class Marginalization in Higher Education ...... 36 Involvement ...... 37 Institutional processes and policies ...... 37 Financial context ...... 38 College Experiences of Lower-Classed Students ...... 38 Separation for integration ...... 39 Isolation and sense of belonging ...... 40 Academic habitus ...... 40 Financial habitus ...... 41 Capital ...... 42 Changing habitus and social class...... 43 Intersections of Whiteness and Social Class ...... 44 White intragroup disparities and alliances ...... 45 Impact of oppressed/marginalized identities on the formation of antiracist whiteness ...... 47 Institutional Practices that Encourage Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 48 Cross-Racial Interactions ...... 49 Multicultural Education ...... 50 Conclusion ...... 51 Chapter Three: Methodology and Methods ...... 52 Research Paradigms ...... 52 Theoretical Perspectives ...... 54 Critical Whiteness Studies ...... 54 Components of Critical Whiteness Studies...... 56 To what end? Goals of Critical Whiteness Studies scholarship ...... 57 Methodology: Narrative Inquiry ...... 59 Role of the Researcher ...... 60 Race and racialization ...... 61 Social class ...... 62 Personal and professional goals ...... 63
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Methods...... 64 Institution and Participants ...... 64 Sampling strategies ...... 64 Sampling criteria ...... 65 Sample size ...... 66 Participants ...... 66 Data Collection ...... 67 Number and spacing of interviews ...... 68 Interview format and content ...... 69 Data Analysis ...... 70 Ethics...... 72 Confidentiality ...... 73 Who Benefits from the Study? ...... 74 Trustworthiness ...... 74 Sustained Engagement with Participants and Data ...... 75 Member Checking ...... 75 Peer Debriefing ...... 76 Researcher Reflexivity ...... 77 Use of Thick, Rich Description: Transferability ...... 78 Conclusion ...... 78 Chapter Four: Findings ...... 79 Charlotte ...... 80 “All warehouses, then a school and some housing” ...... 80 “This is your debt” and “your funeral” ...... 81 “The stuff I heard day in and day out from all members of my family superseded anything I ever heard from my friends” ...... 82 “Felt like an attack sometimes” ...... 84 “I guess just like constant immersion, maybe” ...... 85 “Individual change can spur institutional change” or “Something small will be said at Dairy Queen and we’ll have a screaming match” ...... 87 Conclusion ...... 90
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Penelope ...... 90 “So everyone’s struggling a bit” ...... 90 “Felt very entitled and bad” ...... 91 “It’s amazing coming from that place of zero diversity and trying to get to a place of understanding” ...... 93 “It’s been a series of puddle hops” ...... 94 “I think it’s a tremendous responsibility” ...... 97 Conclusion ...... 99 Pamela ...... 99 “So now I’m an independent student and have no money” ...... 100 “Things like that are just kind of the air of uncertainty” ...... 100 “But I don’t want you to be totally closed off” ...... 102 “But then taking a step back and just feeling like garbage for saying things” ...... 103 “Is it really something I should do?” ...... 106 “Doing what I can as a white person, using my privilege to basically lesson my privilege”...... 107 Conclusion ...... 108 Anne ...... 109 “Education is the key” ...... 109 “I don’t know the specific way in which I was impacted or anything like that” ...... 110 “I’ve always thought about it, but I didn’t think about how people were disadvantaged because of it”...... 112 “I feel like it’s just something I’ve gathered over time” ...... 113 “I knew what it felt like to always come at a situation from a disadvantage” ...... 115 “It’s always from a place of sitting back and listening, and taking it, and trying to observe, then going forward.” ...... 117 Conclusion ...... 119 Jane ...... 120 “Everyone’s dad had a job, but everyone’s mom didn’t have a job” ...... 120 “I grew up in the South and we don’t talk about stuff like that” ...... 121 “Well, you’re not going to marry a black guy; you’re going to marry a white guy” ..122
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Interlude: “And that was the first time that ever happened to us” ...... 124 “If it was a black dude, they would dump his backpack all over the desk and go through everything.” ...... 124 “I dare them to change my mind in this class” ...... 126 “If you’re silent about it, then you’re complicit to it” ...... 128 Conclusion ...... 129 Beth ...... 129 “The housing market went crazy, so that threw us for another loop”...... 130 “My way to deal with that was kind of to just make self-deprecating jokes” ...... 131 “I don’t remember, for the majority of my elementary experience, there being any race other than white” ...... 133 “I really wanted to highlight how much my education has impacted by understanding of race” ...... 134 “People of color wear it all the time. . .I can hide my economic status, but people of color can’t”...... 135 “I’m still working on the how, but every time the opportunity arises, I will try to acknowledge it and work against it, I guess. I don’t know” ...... 138 Conclusion ...... 139 Becky ...... 140 “I always felt an undercurrent of financial anxiety” ...... 140 “I consistently remember fluctuating between periods of controlled debt and concerning debt while living a pseudo-affluent lifestyle” ...... 141 “Being poor has put me in situations and places shared with people of color, which has allowed me to witness racism as it occurs” ...... 143 “For me, the police are like customer service” ...... 144 “What are some things I know to navigate because of my privilege? And how can I take that and use it?” ...... 146 Conclusion ...... 148 Haley ...... 149 “And then the circumstances just forced me to be independent” ...... 149 “Most of my day-to-day issues are because finances are hard” ...... 150
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“I’m poor, but I’m not black, and this is how this isn’t affecting me or this is how this is affecting me” ...... 151 “I didn’t want to go somewhere that felt like my high school” ...... 152 “I was like ‘Well here it is and I wrote it, so you’re welcome’” ...... 153 “I think the biggest problem that Miami has a flaw in is treating students of color problems as students of color problems, and not as University problems” ...... 155 Conclusion ...... 156 Social Class, College Experiences, and a Responsibility to Resist ...... 156 Impact of a Lower-Classed Identity on Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 157 Social class as a barrier ...... 157 Social class as the entry point ...... 158 Nominal impact of social class and influence of other identities ...... 160 Conclusion ...... 162 Impact of College Experiences on Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 162 Pre-college experiences ...... 163 College experiences ...... 164 Academic pursuits ...... 164 Co-curricular experiences ...... 165 Interactions with individual peers ...... 166 Role of self-reflection and observation ...... 168 Conclusion ...... 168 Current Conceptions of White Identity and Actions to Disrupt White Supremacy ...169 Current white identity ...... 169 Actions participants took to disrupt white supremacy ...... 171 Decreasing the impact of whiteness ...... 172 Avoiding problematic people and spaces ...... 173 Institutional actions to disrupt white supremacy on campus ...... 174 Conclusion ...... 175 Chapter Five: Discussion and Implications ...... 177 Influences of a Marginalized Identity on Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 177 Incorporating Social Class into White Identity Formation Theory ...... 177
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Impediment to antiracist white identity formation...... 178 Contributor to antiracist white identity formation ...... 179 Family tension ...... 179 Extending white identity formation theory ...... 179 Gender and Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 180 Guilt and shame ...... 181 Fear of appearing racist ...... 182 Distancing from whiteness ...... 183 Conclusion ...... 183 Sexuality and Antiracist White Identity Formation ...... 184 Importance of power relations ...... 184 Power relations and social class ...... 184 Power relations and sexuality ...... 185 Conclusion ...... 185 Conclusion ...... 185 College Experiences that Foster an Antiracist Identity for Lower-Classed White Students ...... 186 Cross-Racial Interactions ...... 186 Social class and cross-racial interactions ...... 186 Relieving the burden of cross-racial interactions ...... 187 Multicultural Education ...... 188 Conclusion ...... 189 Implications for Higher Education Practitioners ...... 189 Implications for Non-Instructional Staff ...... 190 Intentionally structured support programs ...... 190 Hard conversations...... 191 Multiple opportunities ...... 191 Support ...... 192 Implications for Faculty ...... 193 (In)Validation of students’ class identity ...... 193 Sustained relationships...... 194
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The Burden of Education on People of Color ...... 195 Implications for Research ...... 196 Final Thoughts ...... 197 References ...... 199 Appendix A: Faculty/Staff Call for Participants Letter (Email) ...... 216 Appendix B: Participant Invitation (Email) ...... 217 Appendix C: Demographic Survey Email ...... 219 Appendix D: Research Consent Information ...... 220 Appendix E: Interview Protocol ...... 222 Appendix F: Sample Member Checking Document ...... 224
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LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Participant Demographics ...... 67
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DEDICATION
To my children, Caroline Elizabeth, Nicholas Maxwell, and Jonathan Andrew. May you impact this world and make it better than you found it.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As I sit to write this last piece of my dissertation, I am struck by the number of people with whom this accomplishment would not be possible. I am grateful for the many people who have asked about my progress in the program, encouraged me, and understood when I could not spend time with them because of my choice to complete this doctorate. First, I must acknowledge the eight women who participated in this study, giving of themselves, being vulnerable and honest in our time together. You have taught me so much about life, well beyond the content of our conversations. I hope our time together was not only enjoyable, but was meaningful in the continued formation of your antiracist white identity. Without the continued support, encouragement, and affirmation of my advisor, Dr. Elisa Abes, none of this would have been possible. From your direct feedback on my writing, to your realistic expectations about my study, I could not imagine a better person to guide me through this process. Our conversations, often filled with silence that forced me to continue thinking and talking, propelled me to this finish line. To the other members of my committee, Kathy, Brittany, and Jen, as well as the faculty of our program, thank you for the tough questions, for refusing to allow me to settle, and for pushing me to carve out a meaningful study. To my cohort mates, Mika, Adam, Wilson, Aeriel, and Kyle, our time together in classes not only helped me find a topic and set up my study, but changed me as a person. Our conversations and your grace have left immeasurable impacts on me, professionally and personally. Similarly, to my original cohort mates at the University of Utah, particularly Patrick McShane, it is from you that I learned much of what it means to be a doctoral student. To my supervisor, Gwen Fears, who encouraged me to first start this doctoral journey, 10 years and 1,600 miles ago at the University of Utah: Thank you. Your investment in me as a person and a professional gave me the confidence to start this journey. Your role of “drill instructor” and unwavering support of me as a student gave me the space and inspiration to keep moving forward. Your friendship means the world. To Mike Loeffelman, our continued conversations throughout the last couple of years have helped me more than I could ever have imagined. You’ve challenged me in a different way, giving me an outside perspective on my study, while giving me space to process the journey.
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To my parents, you taught me the value of dogged persistence in pursuit of a goal. Without that value, I would never have completed this degree. Your investment in my education, from encouragement, to financial support, to watching the kids so I could take classes, have played a huge role in this accomplishment. Finally, to my wife, my partner, my best friend, Angela, words can never fully express my gratitude for your support through this process. From the countless mornings you woke up alone because I was already working on the computer, to the evenings I had classes, to patiently listening to me talk about the details of methodology, you’ve been understanding and supportive through it all. I literally and figuratively could not have done this without your love and your constant example of being a loving, patient parent. I love you.
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Chapter One: Introduction My name is Robert Lee IV, I’m a descendant of Robert E. Lee, the Civil War general whose statue was at the center of violence in Charlottesville. We have made my ancestor an idol of white supremacy, racism, and hate. As a pastor, it is my moral duty to speak out against racism, America's original sin. Today, I call on all of us with privilege and power to answer God's call to confront racism and white supremacy head-on. - Speech at 2017 MTV Video Music Awards (Romano, 2017)
For too long, a small group in our nation's capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. - Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration speech (CBS News, 2017)
White people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are exposed to a constant stream of loud, yet conflicting information that is directly related to their everyday lived realities. The message that the United States is built on and continues to be shaped by the oppression of people of color by white people shares space with the message that ‘blue collar’ Americans have been forgotten by big corporations and greedy politicians who do not care about the ‘little guy,’ but only amassing wealth. These messages can be seen and heard side-by-side on a daily basis. For example, Lee’s statement from the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards was made on the same day that President Donald Trump made a statement about the North American Free Trade Agreement, on which he placed a large amount of blame for manufacturing jobs leaving the U.S. (Pengelly, 2017). Personal identity exploration and formation is a nearly universal feature of the college experience for traditional-aged students (Baxter Magolda & King, 2004; Jones & Abes, 2013; Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016). How does antiracist identity formation occur for white college students from lower-classed backgrounds in the context of these competing voices of race-based privilege and class-based oppression? What experiences and processes during
1 college encourage this formation? The goal of this study is to answer these two questions. To begin, I look at the continued relevance of race and racism in the United States, then social class in the United States, and finally, white identity development in college. The Continued Relevance of Race and Racism The 2008 election of Barack Obama signaled for many people a move into a post-racial society in the United States, with a person of color attaining the highest elected office (Kelley, 2008; Steele, 2008; Weber, 2017). However, the long history of racism in the U.S. continues to evolve and shape society today in overt and covert ways (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). Disproportionate killings of people of color by police (Day, 2015; Funke & Susman, 2016; Garza, 2014; Khan-Cullors, 2016; Swaine & McCarthy, 2017) and immigration policies that indicate racist origins (Cook-Martin & FitzGerald, 2014; Mathis-Lilley, 2017) continue well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Also deeply troubling are covert forms of racism, including stereotypes and microaggressions (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Sue et al., 2007) and adherence to the notion of a colorblind meritocracy (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Guinier, 2015), that reinforce racial disparity while refusing to acknowledge the existence of systemic oppression (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). College campuses are not immune to the impacts of racism and many have overt and covert racism deeply woven through their histories and present structures (Gusa, 2010; Harris, 2015). Campuses often see acute manifestations of racial tensions as students develop various aspects of their identity (Jayakumar, 2015; Tatum, 1992, 2017) and may actually strengthen systems of inequality through processes of socialization (Cabrera, Watson, & Franklin, 2016; Green, 2016; Gusa, 2010). Campuses across the country have seen protests related to the #BlackLivesMatter movement (USA Today, 2016), an increase in hate incidents and hate group activity (Anti-Defamation League, 2017), death threats and violent protests related to campus speakers (Bailey, 2017), and white supremacist rallies, such as the one in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in deaths (Astor, Caron, & Victor, 2017). Further, most responses by campus administrations to race-related campus protests and violence focus on denouncing the individuals involved, without acknowledging the systemic nature of racism (Schmidt, 2015). White supremacy is also perpetuated in subtle ways on campus, such as when white individuals expect people of color to teach them about racism (Edwards, 2006), but have made no attempts to learn on their own and are confused (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000),
2 defensive (DiAngelo, 2011), or dismissive (DiAngelo, 2011; Picca, 2015) when their racist action or comment is pointed out to them. People of color are subject to institutionalized violence and severely limited opportunity as long as white supremacy is perpetuated in the United States (Matias, Mitchell Viesca, Garrison-Wade, Tandon, & Galindo, 2014; Owen, 2007). People of color earn lower incomes than white people, which combine with race-based exclusionary practices in housing (Harris, 1993) to limit full access to the housing market. And since most K-12 school systems are funded by property taxes, limited residential choices decrease the quality of education available (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Lipsitz, 1995) and subsequent earning potential. Whiteness as the norm (Gusa, 2010; Harris, 2015) means people of color experience a deficit mindset that sets low expectations for their success and then questions the legitimacy of success when achieved (Cabrera, Watson, & Franklin, 2017; Owen, 2007). In higher education, students of color are expected to assimilate into an institution structured by whiteness (Gusa, 2010; Reason & Evans, 2007), experience frequent, often unchallenged macro- and microagressions (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Sue et al., 2007), and face overt and covert questions about their academic abilities (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000) and their experiences with racism (deKoven, 2016). Although the benefits to white students of white privilege are more readily identifiable than the drawbacks, white supremacy also harms white students. White supremacy limits options of how to be white (Rinderle, 2017) and forces white people to maintain the illusion that race does not matter, while they frequently encounter and perpetuate differences based on race (Baldwin, 1964/2010, Watson, 2013). Baldwin (1968/2010) states that white people “appear to be under the compulsion to dream” (p. 225), because it is otherwise impossible to sustain the illusion of race not mattering, while steadfastly adhering to the belief that disparity is the result of essential differences between white people and people of color. Similarly, white supremacy mandates that white people invoke themes of class-based disparity to disguise the role of structural racism in inequality, while also perpetuating a view of whiteness as monolithic across social class (Kunstman, Plant, & Deska, 2016). Income and Social Class in the United States The U.S. economy emerging after the Great Recession of 2007-2010 has had a disproportionately negative impact on people from working class families, who continue to experience the slowest recovery (Bassett, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2012; Proctor, Semega, &
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Kollar, 2016). While the number of people living in poverty in the U.S. has decreased since peaking during the Recession (Proctor et al., 2016), new job creation has been concentrated in low-wage positions without health insurance and other benefits (Lowrey, 2014; National Employment Law Project, 2014). The lack of new positions with higher pay, opportunities for advancement, and other benefits further decreases the possibility of social mobility and financial security for those who proportionally lost the most wealth during the recession (Landy, 2013). The income gap in the United States (Congressional Budget Office, 2011; Long, 2016; Smeeding, 2012) has exacerbated the disparity of access to basic resources and services closely related to family income levels, such as health care and education (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). Higher education is touted as the engine of social mobility and the route to achieving the ‘American Dream’ of middle class status (Guinier, 2015). Costs for higher education have risen exponentially, beginning well before and continuing through the Great Recession (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016a). Societal narratives of increased access to higher education mask the ways college choice and college attendance are still constrained by financial means (Giani, 2016; Haveman & Smeeding, 2006; Paulsen & St. John, 2002). These narratives also mask the negative impact on the enrollment of students of color (Jaquette, Curs, & Posselt, 2016), who are more likely to come from low-income/working class/poor backgrounds (Proctor et al., 2016). Even with financial barriers removed through income-based financial aid, other aspects of social class impact students’ college experiences and the possibility of social mobility (Goldrick-Rab & Pfeffer, 2009; Lehman, 2013; Soria, Stebleton, & Huesman, 2013). Social class also includes societal narratives about work ethic (Ostrove & Long, 2007), an individual’s ability to change their social location (Walpole, 2003), and access to people and resources that are judged as valuable (Langhout, Drake, & Rosselli, 2009; Longwell-Grice & Longwell-Grice, 2007; Walpole, 2003). However, the ability to change social location and access to social capital are also related to privileges associated with whiteness, and are therefore not fully available to people of color (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Cabrera et al., 2017; Harris, 1993), making the ‘American Dream’ more correctly termed the ‘white American Dream’ (Guinier, 2015). These subjective factors also frame the ways a student interacts with peers, faculty, and campus resources, while shaping access to opportunities during and after college. A person may change their income and education levels, but evidence suggests that
4 their subjective social class identity is more stable, including values and ways of knowing that persist regardless of income level (Lehman, 2013; Rubin et al., 2014)1. White Racial Identity Development During College Within the context of these societal and campus issues, college students experience development related to perspectives, values, and personal identities (Baxter Magolda & King, 2004; Jones & Abes, 2013). Experiences with disparate beliefs, ideas, and ways of being often encourage this exploration, including in academic courses, intentional and unintentional engagement with peers from different backgrounds, and often, simply being on a college campus (Reason, 2007; Reason & Evans, 2007). However, each student’s unique combination of social identities, each of which is positioned as dominant or subordinate, influences the process and degree to which each identity is explored (Jones & Abes, 2013). Jones and Abes (2013) caution that “the various ways in which a person’s social identities overlap create a complex interplay of meanings for that person” (p. 178), making any understanding of identity development a nuanced process. Privileged identities align with societal and institutional norms, values, and assumptions (Cabrera et al., 2016; Gusa, 2010), and are therefore not subject to the same level of personal and social scrutiny faced by subordinate identities (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Giroux, 1997; Jones & Abes, 2013). White students typically exhibit high levels of resistance to racial identity exploration (DiAngelo, 2011; Giroux, 1997) and often do not even perceive that they have a racial identity (Helms, 2008), given the normative nature of whiteness in the United States (Cabrera et al., 2016; Gusa, 2010; Harris, 2015). This resistance is magnified when white individuals have one or more subordinate identities, through which they view their experiences (DiAngelo, 2006; Jones & Abes, 2013). The subordinate identity, such as social class, often hinders the exploration of their privileged white racial identity and their role in perpetuating white supremacy (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Jones & Abes, 2013). However, the inverse is also relevant, because whiteness “mediates other identity categories” (Nichols, 2010, p. 4; Frankenberg, 1993b), meaning that whiteness makes a white student’s experiences of class different from those of lower-classed students of color. In particular for white students, failing to
1 A more complete exploration of definitions of social class in research and the definition for this study are explored in the Definition of Terms and Notes on Language section of this chapter.
5 explore their racial identity and complicity in white supremacy is encouraged by systems of white supremacy, which maintain dominance through purporting to remain invisible and insignificant to white people (Frankenberg, 1993b; Owen, 2007; Watson, 2013). Yet not all white students are resistant to exploring the meaning of their whiteness, and some even form an explicitly antiracist identity (Cabrera, 2012; Helms, 1995, 2008). Such an identity acknowledges the social construction of race and whiteness (Cabrera, 2012; Reason, 2007), the domination whiteness perpetuates over people of color (Cabrera et al., 2017), and encourages individuals to actively resist individual and systemic manifestations of white supremacy (Cabrera, 2012; Helms, 1995; Lipsitz, 1995). Strategies that may facilitate this identity development include the use of moments of racial contradiction (Frankenberg, 1993b), sustained engagement in conversations about whiteness (deKoven, 2016; Matias et al., 2014), and a culture that encourages “deep meaningful interactions across racial difference” (Reason & Evans, 2007, p. 72; Alimo, 2012; Cabrera, 2012; Frankenberg, 1993a). However, opportunities to form an antiracist white identity are not often encouraged, given that it endangers the dominant positionality of whiteness (Cabrera et al., 2017) and disrupts notions central to whiteness. Statement of the Problem Middle- and upper-classed white people, including college students, faculty, and staff, often equate white skin color with middle and upper social class membership (Kunstman et al., 2016). When lower-classed white students’ social class identity is ignored or overlooked because of this presumption, efforts to encourage antiracist identity formation may be rendered less effective. Lower-classed white students remain unaware of the privileges that result from their racial identity, and their racial privilege is unquestioned, left intact, or even strengthened (Owen, 2007). Lower-classed white students tend to focus on their social class identity over their racial identity, as they must confront and deal with their class identity on a daily basis (Stuber, 2006). This phenomenon may be further intensified in a context where they are part of the racial majority, but the social class minority. DiAngelo (2006) provides a succinct summary: A superficial understanding of racism coupled with a desire to distances ourselves from being perceived as ‘bad’ is further complicated by resentments we may feel about places in our lives where we suffer from other forms of social injustice. It is often very difficult
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for whites who have not been validated for the oppression they experience elsewhere to keep their attention on a form of oppression from which they benefit. (p. 57) However, as Tatum (2000) states, “the task of resisting our own oppression does not relieve us of the responsibility of acknowledging our complicity in the oppression of others” (p. 14). Once higher education practitioners recognize the impact of students’ subordinated class identity on engagement with issues of whiteness and white supremacy, efforts to encourage critical reflection become more effective for this group of students. What can higher education faculty and practitioners do differently to engage this population in critical reflection? DiAngelo (2006) proposes that, for those who hold an oppressed identity in addition to a white racial identity, the individual must undertake two tasks to truly understand their internalized racial dominance. The first is “to work on [their] own internalized oppression” that imposes limitations on their “ability to stand up against injustice” because of the internalized inferiority that accompanies lower class membership (DiAngelo, 2006, p. 54). The second task is to “face the internalized dominance that results from being socialized in a racist society” and perpetuates beliefs that white people are “more important, more valuable, more intelligent, and more deserving than people of color” (DiAngelo, 2006, p. 54). This two-step process applies to all individuals who hold a white racial identity and one or more oppressed identities, “due to the bottom line nature of racism” and whiteness as the foundational structure of society in the United States (DiAngelo, 2006, p. 54). This study advanced DiAngelo’s (2006) work by seeking a deeper understanding of the processes, experiences, and people that encouraged lower-classed white college students to form an antiracist identity. Deeper understanding of these processes, experience, and people is needed to broaden participation in such reflection and, ultimately, dismantle white supremacy. Purpose of the Study The purpose of my study was to explore how lower-classed white college students engage in antiracist white identity formation. I paid particular attention to the ways lower- classed white students’ social class identity shaped this formation in the context of a historically white institution with a wealthy student population. My primary research question for this study was: How do lower-classed white college students form an antiracist white identity at the intersection of their racial and social class identities? My corollary research question was: How do the participants’ college experiences impact this antiracist white identity formation? To
7 explore these questions, I used a constructivist paradigm influenced by Critical Whiteness Studies (Owen, 2007). This adapted constructivist paradigm allowed me to focus both on the ways individuals understand their antiracist white identity formation, and on the role of systems of privilege and oppression on this understanding. Interviewing lower-classed white students who have critically reflected on their whiteness provided insight into the antiracist identity formation process for this population, including experiences and individuals that encouraged this formation. In an effort to bring great depth to the understanding of this formation process, I used a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Significance of the Study The ultimate goal and intended outcome of my study was to work towards dismantling white supremacy through a deeper understanding of the experiences, instances, programs, and processes that contribute to a lower-classed white student’s critical reflection on and engagement with their whiteness. At a practical level, this deeper understanding can assist faculty and staff in higher education institutions by informing efforts to encourage critical reflection. This understanding may also upend assumptions that most white students begin college without having engaged in critical reflection of their racial and social class identities (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Helms, 1995). Effective critical engagement of lower-classed white students is vital, as it also results in decreased harm for students of color, who have been historically marginalized and harmed by the structure, practices, and people of higher education in the United States. Ineffective or superficial explorations of whiteness, however, often perpetuate white supremacy and place different burdens on students of color. White students with an initial level of understanding of systems often rely on students of color to serve as teachers on topics of oppression, are defensive when their problematic behaviors are pointed out, consistently attempt to distance themselves from white privilege, and speak for students of color, rather than amplifying voices of color (Edwards, 2006; Thompson, 2003). This research complicates the understanding of whiteness and white college students, adding nuance to what is often viewed as a monolithic identity by society in general, and specifically by middle- and upper-classed white college students and higher education administrators (Kunstman et al., 2016; Martin, 2015a; 2015b). Deeper understanding of a problematic issue and the processes by which the issue has been explored can directly lead to
8 more effective future efforts to dismantle or remediate that issue. Allen (2008) explained the importance of understanding whiteness for the purposes of dismantling it: If a race can be made, then it can also be unmade. Understanding how the white race is held together [through whiteness and white supremacy] is the first step toward the ultimate goal of breaking it apart so as to disassemble the political alliances that keep white supremacy in place. (p. 210) My study sought to understand how whiteness and white supremacy are held together by exploring the critical reflection processes of lower-classed white students. While my primary intended outcome was focused on a deeper understanding of the critical reflections of lower-classed white students, I also had hopes for the participants in my study. I hope that participants left this study with an increased understanding of their own experience, having thought about and discussed their antiracist white identity formation at a depth not previously explored. Though my participants had already engaged in critical reflection during the formation of this identity, I hope that this study provided the opportunity to speak at length about the entire process of such formation, thereby deepening their understanding. I also hope their deeper understanding is an impetus to not only continue their own individual antiracist identity formation, but also to seek out opportunities on campus engage with white peers on this topic. I want my participants to be inspired to engage with their white peers around topics of racial identity and whiteness, especially if those peers have not previously engaged in such conversations. I want to inspire the “many potential antiracist allies who are in a position to disrupt the seemingly natural solidarity between poor and nonpoor whites,” specifically (Allen, 2008, p. 214), and to disrupt whiteness, generally. To both of these ends, I provided resources for participants to continue their own explorations of whiteness, to equip them to engage their white peers in similar conversations, and provide other strategies to actively resist and disrupt systemic whiteness. This study also had significance for me as a practitioner in higher education and as a white person. Throughout the doctoral process, I saw a shift in my work with a new awareness of the role of whiteness in higher education, and a change in the way I work with students and their families. This study provided me with the confidence and the language to engage more white students and colleagues in conversations about their racial identities and problematic behaviors and statements. I am now better equipped to recognize and disrupt manifestations of
9 whiteness in my work, including conversations and decisions of which I am a part. And I believe that this awareness continues to decrease the ways in which I reify white supremacy and cause harm through my own words and actions. This study served as an impetus for an exploration of my own white identity and the ways in which I perpetuate white supremacy, whether through action or silence, on a daily basis. I continue to uncover my own assumptions and thinking that is structured by whiteness and, more importantly, I am more aware of the ways in which I am passing on those assumptions to my own children. As a white person aware of whiteness, I have a duty to use this privilege in ways that disrupt white supremacy for current and future generations. I conduct a fuller exploration of my own identities in Chapter Three. Definition of Terms and Notes on Language In this section, I briefly explain my definition of whiteness, of what constitutes a lower- classed student, and make clear my choice for using the term lower-classed. I also provide rationale for my use of the term formation, as opposed to development, in regards to an antiracist white identity. Finally, I make explicit my choices related to capitalization and other aspects of language that readers will encounter throughout the study. I define whiteness a structuring property of United States society that shapes and manifests as a privileged racial identity in individuals deemed white by society, therefore serving as both “medium [for] and outcome of social practices” (Owen, 2007, p. 208; Gusa, 2010). For individuals, particularly those granted the privileges of whiteness, the structural function of whiteness is normalized and typically invisible (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Bush, 2011; DiAngelo, 2011). This definition is explored in more depth throughout Chapter Two. Social class is a complex concept, encompassing subjective and objective measures to determine where a person or family is located in relation to other individuals or families in a hierarchical society such as the United States. Many studies define “low income” and “working class” solely on the basis of family income, using specific ranges, such as under $50,000 (Aries & Seider, 2005), under the median U.S. income (Jacquette et al., 2016), or below 150% of the poverty level (Giani, 2016; Goldrick-Rab, 2006; Goldrick-Rab & Pfeffer, 2009; Martin, 2015a; 2015b), which is the federal definition of low income (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2017). Other studies do not give any succinct definition of low-income or lower class (Langhout et al., 2009; Tierney & Jun, 2001; Yee, 2016), which is an interesting commentary on
10 the assumption of a shared understanding of this categorization. Still other scholars use parental occupation (Stuber, 2011), parental education level (Hinz, 2016), or a mix of the two factors (Walpole, 2003). Metrics of family status by education or income are incomplete indicators of social class, which also includes societal narratives about work ethic (Ostrove & Long, 2007), an individual’s (in)ability to change their social location (Walpole, 2003), and (lack of) access to people and resources that are judged as valuable (Langhout et al., 2009; Longwell-Grice & Longwell-Grice, 2007; Walpole, 2003). Rubin et al. (2014) point out that income levels may change, but that the subjective social class identity, including values and ways of knowing, is more stable, and persists regardless of income level. Thus, some scholars use both quantitative and qualitative measures for social class, asking participants to self-identify their social class, while also accounting for income and education (Ostrove & Long, 2007; Rubin et al., 2014; Soria & Stebleton, 2013). Others have relied only on self-identification of social class for the purposes of research (Warnock & Hurst, 2016). For this study, I asked students to self-identify as low-income, lower class, working class, and/or poor. Even though official institutional markers of social class may not categorize a student as lower-classed, such as their family’s income or parental education level, I relied on a student’s own categorization. Self-identification of social class aligns with a constructivist paradigm, allowing students some level of control regarding their identity. Self-identification also allows for close alignment with the way in which a student understands and therefore lives their class identity on a daily basis. This includes a mix of lower income backgrounds, parental education levels unlikely to include college (but not precluded from doing so), and social networks composed mostly of others with similar backgrounds. In my study, I employ the term lower-classed to describe my participants. This term allows for flexibility in the ways students identify their own social class location and encompasses the range of factors of which class is composed. Society determines the meaning and experiences of a person’s social class identity (Martin, 2015a; 2015b; Ostrove & Long, 2007; Walpole, 2003), and the term lower-classed acknowledges the social construction of class. However, I also strive to appropriately honor the social class-related work of other researchers; thus the terms poor, working class, and low income also appear, depending on usage in the
11 research being quoted or referenced. Accordingly, I employ the terms middle-classed and upper- classed as well, acknowledging that social class privilege is also socially constructed. I use the term formation, as opposed to development, when discussing the process of acquiring an antiracist white identity. My use of this term is an explicit effort to differentiate from traditional white identity development theories, which assume linear progression toward increased levels of racial cognizance (Hardiman, 1994; Helms, 1990; Rowe, Bennett, & Atkinson, 1994). I conceptualize antiracist white identities as never fully complete and not easily definable, but rather in a constant state of dynamic becoming (Grosz, 2004, as cited in Abes & Kasch, 2007), perpetually seeking out and changing characteristics of oneself and actions that reify white supremacy (Cabrera, 2012; MacMullan, 2009; Reason, 2007). Finally, similar to social class status, this term also explicitly acknowledges the role of external factors in the construction of racial identities, rather than focusing identity development primarily on the individual (Denton, 2016). In this study, I use the phrase people of color to describe racially minoritized groups of individuals. Variations also appear, including students of color and families of color. I acknowledge that my usage of this term risks minimizing variations in oppression experienced by individuals and distinct racial groups, reinforcing the all-or-nothing binary of white/nonwhite that characterizes whiteness (Watson, 2013). When referring to the racial identity of individuals, I will use the term(s) they use to describe themselves (e.g. white, Latino, black, African American). Similar to my use of low income, poor, and working class when describing research, I also use the racial term(s) that appear in original research being cited. Throughout this study, I do not capitalize terms used to describe racial identities, including those used in literature and those used by participants. Some literature (DiAngelo, 2011; Watson, 2013) capitalizes racial identities only when referring to larger conceptualizations of those identities (i.e. White supremacy, Blackness) or the performance of those identities (White violence, White fragility), using lower case for descriptions of individuals or groups of individuals (i.e. black people, white students). I chose not to do so because I found the delineation between the two to be subjective and inconsistently applied across research. This choice is also a political one, serving as an acknowledgement that racial identities are social constructions (Frankenberg, 1993b). Although there are real consequences for these social constructions, my choice to not capitalize is a small attempt to disrupt the arbitrary nature of
12 racial categorization, generally, and whiteness, specifically (Allen, 2008). Thus, racial identities, with the exception of proper nouns (i.e. African American) are not capitalized. Conclusion Though all white students possess the capital and privileges of whiteness, many also possess one or more oppressed identities, meaning that the exploration and formation of their holistic identity necessarily varies. Existing research on the ways white students form an antiracist white identity does not fully account for the impact of a marginalized class identity. Understanding the impact of social class on this identity formation is important to producing more effective intervention strategies for lower-classed white students, thereby decreasing harm caused to students and people of color and contributing to the dismantling of white supremacy. My study undertook this goal by exploring the antiracist white identity formation stories of lower-classed white students at a historically white institution with a wealthy student population.
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Chapter Two: Review of Literature Much scholarship has been dedicated to theorizing and researching whiteness and the racial identities of white people (Cabrera et al., 2017; Engles, 2006; Owen, 2007). In this chapter, I first discuss whiteness as a framework that structures the way white individuals make sense of and move through their environment (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Owen, 2007). After I explore the framework of whiteness, I explore the enactment of whiteness in higher education, including structures of institutional whiteness and the enactment of whiteness by white college students. I then turn to the scholarship on white racial identities, including work on antiracist identity formation among white students and the influence of social class on this formation. I conclude with a summary of institutional practices and programs in higher education that have been shown to foster the formation of an antiracist white identity. What is Whiteness? Whiteness as a framework is one of the many ways the term whiteness has been conceptualized (Owen, 2007). Whiteness “serves to underwrite perceptions, understandings, justifications and explanations of the social order that perpetuate distortions in the social system” of the United States (Owen, 2007, p. 203). Situating whiteness as a framework acknowledges the ways in which whiteness influences how white people understand themselves and others, particularly people of color (Frankenberg, 1993b; Owen, 2007). Whiteness shapes the ways white individuals make sense of race-based differences among groups of people, including differences in education, income, and career achievement (Bonilla-Silva, 2001). These understandings both “function to reproduce racialized patterns of inequality and render structural causes and outcomes invisible” (Bush, 2011, p. 14). The framework of whiteness simultaneously instills a sense of racial superiority and the belief that people of color have opportunities equal to those of white people, though inequality is the norm (Bush, 2011). When structures that create inequality are invisible and normalized, whiteness becomes the pinnacle of achievement and the standard used to evaluate all (Cabrera et al., 2017). Exploring the source and influence of such presupposed understandings is foundational to making sense of subsequent enactments of whiteness. This exploration is particularly important in the current United States context, which formally outlawed racial segregation decades ago yet continues to be characterized by racial disparity (Bonilla-Silva, 2001, 2013; Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). Overt acts of racism continue to occur, though modern white supremacy and
14 racial inequality typically manifest in more covert ways, particularly through colorblindness (Bonilla-Silva, 2013) that begets a belief in individualism and meritocracy (DiAngelo, 2010; Guinier, 2015). The residential and educational segregation that characterizes the lives of many white individuals provides little opportunity for counterstories to be seen, heard, or considered, further entrenching whiteness (Frankenberg, 1993a). However, this structuring property is multifaceted, dynamic, and ever-changing, perpetuated and reinforced through everyday actions and inactions of individuals and institutions (Bush, 2011; Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017; Leonardo, 2004; Owen, 2007). Research about the properties that characterize whiteness will be explored below, while research that explicates the resulting actions and inactions will be reviewed later in this chapter. Functional Properties of Whiteness At the most abstract level, whiteness operates through several mechanisms, all of which combine to perpetuate white supremacy. Owen (2007) provides a thorough exploration of seven of these mechanisms. The first property is that whiteness defines a “particular racialized perspective or standpoint that shapes the white subject’s understanding of both self and the world” (p. 205) and restricts the scope of that perspective available for interpretation (Frankenberg, 1993b). By itself, such a perspective is not inherently harmful. The second property of whiteness, however, is that this perspective is defined as “a location of economic, political, social, and cultural advantage” (Owen, 2007, p. 206) over those not racialized as white. Frankenberg (1993b) adds that the other identities held by white individuals also influence their perspective and relative advantage or disadvantage. The third property is that whiteness is “natural, normal or mainstream” (Owen, 2007, p. 206; DiAngelo, 2011), which in turn makes whiteness invisible to white individuals, yet highly visible to people of color. This invisibility/visibility is the fourth property of whiteness and “reflects its social and cultural dominance” (Owen, 2007, p. 206). The fifth property is that whiteness is a way of being that “shapes actions, social practices and dispositions” (Owen, 2007, p. 206). Combined with whiteness as the norm, these actions, social practices, and dispositions become important to successfully navigating a society shaped by whiteness (Bonilla-Silva, 2001). The sixth property of whiteness is that the “borders are continuously being redefined” (Owen, 2007, p. 206), meaning that any analysis of whiteness must be situated within a localized
15 context. Frankenberg (1993b) concurs, stating that “whiteness changes over time and space and is in no way a transhistorical essence,” but is a “product of local, regional, national, and global relations” that “is coconstructed with a range of other social and cultural categories” (p. 236). The seventh property of whiteness explored by Owen (2007) is that it cannot be understood “apart from the violence that produced–and continues to produce–it” (p. 206). This includes whiteness’s history of enslavement, exploitation, and genocide, as well as the “actual and potential violence” (p. 206) that is critical to the maintenance of white supremacy today. These properties form the framework of whiteness, which in turn is the “conscious and unconscious sum of ideas, prejudices, and myths that crystallize the victories and defeats of the races regarding how the world is and ought to be organized” (Bonilla-Silva, 2001, p. 64). This framework does not simply describe differences across racial groups, but positions whites in a “position of superiority and advantage, and non-whites in a structural position of inferiority, subordination, and disadvantage” (Owen, 2007, p. 207). Such an advantage extends to all aspects of society, including the educational system, the legal system, and other social practices, thus “whiteness systematically informs – and deforms – every aspect of the social world” (Owen, 2007, p. 208). White Colorblindness and Individualism The central property of whiteness is its invisibility to white individuals, which begets a sense of colorblindness (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Forman, 2004; Lewis, 2004). Colorblindness allows whites to agree with equality and object to racial injustice, in theory, while refusing to accept the need for any understanding or action to create true equality. Jayakumar and Adamian (2017) state that, “in adhering to the false notion that we live in a colorblind society, whites are protected from feeling discomfort, shame, or personal responsibility for the realities of racism” (p. 4). Bonilla-Silva (2013) posits four frames or types of colorblindness: cultural racism, naturalization, minimization of racism, and abstract liberalism. Cultural racism blames cultural deficits of groups of people of color for disparities and the naturalization frame normalizes segregation caused by racist policies by positioning it as a natural choice. These two frames are illustrated in Bush’s (2011) study, which found that most white college students are unaware of “factors that lead some individuals and groups to accrue and/or maintain their levels of wealth and others not to” (p. 172) that are based deeply in racial inequality.
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The minimization of racism frame asserts that discrimination may still exist, but is mostly an issue of the past and does not have a major impact on the lives of people of color (Bonilla- Silva, 2013). For example, “the symbolic visibility of persons of color in positions of power [i.e. Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas] conveys the idea that the structure of society has in fact changed” (Bush, 2011, p. 216). Abstract liberalism allows whites to believe that the United States provides equality of opportunity to all. This belief “allows the user to appear race neutral, and morally and racially just” (Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017, p. 4), invoking individualism and equality of opportunity, and refusing the need for policies such as affirmative action. Put differently, colorblind whites express belief in the ideals of equality, but not in the means to achieve it because it might hurt them personally (Bush, 2011). Extending Bonilla-Silva’s work, Jayakumar and Adamian (2017) added a fifth frame – the disconnected power-analysis frame – that accounts for shifts in society since the original study and a form of colorblindness that persists in more racially conscious environments. This frame allows individuals to align with “racially progressive theoretical understandings of structural racism, whiteness, and counternarratives that challenge racial hierarchy” (Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017, p. 5), but to neglect a critical analysis of one’s own actions and personal narratives. Thus, problematic whiteness persists at the individual level, even in the presence of critical awareness at the theoretical level. Inextricably linked to the notion of colorblindness is the belief that each person is an individual, personally responsible for making their own way in the world (DiAngelo, 2010; McClain, 2008). DiAngelo (2010) theorizes that white people are taught to view their membership in various groups (race, social class, gender) as irrelevant to opportunities available to them. Bush (2011) found that “very rarely is a connection made between the role of ordinary people in supporting the system, or of the system in structuring life possibilities for different groups of people in different ways” (p. 177), making the existence of structural racism impossible. This discourse of individualism is employed to account for differences in outcomes across people and groups as the result of differences in individual behaviors, not because of systemic barriers. Credit is given to the values of “hard work, education, and determination” (DiAngelo, 2010, p. 6) for individuals in groups who have achieved success and are at the top of the social hierarchy in the United States (Guinier, 2015). White people fervently “believe that schools educate, police protect, the government directs, and, when things go wrong, it’s the
17 individual’s fault” (Bush, 2011, p. 211). Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, this means that communities of color that do not see the same levels of success as white communities “lack these values and ethics” (DiAngelo, 2010, p. 6). This narrative invalidates the experiences of structural racism faced by people of color. Notions of colorblindness and individualism are reinforced by the spatial and interpersonal isolation that characterizes the adolescence of white people (Frankenberg, 1993a; Owen, 2007; Williams Paris & Schoon, 2007). White people are likely to be surrounded by very few people of color, minimizing the availability of experiences that tell a different story of society (Frankenberg, 1993a; Lipsitz, 1995). Williams Paris and Schoon (2007) found that half of the white Evangelical college students they studied conceptualized their whiteness in terms of the racially isolated neighborhoods of their youth, including interpersonal relationships. This isolation provides a convenient space to perpetuate the colorblind and individualistic narrative of whiteness, allowing it to remain firmly entrenched (Leonardo, 2002; Owen, 2007). Isolation also secures continued white dominance by shifting blame away from intentional, collective acts onto individual failures to take advantage of the equal opportunities available to all people in the United States (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Lipsitz, 1995). Colorblindness and individualism “prevent cross-racial understanding, denies the saliency of race and racism in our lives, and serves to reinforce and maintain racist relations” (DiAngelo, 2010, p. 7). White privilege. The cumulative outcome of white socialization is a package of visible and invisible (or unacknowledged) privilege that allows white people to move through the world with advantages at the expense of people of color and with the ability to maintain an individualistic or meritocratic understanding of the world free of disparities based on race (McIntosh, 1988). McIntosh (1988) provided a list of concrete examples of the ways she saw white privilege manifest in her life in large, life-changing ways, as well as in small, everyday ways. The cumulative impact of the entire package of advantages is conferred and total domination hidden in plain sight, where white people have the freedom to rarely think about race in their daily lives (DiAngelo, 2011). Leonardo (2004) critiques the use of the term white privilege, positing privilege as a symptom of supremacy and domination, not the root cause of privilege. He argues that framing white privilege as unearned benefits “conjures images of domination happening behind the back of whites, rather than on the back of people of color” (p. 138). Rather, unearned benefits should
18 be framed as supremacy and domination, which places the ownership on white people for perpetuating inequality, rather than on viewing them as unwilling or unaware participants (Leonardo, 2004). Even those white people who claim critical consciousness and an anti-racist stance must decide how far they are willing to go to divest of white privileges. This divestment becomes much more difficult when impacting their family through decisions such as choosing a school in which to enroll one’s children (Cabrera, 2012). Ironically, white people have the most power to legitimize claims of racism by people of color, but are least likely to see racism, let alone acknowledge it and address it (Baldwin, 1960/2010). Whites maintain the power to decide when, how, and where to challenge racism, but instead position “themselves as victimized, slammed, blamed, attacked, and being used as ‘punching bags’” (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 64), using violent and extreme language to describe discussions about race, shifting the conversation away from their own white privilege (Leonardo, 2002). The use of metaphors of violence is ironic due to the fact that most violence flows from white people to people of color (Lipsitz, 1995; Watson, 2013). Whites perpetuate a narrative of white victimization by “irrational and ungrateful minorities,” (Lipsitz, 1995, p. 382) when the exact opposite was and is almost universally true (Owen, 2007). Bush (2011) states that “understanding the beliefs that underlie support for institutionalized policies and programs and the mechanisms that allow these patterns to be replicated and reproduced” (p. 37) is crucial to informing action that disrupts these patterns. Having explored the underlying beliefs and properties of whiteness, I now turn to the ways whiteness manifests in higher education, both at the institutional level and in individual white collegians. Whiteness in Higher Education Institutions of higher education are often sites of the reproduction and maintenance of frameworks of whiteness in the United States (Gusa, 2010). College campuses are “material landscapes experienced and given meaning through conceptual frameworks” (Frankenberg, 1993b, p. 137) that all students bring with them to college. For white students, these environments encourage the continued development of ideologies and habits of whiteness, particularly colorblindness and individualism (Bush, 2011). This section will first provide an overview of research regarding institutional whiteness in higher education, then explore literature about the enactment of whiteness by white college students.
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Institutional Whiteness Founded by and for white people, the “unexamined historically situated white cultural ideology embedded in the languages, cultural practices, traditions, and perceptions of knowledge allow these institutions [of higher education] to remain racialized” (Gusa, 2010, p. 465). Many of the ways in which whiteness manifests in higher education mirrors the habits and habitus of whiteness in society outside the ivory tower. Gusa (2010) termed the whiteness of higher education as white institutional presence (WIP) and discussed it as the “institutionalized fusion of white worldview, white supremacy, and white privilege” (p. 468) throughout the fabric of higher education. She posited that white superiority and authority is perpetuated by institutions, which encourage a sense of entitlement by white students to see their ideologies in all spaces. This sense of entitlement also results in questioning instances where their “Eurocentric frame of reference” is not centered, such as courses that explore experiences of racism (p. 474). Leonardo (2002) discussed the oft-heard question of why the group of students of color who are discussing racial inequities does not “just go back to their country if they’re not happy here?” (p. 33), which reaffirms the dominance of the white status quo and suppresses any effort to problematize this status quo as harmful. Further, Cabrera et al. (2016) used Sullivan’s (2006) notion of ontological expansiveness to expand this sense of entitlement to freedom of movement through all types of spaces on campus, and used Leonardo and Porter’s (2010) finding that white students expect physical, psychological, and social safety when in all spaces. WIP is also characterized by devaluing any knowledge and production of knowledge that does not conform to an objective, quantitative worldview, such as the inclusion of emotions (Gusa, 2010). Knowledge that disrupts or questions the white worldview is dismissed or wholly excluded. Gusa’s (2010) white blindness is a continuation of devaluing nonwhite knowledge, including interpreting experiences of discrimination as excuses for cultural or personal deficiencies. White blindness is evident in curricular decisions, such as choosing a textbook that includes disproportionately negative images of people of color and the exclusion of work of scholars of color from courses taught by white faculty. This is aside from the dearth of faculty members of color (Nation Center for Education Statistics, 2016b) and governing board members of color (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, n.d.) in higher education. Governing boards and other institutional leadership are tasked with shaping policies that foster the success of all students (Association of Governing Boards of Universities and
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Colleges, 2016), but white blindness prevents them from considering anything outside their own worldview, predominantly clothed in white privilege and supremacy (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Forman, 2004). White blindness and white universalism (DiAngelo, 2010), combined with a lack of people of color in positions of influence, result in policies that only consider the white worldview, often to the detriment of students, faculty, and staff of color. Similar to Frankenberg’s (1993a) notion of spatial isolation, Gusa (2010) discussed white estrangement as the ongoing social and physical self-distancing of white students from students of color, providing continued opportunities for the perpetuation of white ignorance and white supremacy. This is closely tied to the notion of ontological expansiveness, wherein white students have the ability and will to move through all spaces, choosing to racially isolate themselves or not, a choice unavailable to students of color on a historically or predominantly white college campus (Cabrera et al., 2016; Watson, 2013). These concepts will be explored further in Chapter Three when I explicate the tenets of Critical Whiteness Studies as the theoretical perspective for this study. Individual Enactments of Whiteness by White College Students Individual enactments of whiteness do not only include socialization into narratives of colorblindness and individualism and a way of perceiving and thinking about the society in the United States. The enactment of whiteness also includes overtly racist actions and statements that physically and psychologically harm students of color on college campuses. More prevalent, however, are enactments of colorblindness and individualism as a habitus; a way of being, including interests, needs, values, interpretations, and concrete actions, that guides everyday lives of white people, in general, and white college students, in particular (Bonilla- Silva, 2013; deKoven, 2016; DiAngelo, 2010, 2011; Ropers-Huilman, Winters, & Enke, 2013; Williams Paris & Schoon, 2007). Whiteness is not a static identity that can be easily defined, but is continuously shifting and refining itself through conscious and unconscious enactments to maintain dominance and supremacy (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Giroux, 1997; Leonardo, 2004; Matias et al., 2014; Owen, 2007). Overt acts of racism. Public acts of overt racism have generally become unacceptable and less prevalent, though such acts continue to be perpetuated on people of color (Robertson, Bravo, & Chaney, 2016). On college campuses, recently reported overt acts include physical assault, the positing and distribution of explicitly racist materials by white nationalist
21 organizations, themed parties that encourage the portrayal of stereotypes about various communities of color, graffiti of racist slurs and symbols in public places and targeted at individuals, and the use of racist language in person and on social media by students, faculty, and staff (Bauer-Wolf, 2017; The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2017). Cabrera (2012) found that white students who express overtly racist views were often members of "racially segregated social environments" (p. 51) that both insulated them from cross-racial interactions and reinforced overtly racist views and actions. These white students doubted claims of racism from peers of color and saw themselves as the victims of multiculturalism that unfairly advantage students of color. In a study that examined the relationship between the number of reported hate crimes and the enrollment of students of color at an institution, Stotzer and Hossellman (2012) found that higher enrollments of black and Latino students were correlated with lower numbers of reported hate crimes. The authors suggested that reaching a critical mass of black and Latino students both lowered the ability for racial insulation for white students and raised white students' perception of the possibility of retaliation by students of color for any racist acts, both of which led to the decrease in hate crimes. Although acts of overt racism are less prevalent, students of color are frequently subjected to microaggressions from white students, faculty, and staff (Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). These subtle insults, often done unconsciously by white individuals, call to question a student's legitimacy at the institution, essentialize the student by their race, or compare the student to the white norm, all of which reinforce whiteness as natural and superior (DiAngelo, 2011; Owen, 2007; Solórzano et al., 2000). Microaggressions are more closely aligned with covert enactments of whiteness, which include the ways race and racism are discussed and reactions to such discussions. Avoiding discussions of race. Colorblindness in action primarily attempts to avoid the topic of race, when possible, by asserting that the discussion of race is wholly unnecessary or is inappropriate in the specific setting, such as an academic class (McClain, 2008). In McClain’s (2008) reflection on years of including discussions of race in his college-level literature and film classes found that white students frequently become frustrated when he “imposes race where it does not belong in [the] analysis of cultural and literary texts” (p. 246). In a study that compared survey results to interview results for 41 white college students, Bonilla-Silva and Forman (2000) found that students also avoided talk of race by not taking a specific stand on topics such
22 as affirmative action, and through claims of ignorance, using phrases such as “that’s a tough one” and “I don’t know, I am not sure about like, the problem” (p. 63). With this lack of a stance or refusal to admit a stance, “whites are self-exonerated from any blame for current racial inequalities” (Lewis, 2004, p. 636), which serves to reinforce placing blame with people of color. The habit of avoiding expressing an opinion and general discomfort is also present when white students are forced to directly discuss race, where discussions are replete with “rhetorical incoherence” (Bonilla-Silva, 2013, p. 73), including grammatical mistakes, long pauses, repetition, digressions, and self-corrections (DiAngelo, 2011). White students often avoid the use of direct racial language when expressing racial views in public, though some still use more openly racist language or tell and hear racist jokes in all white groups (Bonilla-Silva, 2013). Picca (2015) reviewed 600 white students’ journals, finding that when students of color were present, white students' comments were characterized by colorblindness and students would "perform to prove they weren't racist, such as by acting extra polite, and avoiding anything that could be connected to race" (p. 145). But when in the presence of only other white students, performatives were shed and actively contradicted; “racial and racist interactions were not only tolerated, but often sustained and encouraged” (p. 145). There were no negative consequences for their racism among only other white people, with one student writing that “it isn’t viewed as a racial slur if it isn’t said directly to a person of color” (Picca, 2015, p. 147). Use of hesitant and coded language. Instead of using direct racial language in public, indirect, careful, hesitant, and sometimes even coded language is used. Matias et al. (2014) found that white students talk about race without emotions or in dismissive tones, and often recenter their own experiences by drawing inappropriate parallels between racism and perceived prejudice they experienced. This public language includes the use of qualifiers before making a comment that is racist, such as “I’m not prejudiced, but…”, “some of my best friends are…”, and “I’m not Black, so I don’t know” (Bonilla-Silva, 2013, p. 71). White students also attempt to soften the blow of their words through the use of diminutives, such as “I am just a little bit against affirmative action” and discussing a professor who was only “a little bit outta hand” by using a racial slur in class (Bonilla- Silva, 2013, p. 67). DiAngelo (2011) supposed that this inability to speak is partially because they are unprepared to consider thoughts that may upset their racial equilibrium. Bonilla-Silva (2013) concisely echoes this likely cause, stating that “negotiating the seemingly contradictory views
23 that ‘race does not matter’ but, at the same time, that ‘race matters’ a little bit for minorities and a lot for whites in the form of reverse discrimination is not an easy task” (p. 60). Rather than continuing an uncomfortable conversation, white students shift the focus from differences to shared experiences and unifying values (Hikido & Murray, 2016; Williams Paris & Schoon, 2007). The white students Hikido and Murray (2016) studied opted for “‘unifying’ themes and ideals [which] free[d] them from considering whiteness and also conveniently absolves them from feelings of guilt and confusion that this racial self-reflection often evokes” (p. 406). Silencing or shifting conversations about race and racism “allows whiteness, in its unrelenting ability to claim legitimacy and authority, to reclaim space and voice only very recently won by minority groups” (Hikido & Murray, 2016, p. 406) in higher education.. The immediate costs are high and benefits are low for whites who engage in conversations about race. DiAngelo (2011) posited that white people are “more likely to be penalized (primarily by other whites) for bringing up race in a social justice context than for ignoring it” (p. 63). Thus, as Frankenberg (1993a) posited, white individuals must step “outside the mainstream in conscious, even if accidental, ways” (p. 158) to possess awareness of racism, let alone challenge it. Giroux (1997), discussing this habit at the macro level, characterized this as the emergence of a new racism, using terms such as welfare reform and toughness on crime, to "mobilize white fears while relieving whites of any semblance of social responsibility and commitment" (p. 377). When forced into a conversation about race, white students will typically initially agree with the need to compensate for previously racist ways of society in the U.S. and other issues along racial lines, such as anti-miscegenation laws (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000). However, when pressed to explain more deeply, their level of agreement slowly decreases, until it turns into disagreement with the premise (Bonilla-Silva, 2013). White students tend to tie all racism to what African Americans experienced in slavery, stating that their own family did not hold slaves or were barely making it themselves until they worked hard enough to make it on their own, thereby freeing themselves from responsibility for continued inequality today (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Lipsitz, 1995). This perpetuates and further enshrines the narrative of individualism as a valid explanation for differential outcomes. DiAngelo (2011) concluded that “white moral objection to racism increases white resistance to acknowledging complicity with it. In a white supremacist context, white identity in large part rests upon a foundation of
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(superficial) racial toleration and acceptance” (p. 64). Overall, white college students are “adept at surfing the dangerous waters of America’s contemporary racial landscape” (Bonilla-Silva, 2013, p. 71). White guilt and white fragility. However, discussions of white privilege and the active role of white people in maintaining white supremacy often trigger white guilt and white fragility (DiAngelo, 2011; Matias et al., 2014). Prolonged avoidance of conversations where they would be forced to face the realities of society causes “reduced psychosocial stamina” (DiAngelo, 2011, p. 56), whereby any minor period of racial discomfort becomes intolerable. DiAngelo (2011) named this white fragility, and posited that several of the factors discussed above lead to its development, including racial isolation, individualism, whiteness as the standard, and the privilege of racial comfort. White fragility again recenters whiteness in conversations about racism and functions to misappropriate the emotions that should accompany those who have been historically and continually marginalized in society. The above descriptions of both the structures of whiteness and enactments of those structures further demonstrate the need for attention on individuals’ formation of an antiracist white identity. I now turn to scholarship regarding white racial identities and white identity development in college. White Racial Identities Given the structuring properties of whiteness in the United States (Owen, 2007), not all white individuals form their racial identities with the same degree of alignment within this framework (Leonardo, 2002). Variables such as other identities and the social environment in which one is raised influence this variance. In this section, I first review early conceptualizations of white identity and calls for investigations into white identity. I then review formalized theories of white racial identity development for college students. I conclude this section with discussion of scholarship regarding the formation of antiracist white identities and a discussion of the influence of social class on the formation of an antiracist white identity. Early Calls for Examinations of White Identity Although studies of whiteness and white identity have proliferated in recent decades, with much work done by white individuals, scholars of color have been thinking and writing on this topic for over a century. Such scholars “urged white people to stop studying ‘the Other’ and turn their attention onto themselves to explore what it means to be white in a society that is so divided by race” (DiAngelo, 2012, p. 126, emphasis in the original).
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W. E. B. Du Bois’s influential essay Souls of White Folk (2003/1920) discusses the current United States and world as the outcome of generations of white people exploiting the labors and accomplishments of people of color, then appropriating those accomplishments as their own. In Dusk of Dawn, Du Bois (1940) stated that African Americans “began to realize that in the fight against racial prejudice, we were not facing simply the rational, conscious determination of white folk to oppress us; we were facing ages-long complexes sunk now largely to unconscious habit and irrational urge” (p. 296, as cited in MacMullan, 2009). He understood the systemic nature of whiteness and its invisibility to white people, which increases the complexity and difficulty of dismantling white supremacy. In On Being White, and Other Lies, prolific writer and intellectual James Baldwin (1984/2010) disputed any claim that the U.S. was or is a “white country” when he wrote that “no one was white before he/she came to America. It took generations, and a vast amount of coercion” (p. 167) to create whiteness and white supremacy. In his piece titled “What Price Freedom?,” Baldwin (1964/2010) states that all people, including white people “have to look into yourself and know who you are” (p. 86, emphasis in the original). He continually returned to the firm belief that racism is an issue that everyone needs to face, white people included, stating that “we will learn to live together here or all of us will abruptly stop living” (1963/2010, p. 61). And he frequently stated that the issue in the United States is not a “Negro problem,” that “I have never been upset by the fact that I have a broad nose, big lips, and kinky hair. You [white people] got upset. And now you must ask yourself why” (1963/2010, p. 61). Although these scholars are not often identified with, or given credit for, the establishment of Critical Whiteness Studies, their calls to investigate whiteness preexisted the field and foreshadowed much of the work that continues to be taken up in CWS. Additionally, their connections to current understandings of whiteness are evident. I now turn to more recent theoretical conceptions of white racial identity development. Theories of White Racial Identity Development Several scholars have heeded the calls for examinations of white racial identity development (Frankenberg, 1993b; Hardiman, 1994, 2001; Helms, 1990, 1995; Rowe et al., 1994). Frankenberg’s (1993a, 1993b) work with white women conceptualizes white identity as a location from which white individuals understand themselves and others. She also focuses heavily on the nuances of this understanding that result from the other identities held by the
26 individual (gender, sexual orientation, social class) and levels of racial cognizance that develop over time (Frankenberg, 1993b). Hardiman’s (2001) primary interest in white identity development is to know if “becoming unprejudiced or antiracist [is] possible for whites” (p. 110). Helms (1995) developed the most well-known white racial identity model, based on the developmental process of white people moving toward a nonracist identity through the abandonment of racism. Helms’s and Hardiman’s models are both linear in nature and focus on attitudes towards black people. Rowe et al.’s (1994) model was developed as a critique of Helms’s and Hardiman’s model, and is focused on both white attitudes toward people of color and one’s own white identity. In this section, I will outline these theories and critiques that scholars have leveled at these models. Helms’s (1990) model is composed of two processes, each containing three stages/statuses, that must occur for the development of a nonracist identity. First, white individuals must abandon racism, after which they must develop a new, nonracist white identity. The development begins with an unconscious commitment to colorblindness and is characterized by evaluating “blacks according to white criteria,” “without awareness that other criteria are possible” (Helms, 1990, p. 57). Increasing or continued contact with people of color leads to the initial acknowledgement of the existence of one’s own racial identity and race-based differences in society, which marks entry into the second stage. The second stage is marked by “conscious, though conflicted acknowledgement of one’s whiteness” (Helms, 1990, p. 58) and involves a questioning of the racial realities one was socialized to believe. This includes the experience of dissonance regarding the interaction strategies the person was taught by their family and other white individuals to use with black people. Attempts to reduce dissonance include “avoiding further contact with blacks,” “attempting to convince significant others that blacks are not so inferior,” (p. 59) and seeking information that confirms that racism does not exist or is not the white person’s fault. Those white people that can avoid further contact with black people will do so, as it is the easiest way to decrease dissonance. However, the desire to “be accepted by one’s own racial group” and the predominant belief in “white superiority and black inferiority” (Helms, 1990, p. 60) often leads white individuals to reshape their belief systems to match. This reshaping marks the entrance to the third stage, which includes a belief in white superiority and situates the problems of racial inequality in the hands of people of color (Helms, 1995). A belief in white
27 superiority justifies racial disparities and “any residual feelings of guilt and anxiety are transformed into fear and anger toward black people” (Helms, 1990, p. 60). White people can easily remain in this stage and typically do so until they experience a “personally jarring event” (p. 60) that causes them to question their essentialized racial identity. The shift to a nonracist white identity begins when the white person seeks increased contact with people of color to learn about racial differences and “begins to acknowledge the responsibility of whites for racism” (Helms, 1990, p. 61). However, interactions at this stage are immature and deficit-focused, trying to help people of color be more white, instead of focusing on changing fellow white people. The acceptance of responsibility for racism is a violation of the accepted racial contract (Mills, 1997) and often results in negative reactions from white peers. Simultaneously, the person may attempt to identify with black individuals, but not find acceptance there, and “may come to feel rather marginal where race and racial issues are concerned” (p. 62). These increased interactions with people of color lead to the fifth stage, which includes feelings of discomfort with one’s whiteness and replacing stereotypes with accurate information about what it means to be white in the U.S. Individuals in this stage attempt to change white people, rather than change black people, to solve racism and seek out other white people who wish to do the same. The final stage involves a nonracist white identity that includes a commitment to anti-racism work and abandonment of white privilege (Helms, 1995). This positive white identity is an ongoing negotiation that involves reflection and continued openness to “new ways of thinking about racial and cultural variables (Helms, 1990, p. 66). Hardiman’s (2001) model is similar to Helms, with stages from naiveté about one’s own racialization to internalization of an antiracist white identity. Frankenberg (1993b) explored the construction of whiteness and development of racial cognizance at the intersection of other identities, primarily gender. She documented the life histories of 30 white women who ranged across social class, sexual orientation, age, and levels of cognizance of racism and white supremacy in the United States. She found that race-cognizant women “shared two linked convictions: first, that race makes a difference in people’s lives and second, that racism is a significant factor in shaping contemporary U.S. society” (p. 157). Race cognizance “articulates explicitly the contradiction that racism presents: on the one hand, it acknowledges the existence of racial inequality and white privilege and, on the other, does not lean on ontological or essential differences in order to justify inequality” (p. 160). However,
28 even though these women had come to a personal race-cognizance that changed the way they perceived race, many had “found neither strategies nor a discursive repertoire that would enable them to build on a heightened awareness of racial structuring in their own lives” (p. 169). Some women vacillated between their own full complicity for racism or their own full innocence, unable to express a more complex white identity that exists on a spectrum between these two extremes. Others, namely those who had achieved race cognizance further in the past, were less focused on their own complicity or innocence, and more focused on social activism. This shift to actions that resist white supremacy is the key to an antiracist white identity and will be discussed further in the next section. Frankenberg (1993b) also discussed the ways sexism and social constructions of femininity interact with the maintenance of white supremacy in the United States, including the ways femininity and masculinity are racialized, generally as “excessive, animalistic, or exotic” for people of color, and “restrained or civilized” for white people (p. 75). She found differences in women’s conceptualizations of whiteness based on the racial compositions of their families and the neighborhoods of their youth. For instance, many women raised in racially mixed neighborhoods were more aware of racism (Frankenberg, 1993b). This geographic factor also connected to her exploration of the impact of social class on conceptualizations of whiteness. She found that women raised in working class families were able to more readily identify structural oppression and yet, still maintained aspects of the cultural inferiority of people of color. The impact of other identities on white racial identity formation is central to this study and I explore specific connections between social class and whiteness in a subsequent section. All early models of white racial identity development face critiques as incomplete and perpetuating white supremacy (European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness, 2007). Critiques include that the models focus only on how white people view people of color (black people, specifically), rather than understanding themselves and their role in perpetuating white supremacy, are individualistic and isolated from any collective sense of race/racism, and that the final stage is often characterized as a finished white identity that no longer participates in upholding white supremacy in society (European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness, 2007). Additionally, Hardiman (2001) offered a limitation of her own theory when she noted that she did not find evidence of individuals in the final two stages (Redefinition and Internalization). Instead, these were stages she “saw as necessary and important next steps for
29 whites in the evolution of a liberated racial identity” (p. 113), even if she was still unsure whether being antiracist is possible for whites. Another critique she offered regarding early theories of white racial identity development is the impossibility of refusing the privileges of whiteness. Helms (2001) notes that “by viewing whiteness as solely a function of race privilege they [those advocating for abandonment of white privilege] miss seeing whiteness as embedded in culture” (p. 120). Current models are also silent on the cultural identity of white people, focus only on whites’ views of people of color, and barely address interactions with other white people (European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness, 2007). With the exception of Frankenberg (1993b), as noted above, models also focus on the individual and do not account for influence of one’s environment (Cabrera, 2012), including racial composition, social class, and other identities that shape one’s whiteness (Allen, 2008). These models are also linear in nature, with the presumed endpoint of a completed white identity that may result in absolving individuals from subsequent reflection on their continued role in perpetuating white supremacy (Bush, 2011). Additionally, these predominant models were developed from the same viewpoint as models of racial identity development for people of color (Rowe et al., 1994), which do not account for differences in the ways “the system of oppression impacts the racial attitudes” (p. 131) of whites differently than those of people of color. This is because the “attitudes most whites develop about their group and other racial/ethnic groups are reinforced by the stereotypes of the dominant society” (p. 131). Rowe et al. (1994) also critiqued the assumed development that is inherent in previous models, contending that specific experiences or incidents can cause a white individual to be suspicious of or hold negative views towards people of color. Other models of white identity development characterized these negative views as backward movement against the inevitable forward movement of development. Rowe and colleagues (1994) proposed an alternate model that focuses on the racial consciousness of white individuals and accounts for deficiencies in previous models. Their model is composed of groupings of types of consciousness, broken into unachieved racial consciousness and achieved racial consciousness. The model explores the source of various types of attitudes, from a sense of uncertainty regarding one’s race-related attitudes, to a sense that people of color have no agency within systemic white supremacy, to a more “pragmatic
30 view of racial/ethnic minority issues” (p. 141). Their model supposes that these types are relatively stable, but are not fixed personality types and are always subject to change. There are three types/statuses within the unachieved consciousness category, which is characterized by “attitudes for which either exploration [of racial concerns] or commitment [to a position regarding racial concerns], or both, are lacking” (Rowe et al., 1994, p. 136). The avoidant type express a complete “lack of consideration of one’s own white identity, as well as an avoidance of concern for racial/ethnic minority issues” (p. 136), both of which are only available to white people. The dependent type possess and express attitudes, but solely those attitudes that come from “looking to significant others for what they should think” (p. 137) and involve no personal processing of ideas. The dissonant type are “clearly uncertain about their sense of white racial consciousness and racial/ethnic minority issues” (p. 137) and are thus open to new information that may reduce their uncertainty. Dissonance often occurs because of “conflict between their previously held attitudes and recent experiential incidents” (p. 137). This status is one of transition between unachieved and achieved racial consciousness. The achieved racial consciousness grouping has four types. The dominative type is characterized by attitudes with a “strong ethnocentric perspective, which justifies the dominance of racial/ethnic minority peoples by the majority culture” (p. 137) and the cultural superiority of white people. Beliefs about people of color are derived almost exclusively from negative stereotypes. The conflictive type includes those who are “opposed to obviously, clearly discriminatory practices, yet are usually opposed to any program or procedure that has been designed to reduce or eliminate discrimination” (p. 138). For those in this type, discrimination was outlawed decades ago and no longer exists, so any additional steps would provide an unfair advantage to people of color at the expense of white people. The reactive type “are aware of racial/ethnic discrimination as a significant feature” and that white people “benefit from and are responsible for the existence of discriminatory attitudes and practices” (p. 139). All actions of people of color are seen as the result of oppression and are survival behaviors. White individuals in this type attempt to learn as much as possible about people of color, often try to identify with people of color, and propose courses of action based in the white experience. The integrative type hold “a pragmatic view of racial/ethnic minority issues” that are focused on “the reality of what will make a difference” (p. 141). Those in this type have come to terms with their whiteness and their complicity in a system of white supremacy and are actively involved in
31 resisting this system. As with Frankenberg’s (1993b) work, this step to action that actively resists white supremacy is the key to the formation of an antiracist white identity. Rowe et al.’s (1994) model also allows for movement between types, specifically between those in the achieved white racial consciousness grouping. For example, a white individual currently in the integrative type, may experience perceived harm caused by a person(s) of color, causing dissonance about their place in anti-racist work that moves the person to the temporary status of the dissonant type. The individual may stay there until another experience causes a subsequent move into another of the achieved types. This model is more fluid in nature and accounts for the ongoing impact of experiences with people of color, other white people, and other influences regarding the role of race and racism in society. Current models of white racial identity development offer several useful insights into the construction of a white identity. Yet, as noted above, many early models are incomplete conceptualizations of white individuals and do not fully explore white individuals’ understandings of themselves. The individual-level goal of racial self-consciousness and acknowledgement of white responsibility for racism are crucial to the formation of an antiracist white identity, given that everyday actions and habits of individuals reinforce white supremacy (Bush, 2011). However, focusing on individual-level understandings alone are insufficient to dismantle white supremacy and must be coupled with an understanding of the pervasiveness of whiteness in the fabric of U.S. society (Owen, 2007). I now turn to the formation of an antiracist white identity, which integrates individual-level consciousness and acknowledgement of complicity in racism with an understanding of the systemic nature of white supremacy, actions that actively challenge racism, and recognition that this formation is never fully completed (Cabrera, 2012). Antiracist White Identity Formation The formation of an antiracist white identity in individuals is a process fraught with complexity and many internal and external barriers, given the pervasiveness of whiteness in the United States (Owen, 2007). Inherent in this process, however, are countless potential (in)actions, beliefs, and attitudes that serve to perpetuate, rather than dismantle white supremacy (Bush, 2011; DiAngelo, 2011; Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017). This section will explore the research related to the formation of antiracist white identities that actively resist white supremacy and are “shown other ways of being white” (Allen, 2004, p. 131).
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Cabrera (2012) posited that “developing racial justice allies is predicated on pushing privileged students out of their racial comfort zones” (p. 379) and begins with raising racial self- consciousness. Allen (2004) found that this process begins with creating cognitive dissonance “that brings white students to a point of identity crisis” (p. 133). Cabrera et al. (2017) suggested that the introduction of white privilege (McIntosh, 1988) creates dissonance that sparks further awareness or self-consciousness. Vital to this process is the opportunity to listen to people of color without defensiveness to “learn how to see the world through new eyes that reveal the complexities and problematics of whiteness” (Allen, 2004, p. 130) and white privilege as they manifest in the lives of individuals. One danger of racial self-consciousness without a recognition of the systemic nature of racism is that subsequent interaction with people of color in formal public settings can lead to a false assumption of understanding of race-based differences, and can be “used as a defense against having to examine one’s own attitudes and beliefs” (Bush, 2011, p. 213). Additionally, as discussed above, white individuals who acknowledge the existence of racial disparities without a recognition of white supremacy may remain colorblind and disconnected “from a critical analysis of their own positionality, personal narratives, experiences, and/or actions” (Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017, p. 7) that are complicit with white supremacy. Therefore, racial consciousness must also include exploration and acknowledgement of personal responsibility and complicity in racism and white supremacy. Challenges to antiracist white identity formation. A major challenge is that the process of understanding complicity in systems of white supremacy often results in resistance, anger, guilt, and alienation (DiAngelo, 2011), which can result in disengagement and paralysis (Reason & Evans, 2007). Matias et al. (2014), studying pre-service teachers, found that white guilt can restrict the scope of the role to that of the white savior to come in and solve black and brown problems, similar to a social worker, further perpetuating white privilege and a deficit- based worldview. These reactions must be anticipated and carefully navigated to achieve awareness of white racialization and white privilege (DiAngelo, 2011). Otherwise, “resonating in guilt produced in the white imagination a sense of reverse racism where white stereotypes, white guilt, and white discomfort is equal to the terror found in the black imagination” (Matias et al., 2014, p. 299) regarding the violence that characterizes white supremacy (Owen, 2007). The emergence of this false parallel has the potential to restrict white individuals to “a space between
33 guilt and denial [through colorblindness], a space that offers limited forms of resistance and engagement” (Giroux, 1997, p. 385). However, Giroux (1997) stated that “white youth must feel that they have a stake in racial politics that connects them to the struggles being waged by other groups” (p. 384). Aveling (2012) concurred, stating that white students must have support to help “them to move beyond feelings to guilt, fear and alienation that critically examining whiteness frequently engenders” (p. 120) and take action to disrupt white supremacy. White individuals must always remember that “all whites gain power, status, and privilege from this system, even if [they] are actively anti-racist. The best a white person can be is a white anti-racist racist” (Allen, 2004, p. 130) who works in solidarity with people of color on racial justice projects and understands that they are never completely free from nor cease to perpetuate whiteness. The ongoing process of antiracist white identity formation. Continued formation of an antiracist white identity involves a constant reflection on the role of race in one’s life, recognizing where whiteness appears in oneself and others, even as the individual works to resist white supremacy (Reason, 2007). MacMullan (2009) found a “consciousness of impropriety or wrongdoing” (p. 196) that is based in shame regarding wrongs that were and continue to be perpetrated. This habit of shame, as MacMullan (2009) terms it, “is the attempt to live up to the demands of history. It does not stop at the pointless and dangerous level of guilt. It instead takes the feeling of emptiness and fills it with concrete steps to make the past whole. It is the effort to be accountable” (p. 198) for history and for changing the future. This sense of vigilance and understanding of complicity in white supremacy does not come without a cost for those forming an antiracist white identity. Cabrera and colleagues (2017) discussed how white individuals with critical consciousness “at times felt isolated from peers due to their use of white privilege to challenge whiteness” (p. 84). Similarly, Kordesh, Spanierman, and Nelville (2013) found that white antiracist whites experience isolation and “interpersonal conflict with white friends and family due to their stance on racism (p. 47). Isolation can be overcome by finding community “with those who share a similar connection to issues of race” (Cabrera et al., 2017, p. 84), including both race-conscious white individuals and people of color. The development of a community of racial justice-oriented peers is also vital to the shift from acknowledgement to action in the name of racial justice, providing more opportunities to understand work in solidarity (Cabrera et al., 2017; Kordesh et al., 2013).
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MacMullan (2009) agreed, arguing that “a proper sense of whiteness would cause white folks to want to participate in projects designed to correct these injustices” (p. 200). Moving from acknowledgement toward a sense of agency to disrupt large and small manifestations of white supremacy is the key to the formation of an antiracist white identity (Cabrera, 2012; Reason, 2007). “Rather than defer to people of color as ‘experts’ in race and racism, [antiracist whites] revealed their capacity to recognize, name, and actively resist both institutional and personal racism” (Reason, 2007, p. 130) in all spaces and groups of people. However, the cautious use of this agency is also critical, as it must not overtake the agency of people of color by assuming their needs, and must remain grounded in the perspective of an individual who is critically conscious, but still white (Reason, 2007). Allen (2004) argued that “whites must be able to engage in strategic and solidarity discussions with people of color about the dismantling of white supremacy in order to avoid acting without their trust” (p. 131). Antiracist students in Kordesh et al.’s (2013) study took multiple types of action to resist racism. They “explicitly challenged white friends, family members, roommates, and classmates” who made problematic statements, “modeled antiracist behaviors for other white students,” and “participated in social justice activism on campus” (p. 46). Reason and Evans (2007) argued that serving as a role model to other white students by “demonstrat[ing] a commitment to critically examining whiteness and the propensity to actively reject color-blind racism, even when such rejection may harm their self-interest” (p. 72) is an important aspect of an antiracist white identity, as it lessens the burden on people of color to educate white individuals about white supremacy. Antiracist whites must “situate [them]selves in opposition to whiteness and risk [their] standing in the white community by becoming traitors to the normative functioning” of whiteness (Allen, 2004, p. 130). Cabrera (2012) found that the actions of critically conscious whites may be public, such as organizing a rally, or private, such as challenging friends and family. The temptations of white privilege are never far from reach for antiracist whites, who must constantly ask “How do my actions reinforce or challenge racism?” (Cabrera, 2012, p. 393). For example, one student in Cabrera’s (2012) study discussed the future dilemma he will face of whether to enroll one’s child in private school because he could afford it, or to send his child to the public school. An additional challenge that Cabrera et al. (2017) raise is that antiracist whites must not spend “more time focusing on the status of ally instead of the actual
35 work of social justice” (p. 80), which will demonstrate their status as an ally. An antiracist white participant in Eichstedt’s (2001) study discussed avoiding “fantasies of white absolution” and that it is “imperative for whites engaged in this work to not appear to be sidestepping the importance of the white privilege that they do receive” (p. 462). This is closely tied with the constant reflection (Reason, 2007) and the “consciousness of impropriety or wrongdoing” (MacMullan, 2009, p. 196) discussed in the process of acknowledging one’s complicity in the system of white supremacy. Such acknowledgement and awareness is a never-ending task for antiracist whites who wish to actively resist and contribute to dismantling white supremacy. I now shift to discuss the impact of social class on the formation and maintenance of an antiracist white identity. The Influence of Social Class on Antiracist White Identity Formation The relationship between social class and whiteness, white supremacy, and antiracist identity formation has been investigated by numerous scholars (Allen, 2004, 2008; DiAngelo, 2006; Frankenberg, 1993b; Kunstman et al., 2016; Leonardo, 2002, 2009; Martin, 2015a, 2015b; Roediger, 2005, 2007; Schademan & Thompson, 2016; Stuber, 2009, 2011). Some have directly investigated this intersection (Allen, 2008; DiAngelo, 2006; Kunstman et al., 2016; Martin, 2015a, 2015b; Roediger, 2005, 2007; Stuber, 2009, 2011), while others have discussed it during other research related to class (Schademan & Thompson, 2016) or critical whiteness (Allen, 2004; Frankenberg, 1993b; Leonardo, 2002, 2009). In this section, I first discuss social class and class marginalization at the individual and institutional level in higher education. I then briefly discuss the intersection of whiteness and social class from the system perspective, before turning to the influence of social class on the formation of an antiracist white identity. Social Class and Class Marginalization in Higher Education Institutions of higher education are not class-neutral locations. Founded by and for upper—and eventually middle—class members of U.S. society, dominant institutional narratives and policies stem from these roots (Warnock & Hurst, 2016). Lower classed students must face and overcome dissonance in college because their values, interests, and perceptions differ from their upper-classed peers and are not closely aligned with institutional narratives (Aries & Seider, 2005). A class-blind approach to higher education ignores social class disparities beyond offering financial aid, and reinforces simultaneous isolation and stigma commonly faced by lower-classed students who are marked as other by their peers, faculty, and staff (Brook &
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Mitchell, 2012). This also leaves unexplored the "implicit, structural mechanisms within higher education that systematically wear down working-class students as they confront daily norms and expectations out of their reach" (Soria et al., 2013, pp. 229-230). Involvement. Lower-classed students are negatively impacted by the focus on participation in student organizations over other types of experiences, such as work experience and family experience, which lower classed students report more frequently (Bergerson, 2007; Titus, 2006b), and report as competing for their time along with academic requirements (Soria et al., 2013). Events and student organization meetings are often held later in the evening and hours after a majority of classes end on campus, increasing the likelihood that lower-classed students will have dedicated that time to working or academic studies, and thus unable or unwilling to participate (Walpole, 2003). Many institutions have academic requirements for service learning and heavily advocate that students study abroad, both of which demand significant time away from familial and job obligations (Soria, Weiner, & Lu, 2014). These foci not only result in social isolation for students, but also further negative experiences with staff on campus. Students who have a resume detailing their work experiences and skills demonstrated through family obligations may be counseled by career office staff to instead highlight their campus involvement, further minimizing and dismissing the value of work and family experiences. Institutional processes and policies. Langhout, Rosselli, and Feinstein (2007) found that 43% of students experienced class-based marginalization related to institutional policies and practices, examples of which included additional fees to participate in student organizations and student organization events that consistently conflicted with work schedules. Financial aid processes and other procedures to access money for school add layers of complication, stress, and time requirements to a lower classed student’s schedule. These processes often include delayed arrival of funds for educational expenses, thus precluding lower-classed students from purchasing used textbooks from the bookstore or delaying payment of participation fees for student organizations such as Greek organizations and club sports (Thompson & Subich, 2013). This delay in paying participation fees unintentionally reveals a student’s dependency on aid, even if only to the leadership of the organization or office, and awaiting financial aid to purchase books often forces self-disclosure to faculty when asked why the student does not yet have the book.
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Financial context. Financial factors at the state and institution level also affect the experiences and outcomes of lower-classed students. As state appropriations to higher education decrease, institutions are pushing costs onto students and seeking revenue-generating operations, such as research (Clawson & Leiblum, 2008). Jacquette et al. (2016) found that, in order to fill budget gaps from decreased state funding, institutions pursue nonresident students with the ability to pay nonresident tuition. As the enrollment of these students, who are highly likely to be white, increased, institutions saw a correlated decrease in the enrollment of students of color and students from lower-classed backgrounds (Jaquette et al., 2016). This was especially true for prestigious institutions (as determined by U.S. News rankings), institutions in states with higher populations of students of color, states with higher rates of poverty, and states with bans on affirmative action policies (Jaquette et al., 2016). The result for those lower-classed students and students of color who did enroll was a campus with a wealthier, whiter student population, which was shown to impact perceptions of campus climate, isolation, and sense of belonging (Jaquette et al., 2016). Also at the state level, Titus (2006a) found that, “even after taking student-level and other institution-level predictors of college completion into account” (p. 312), the proportion of state higher education funding that is allocated to financial aid is positively related to student degree attainment. This relationship was even stronger for need-based financial aid as a proportion of state higher education funding, thus with clear implications for lower classed students using need-based aid. The author advocated that, rather than linking federal financial aid to institution- level outcomes, that aid be linked to state-level policy, further encouraging need-based financial aid within state higher education funding appropriations (Titus, 2006a). College Experiences of Lower-Classed Students Compared to middle- and upper-classed students, lower-classed students attend college and complete bachelor’s degrees at lower rates (Goldrick-Rabb & Pfeffer, 2009; Langhout et al., 2009; Walpole, 2003). When attending college, lower-classed students are more likely to utilize student loans and financial aid to pay for the costs of college (Soria et al., 2014). Lower-classed students are also more likely to work while attending college (Bergerson, 2007; Soria et al., 2014; Walpole, 2003), take breaks from school (Goldrick-Rabb & Pfeffer, 2009; Soria et al., 2014), and transfer between institutions (Goldrick-Rabb, 2006; Goldrick-Rabb & Pfeffer, 2009).
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While financial factors impact the collegiate experiences of lower-classed students, differences in students’ values and goals also play a role in shaping their time on campus. Lower-classed college students generally possess a habitus that is distinct from both their middle- and upper-classed peers and from the institution (Hinz, 2016). Institutional narratives of meritocracy, and the resulting passive campus support services that are dependent on students to initiate a relationship, perpetuate this disparity (Stanton-Salazar, 2011). This results in a substantively different experience, and forces lower-classed students to expend more effort to navigate the landscape of the institution. Martin (2015a) found that low income students vary in the degree to which their social class is central to their identity, with some who form their goals around changing their social class or serving others in their social class. Others describe social class as a part of who they are, but not something that deeply influences their daily lives (Martin, 2015a). Habitus differences shape lower-classed students’ everyday experiences in college impacting their sense of belonging, as well as their academic and co-curricular engagement. Separation for integration. Traditional college student retention theory calls for full social and academic integration into the institutional community, necessitating a separation from a student’s home environment (Tinto, 1993). Though full social and academic integration is traditionally related to persistence (Tinto, 1993) and the attainment of many desired outcomes of college (Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2010; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), lower-classed students often place large value on remaining connected with their family support structure during college (Aries & Seider, 2005; Bergerson, 2007; Stuber, 2009). Lower-classed students are encouraged to separate from a primary support structure as they also navigate a new culture (Lehman, 2013), and family members are encouraged to foster independence (Keppler, Mullendore, & Carey, 2005), often resulting in tension between family and school when support is needed most (Aries & Seider, 2005; Stuber, 2009, 2011). The tension between family and school can result in feeling disconnected from both environments (Soria et al., 2013). Campus- wide events, such as new student orientation and family weekends, are designed to include students’ families, sending conflicting messages to families, encouraging their attendance, while also emphasizing the student’s independence (Keppler et al., 2005). Aries and Seider (2005) found that the tension between home and school was more pronounced for lower-classed students attending an institution with a higher percentage of wealthy students, given the wider habitus disparities that existed on campus.
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Isolation and sense of belonging. Feeling a connection to the institution and one’s peers “has crucial implications for college experience and performance” (Ostrove & Long, 2007, p. 381). However, “class background structures a sense of who belongs and who does not” (Ostrove & Long, 2007, p. 381), with lower-classed students experiencing a lower sense of belonging compared to their middle- and upper-classed peers (Bergerson, 2007; Warnock & Hurst, 2016). The low-income students in Warnock and Hurst’s (2016) study felt simultaneously isolated and stigmatized as a result of their social class identity. Unlike a marginalized racial or sexual orientation identity, low income students did not feel they could take a sense of pride in their class identity, given the assumption that social class is a result of individual effort. At the same time, these students felt more isolated because many wealthier white peers assumed they were also from middle- or upper-classed origins, especially if they were white (Warnock & Hurst, 2016). Beyond feeling connected with others, sense of belonging is related to outcomes in other aspects of the collegiate experience. Ostrove and Long (2007) found that social class, mediated through students’ sense of belonging, impacted “social and academic adjustment to college, quality of experience at college, and academic performance” (pp. 380-381), such as academic help-seeking behaviors and class participation. Direct experiences of class-based marginalization were related to lower levels of belonging, which was related to “negative psychosocial outcomes and more intentions of leaving school” (Langhout et al., 2009, p. 176). Similarly, struggling to feel connected during the initial social transition to college was the most common reason lower-classed students in one study transferred from a four-year institution to a two-year institution, dramatically decreasing their likelihood of attaining a bachelor’s degree (Goldrick-Rabb & Pfeffer, 2006). Academic habitus. Lower-classed students enter higher education with similar academic expectations as their middle- and upper-classed peers, yet exhibit different academic behaviors (Martin, 2015b; Soria, 2012; Walpole, 2003; Yee, 2016). This includes lower levels of traditional college readiness, as marked by academic preparedness and awareness of college- related structures and information, which can be traced to structural disparities in previous education experiences (Schademan & Thompson, 2016). Ostrove and Long (2007) found that academic engagement is correlated to levels of belonging experienced by lower-classed students, meaning that a sense of belonging precedes the academic engagement. Interestingly, some
40 lower-classed students attained new levels of self-confidence in their academic abilities when they engaged and found themselves performing at or above the level of their middle- and upper- classed peers (Aries & Seider, 2005). Yee’s (2016) examination of the academic engagement strategies of students along lines of social class found that all students expected higher levels of independent academic engagement—attending class, taking notes, and studying—would be necessary, when compared to high school. Middle- and upper-classed students also utilized interactive academic strategies, such as informally engaging with faculty and seeking individualized assistance (Soria, 2012; Yee, 2016). While lower-classed students expected to need independent academic engagement strategies and did “not expect professors to ‘hold their hands’” (Yee, 2016, p. 845), they enacted such strategies at lower rates and did not enact interactive engagement strategies (Soria, 2012; Walpole, 2003). Longwell-Grice and Longwell-Grice (2007) attribute this difference to a view of faculty members as uncaring gatekeepers. Yee (2016) found similar themes, with lower- classed students preferring to read a chapter several times for their own comprehension, rather than visit a faculty member without specific questions or a “dire circumstance” (p. 848). Students also experienced discomfort when casually interacting with faculty members, leaving the full potential of building such a relationship unrealized. Financial habitus. Students across all social classes downplay the extent to which finances impact their college experience (Stuber, 2006, 2009). In Soria et al.’s (2014) study, however, lower-classed students were more likely to make macro-level (enrollment) and micro- level (study abroad participation, take more credit hours to graduate sooner) decisions based on financial reasons rather than educational reasons, leading to decreased engagement in academic and co-curricular facets of college. On-campus engagement opportunities often require time and discretionary financial resources, such as fees to play intramural sports or join a sorority or fraternity. While joining a sorority or fraternity can foster a sense of belonging for lower-classed students (Soria & Martin, 2013), the initial costs of joining a group often serve as a barrier. Academic programs that are marketed as signature experiences (studying abroad) or as ways to increase academic progress (taking summer or inter-term classes) also carry significant financial commitments. While some lower-classed students in Martin’s (2015b) study were frustrated by the opportunities they are missing because of their need to work to pay for college, others view such
41 activities as detrimental to their primary goal of academic success, regardless of their ability to engage. Low income students in Stuber’s (2009) study concentrated on grades as a measure of their college success, viewing co-curricular involvement as a distraction. Further, some students in Martin’s (2015b) study experienced extreme guilt when money was spent on nonessential purchases, such as eating out with friends or consuming alcohol. Students viewed these expenditures as a diversion of hard-earned money from its primary purpose. The same messages about the importance of social engagement that result in a reinforcement of values for middle- and upper-classed students cause cultural dissonance for lower classed students (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013). “The model of the highly involved college student is not class neutral” (Stuber, 2009, p. 879), but is clearly related to the possession of time and money to engage in such activities. Capital. Soria and Stebleton (2013) argue that lower-classed students’ different approach to the purposes of college and financial habitus may also lead to difficulty acquiring and enacting social capital. Social capital is characterized by the network of acquaintances through which a person can access opportunities and resources (Bourdieu, 1986). The level of social capital students reported in the study—having peers with whom to study, interacting socially with peers, and getting to know faculty outside the classroom—was correlated with students’ reported levels of academic engagement and sense of belonging (Soria & Stebleton, 2013). The need to acquire economic capital was fulfilled for middle- and upper-classed students, leaving more time and energy available for acquiring social and academic capital through activities such as social hosting of peers, engagement in co-curricular organizations, and research with a faculty member. Students engaged in co-curricular and other social experiences were building upon existing networks of peers and institutional agents that heighten their awareness of opportunities and serve as a doorway into those opportunities (Soria & Stebleton, 2013; Stanton-Salazar, 2011; Walpole, 2003). Lower-classed students, however, focus on acquiring and enacting economic capital at the expense of other types of capital, thus widening existing disparities (Stanton- Salazar, 2011; Stuber, 2006; Walpole, 2003). These disparities not only exist during and immediately after college, but continue to impact students’ trajectories. Walpole’s (2003) seminal longitudinal study followed “low socioeconomic status college graduates’ social standing relative to their peers from high socioeconomic status backgrounds” (p. 47). While aspirations for graduate school are similar
42 across all social classes of students, high socioeconomic status students were much more likely to attend and complete graduate school, including for master’s, law, and medical degrees. The longitudinal nature of this study highlights the long-term trajectory and outcome disparities that are likely a result of this difference in ability to engage during college (Walpole, 2003). Changing habitus and social class. As lower-classed students progress through higher education, many experience some degree of transformation of their habitus to one that more closely matches that of their middle- and upper-classed peers (Lehman, 2013). This transformation is nonlinear, ongoing, and often painful for students as they navigate resulting tensions with their own values and with family and friends who inhabit their habitus of origin (Kaufman, 2003; Lehman, 2013). Ultimately, some students fully embrace their new habitus as part of achieving their goal of social mobility, others outright refuse to take on new habits and values, while still others reside somewhere in between (Hinz, 2016; Kaufman, 2003; Walpole, 2003). The process of transformation of habitus is tied to the desire for social mobility, which is often rooted in the aspirations of students’ families (Kaufman, 2003). For some students, the drive to change habitus involves both a better life for themselves and a desire to prove wrong stereotypes about people from their social position (Kaufman, 2003). These students are characterized as willing and ready to take on a middle- and upper-classed habitus, neither criticizing middle and upper class values, nor holding a negative view of lower class values. Some of these students believed everyone has a choice of where they end up (class-wise), but they did not necessarily believe one choice was better or worse, just different, thus perpetuating notions of individualism (Hinz, 2016). Kaufman’s (2003) investigation of the ways in which lower-classed students construct middle-classed identities explored the micro-level decisions and unstable processes by which this change takes place. Individuals intentionally associated themselves with middle-classed peers and distanced themselves from low income peers (Kaufman, 2003). Associational embracement is characterized by becoming close to middle- and upper-classed peers in order to assume that social identity and to provide public confirmation of their own new social. While intentionally becoming closer to those in the desired social class, changing habitus also involved disassociating from those who share their current social class (Kaufman, 2003). This included distancing from individuals and from behaviors and locations that characterize the current social
43 class. Distancing may occur both intentionally, as a person removed vestiges of the current social class, and unintentionally as different interests and values slowly decreased the number of interactions that occur. Processes of embracement and distancing were not completed through single sweeping decisions or actions, but rather through ongoing smaller actions and choices that collectively constitute a new habitus (Kaufman, 2003). These processes often involve discomfort and frustration with a lower-classed student’s family and pre-college friends (Lehman, 2013). Intentional changes in speech patterns, dress, and interests often cause tension and negatively impacts credibility with family and pre-college friends, resulting in a loss of access to emotional and physical resources from those people (Kaufman, 2003; Lehman, 2013). Simultaneously, students in the process of shifting their habitus do not have access to the resources of their middle- and upper-classed peers, leaving students stuck in between and isolated (Lehman, 2013). However, not all students are pursuing education with the goal of social mobility, but rather with the goal of remaining close to and working to make a difference in their community of origin (Hinz, 2016). Approximately one-third of lower-classed students in Hinz’s (2016) study desired to remain closely tied to their home culture. And many experienced a shift from a focus on career to a focus on learning for learning’s sake (Lehman, 2013). Does recognition of their home community’s need and a personal desire to work for change, rather than to leave the community, make lower-classed white students more likely to develop an antiracist white identity? I now turn to the intersection of whiteness and lower-classed status, beginning with the systemic level, then discussing the influence of social class on the formation of an antiracist white identity. Intersections of Whiteness and Social Class An individual’s race and social class are not experienced in isolation from each other, nor from other social identities (Jones & Abes, 2013). Social identities interact and impact each other in complex and nuanced ways that are often unrecognized by an individual (Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; Frankenberg, 1993b; Jones & Abes, 2013). This section focuses on the ways social class interacts with whiteness, both historically and currently, in the United States. Specifically, research suggests that the intersection of a marginalized identity, such as lower- classed status, with white racialization provides possibilities for the formation of an antiracist white identity in college students (Bush, 2011; Cabrera, 2012; Eichstedt, 2001). These
44 possibilities are the crux of my argument for undertaking this study as part of the effort to dismantle white supremacy in the United States. White intragroup disparities and alliances. One outcome of whiteness as a structuring property of society in the United States (Owen, 2007) is that whiteness is “a location of economic, political, social, and cultural advantage” over those not racialized as white (p. 206). Maintaining economic advantage is central to the functioning of white supremacy (Roediger, 2007). The economic benefits of whiteness have been institutionalized in the United States through laws and practices that facilitate the multi-generational accumulation of wealth (Harris, 1993; Lipsitz, 1995; Watson, 2013). Legal structures created over time have delineated and marked who is eligible for membership in whiteness (Battalora, 2013; Lipsitz, 1995), typically through specifying who is ineligible for the benefits associated with whiteness (MacMullan, 2009). Origins of these legal structures, and of whiteness itself, can be directly traced to the late 17th century, in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion (MacMullan, 2009). Those who controlled industry and plantations disagreed with newer immigrants regarding the most appropriate time and rate at which indigenous peoples were forcibly removed to make way for the expansion of the tobacco industry of Virginia. The rebellion capitalized on the “current of discontent among African and European bonds-people, landless laborers, and owners of small land plots towards the tiny elite who controlled the vast majority of the colony’s land” (MacMullan, 2009, p. 28). This class-based alliance across races was seen as natural because there was “no sense of whiteness as an essentially different and superior category of human being that would make a poor English laborer think of herself or himself as inherently better than and socially superior to an African laborer” (MacMullan, 2009, p. 28). During the ensuing decades, the ruling elite passed several laws with the intent of breaking this natural alliance and fostering a sense of superiority in lower-classed whites. Laws included specifying who was able to be free and forever in bondage, who was empowered to surveil and return those who escaped their bondage, and which types of interracial relationships were criminalized (MacMullan, 2009). All of these laws served to make people of color inherently inferior to any white person, thus creating and instilling white privilege, regardless of a white person’s standing in a community or society (MacMullan, 2009). These efforts were enforced through social institutions such as churches, which were required to read the full laws once each year (MacMullan, 2009).
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In the early 20th century, several decades after the industrial revolution and potential alliances between lower-classed whites and people of color again became a threat, upper-classed whites continued and redoubled intentional efforts to convince lower-classed whites that “the pleasures of whiteness could function as a wage for white workers...status and privileges conferred by race could be used to make up for alienating and exploitative class relationships” (Roediger, 2007, p. 13; Roediger, 2005) of capitalism. The possibility of social mobility, also known as the American Dream, was used to cement this alliance (Roediger, 2007). Forsaking potential class alliances to ascribe to whiteness was seen as the only hope to transcend their current economic circumstance, which was produced by the very elites with whom they chose to align. While “disproportionate corporate wealth impacts poor and middle-class whites, ...explanations for their economic insecurity are often framed as due to the benefits that ‘others’ now have” (Bush, 2011, p. 180), which is coded language to mean that affirmative action type programs are taking jobs and money away from poor and middle-classed whites. The systemic marginalization of working class individuals is thus obscured, protecting the power of upper-classed whites. Similarly, Leonardo (2002) speaks of the inseparability of class and race, calling them “the hour and minute hands of a clock” (p. 43). He cautions that any attempts to only use class to explain inequality ignores or obfuscates the racialized realities that also undergird the current state. The focus on economic disparity without acknowledgement of the influence of racism shifts the conversation away from the harmful actions of upper-classed whites onto the supposed loss of benefits to people of color, further entrenching white solidarity against people of color. When middle- and upper-classed white individuals conceptualize whiteness, lower classed white people are not only not included, but are actively excluded through physical and social distancing (Kunstman et al., 2016), which is antithetical to overt promises of enjoying the pleasures of whiteness. Kunstman and colleagues (2016) summarized their study of ingroup distancing of lower-classed whites by middle- and upper-classed whites with the statement that, “for some [middle- and upper-classed] white people, social class seems to define the racial ingroup” (p. 241). However, Allen (2008) argues that “middle class whites frame working-class whites as the embodiment of white supremacy when we [middle-classed whites] are really its truer form” (pp. 123-124). The assumption of poor white individuals being the most racist white
46 people is focused on overt forms of racism. This focus on overt racism shields middle- and upper-classed whites from culpability for racism and further obscures the systemic white supremacy and class marginalization that shapes their lives and successes (Allen, 2008). Upper-classed whites use these strategies to conceal their own role in creating economic and racial disparity (Roediger, 2007), employing the argument outlined at the opening of Chapter One. The allure of social mobility to the American Dream is coupled with omnipresent images of whites as the standard of success and beauty (Cabrera et al., 2017) and the positioning of whites as the true victims of multiculturalism (Bush, 2011; Cabrera, 2012). These lines of reasoning, systemic nature of class marginalization, make acceptance of white victimization, and therefore irrational solidarity across social classes, seem natural and rational. Exploration and validation of systemic class-based marginalization holds the possibility of encouraging the formation of an antiracist white identity. Impact of oppressed/marginalized identities on the formation of antiracist whiteness. In addition to the formation and maintenance of intentional intragroup disparities related to social class, the impact of other social identities on the experience of antiracist whiteness is central to this study. Lipsitz (1995) argued that “all whites do not benefit from the possessive investment in whiteness in precisely the same way, ...but the possessive investment in whiteness always affects individual and group life chances and opportunities” (p. 383). Participants in Eichstedt’s (2001) study of white antiracist activists “spoke of how their experiences of oppression and mistreatment made them more aware of the oppression of people of color” (p. 463). Similarly, three participants in Cabrera’s (2012) study of how white male college students develop antiracist identities drew connections between their experiences with marginalized religious identities (Muslim and Jewish) and experiences of people of color. These experiences were not explicitly related to the role of white supremacy in society, but still “frequently engendered greater empathy and understanding for other oppressed communities” (p. 387). Specifically, one student found that his experience as a religious minority helped him understand how people of color “constantly have to navigate hostile social environments” (p. 388). Bush (2011) states that “sensitivities to or experiences with other forms of dominance and subordination can translate into a broad understanding of system-wide patterns” (p. 220). Specifically related to social class, Reason (2007) stated that it is difficult for lower- classed white individuals to “deny the negative influence of power and privilege related to race
47 when they have incorporated an understanding of sexism or classism into their racial identity” (p. 133). The firsthand understanding of sexism or class marginalization provides an opening to understand other systems of oppression. While poverty “is explained [by middle- and upper- classed whites] by saying poor people lack a work ethic or that people of color use race as an excuse for their own lack of effort” (Bush, 2011, p. 205), those experiencing poverty would likely argue otherwise. The crux of this study is that lower-classed white students, themselves familiar with class marginalization, may understand systems of oppression differently than their middle- and upper-classed white peers, providing a natural opening to encourage the formation of an antiracist white identity. However, experiencing oppression/marginalization does not automatically generate an understanding of the systemic nature of oppression and privilege. Bush (2011) states that white “individuals who have experienced other forms of subordination...can often draw upon personal experience to reflect upon racial processes. However, if these experiences are not theorized in the context of power relations, they can sometimes have the opposite effect” (pp. 211-212), further reinforcing notions of individualism and colorblindness as explanations for disparity. Additionally, a lack of knowledge of the role of power relations also serves to mask the role of an individual’s whiteness in overcoming experiences of class marginalization (Bush, 2011). Still, a lower-classed upbringing, coupled with an understanding of the role of power in systems of oppression, may positively impact the formation of an antiracist white identity in white college students. Bush (2011) argues that “understanding relations of power and patterns of domination and subordination from any point of entry can provide an opening for a more systemic understanding of the systemic and endemic inequalities” of white supremacy (p. 212). This supposition provides an opening for lower-classed students to form an antiracist white identity, so long as conversations include the systemic nature of class marginalization and racism. Institutions of higher education can have a role in providing a forum for these vital conversations and providing the context to which Bush (2011) refers. Institutional Practices that Encourage Antiracist White Identity Formation I now turn to a review of the institutional strategies and programs that have been shown to foster the formation of an antiracist white identity in college students. For ease of categorization, I use two of Cabrera’s (2012) three groupings of experiences that led to an increased racial awareness for white students: cross-racial interactions and multicultural
48 education. Cabrera’s (2012) third group of experiences is the importance of personal experiences of marginalization, as reviewed above. Cross-Racial Interactions Cross-racial interactions for white students can range from intentionally created programs to happenstance interactions with people of color. Informal cross-racial interactions, whether with a classmate, roommate, or member of a student group, can serve as the initial motivation for racial cognizance and an examination of one’s whiteness (Cabrera, 2012). These interactions increased participants’ awareness “of the realities of people of color” (Cabrera, 2012, p. 385) in the United States by learning more about their life experiences. Formally created programs with the expressed goal of dialogues across race can engage white individuals in different ways than more informal interactions in class or in everyday life. One formalized example is intergroup dialogue, which is a program that “invite[s] college students from different social identity groups that have a history or potential for conflict to meet face to face” (Alimo, 2012, p. 36). In Alimo’s (2012) study of the impact of white students’ participation in a cross-racial intergroup dialogue program (IGD), he found that program provided opportunities for white students to participate in formalized, long-term conversations about race and racism, while engaging in deep reflections on their own whiteness. Participants showed an increased frequency of behaviors associated with being a white racial ally, but did not experience an increase of confidence to engage in these behaviors. The author posits that this may be because students newly exposed to their extent of privilege are overwhelmed by the weight of whiteness that fully surrounds them (Alimo, 2012). A critique regarding programs like IGD is that the onus for educating white students about whiteness falls to students of color, recentering white students’ needs as the focus (Cabrera, 2012; Cabrera et al., 2016). This conflict must be closely considered in all racial justice work with white students and underscores the need for white racial justice allies to actively embrace their role in dismantling white supremacy. An additional critique of IGD is that the spaces can become sites of linguistic violence against people of color (Leonardo & Porter, 2010). Students of color may be unable to respond to racist statements because of the mandate of a space that is respectful of all opinions, regardless of their harmful impact (Cabrera et al., 2017). Though not inclusive of people of color, Bush (2011) found that the formalized focus groups in her study of all white students became opportunities to “hear different opinions among
49 white participants” (p. 230) and think about things in a way they had not in the past. Such structured interactions also have potential for collective action “as common interests can be recognized and acted upon” (Bush, 2011 p. 230), thereby providing a partial solution to the oft- heard issue of not knowing what to do once one acknowledges that disparity exists. Robbins (2016) recommends this as a way to minimize microaggressions and other forms of harm perpetrated on students of color as white students learn about racism. Multicultural Education Cabrera (2012) found that “coursework focusing on issues of race and racism were generally few and far between,” but “had profound effects on those working through whiteness” (p. 386). Effective coursework in this study combined information about racial inequality in a traditional academic sense with a humanization of people of color. These students “highlighted education as disrupting certainty, not creating it” (Cabrera, 2012, p. 387). This uncertainty served to encourage white racial cognizance, while disrupting commonly held stereotypes of people of color. Reason (2007) also found that coursework that centered issues of race and racism was instrumental for white students in developing as racial justice allies. Kordesh et al. (2013) found that antiracist white students were more likely to enroll in courses focused on issues of racial and social justice and that these students “made explicit links among completing diversity courses, interaction with diverse peers, and attaining a more complex understanding of racism” (pp. 46-47). At the graduate level, Robbins (2016) found that coursework related to race and racism contributed to racial dissonance, which was the impetus for some students to engage further in similar conversations. Related to discussions of race and racism in classrooms, Cabrera et al. (2017) again warned that students of color “should not be the teachers in the classroom” (p. 90). This is the job of the faculty member who must be adequately prepared to discuss racism. Formal coursework that minimizes the expectation on students of color to bear the burden of educating their white peers can encourage antiracist white identity formation, from the level of racial awareness to encouraging engagement in racial justice work. Intentionally incorporating these strategies, while also validating experiences of class marginalization, may be the key to fostering an antiracist white identity for lower-classed white college students. Students’ experiences of class marginalization can be the opening (Bush, 2011) for successful use of Cabrera’s (2012) cross-racial interactions and multicultural education strategies. However, if not validated, the power of white solidarity across social classes will be
50 reinforced (Roediger, 2007) and the opportunity to disrupt white supremacy will be missed. Institutions of higher education, long champions of expanding access to education, play a vital role in this process. Conclusion This chapter provided a review of literature that forms my framework for understanding the antiracist white identity formation of lower-classed white college students. The chapter began with an overview of whiteness as a structuring property of U.S. society and the ways whiteness is enacted at the institutional and individual level in higher education. I then reviewed white racial identity development, the influence of social class in higher education, and the influence of social class on white racial identity formation. The chapter concluded with a review of institutional strategies that have shown promise in encouraging critical white racial identity development. Hardiman’s (2001) statement that “we lack the understanding about how and why some whites come to reject the privilege and racist-defined sense of self,” (p. 122) is still salient. Through this study, I hope to contribute to the understanding of this process of rejection and self- redefinition by exploring the ways lower-classed white students form an antiracist white identity. The next chapter will detail my study design for examining this question.
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Chapter Three: Study Design In the previous chapter, I reviewed research that both forms the foundation of this study and demonstrates the gap that this study attempts to fill related to the antiracist identity formation of lower-classed white college students. The research serves as the basis from which I explore my research questions: (1) How do lower-classed white college students form an antiracist white identity at the intersection of their racial and social class identities? and (2) How do the students’ college experiences impact the formation of an antiracist white identity? In this chapter, I explain the design of my study, including the paradigmatic and methodological foundations, specific methods I used, and efforts to increase the trustworthiness of my analysis. I include an exploration of the impact of my identities on the study and other ethical considerations. Research Paradigms The research paradigm of a study influences all aspects of study design, shaping the methodology and specific methods chosen (Creswell, 2014). I primarily used a constructivist paradigm for this study, the goal of which is to “understand the phenomenon and the meaning it has for the participants” (Merriam, 2009, p. 34). Constructivism centers the view that knowledge and meaning are created by individuals situated within social contexts, influenced by others within those contexts (Creswell, 2014). Therefore, multiple realities or truths exist, and I did not seek to discover a single truth or absolute knowledge of the antiracist white identity formation of lower-classed white college students (Creswell, 2014). In conversations with study participants, I explored their views of their antiracist white identity formation and subsequent college experiences (Creswell, 2013), co-creating understandings of those experiences in the process (Merriam, 2009). A constructivist paradigm, however, does not foreground the influence of systemic inequality on the experiences of participants, nor does it center efforts to challenge and change those systems (Merriam, 2009). I therefore used a critical paradigm to influence my application of constructivism. Doing so better enabled me to explore the role of class marginalization and racism in participants’ reflections and antiracist white identity formation. The primary goal of critical theory is to expose and dismantle systems of power and privilege that oppress individuals with subordinate social identities, while propelling forward those individuals who hold dominant social identities (Bergerson, 2003; Christensen & Jensen, 2012; Robbins & McGowan, 2016). Thus, an individual’s personal interpretations of an experience can be minimized through a
52 critical paradigm’s focus on questioning the guiding assumptions of systems to expose problematic bias (Creswell, 2014). The focus of this study remained squarely on students’ understandings of their antiracist white identity formation, but critical perspectives are included in the analysis of these understandings. A constructivist approach that is influenced by critical perspectives allows participants’ individual stories of antiracist white identity formation to be heard, while also exploring how structures of whiteness influence this formation. The onus fell to me to resolve any tensions between honoring participants’ understandings and manifestations of white supremacy within their understandings. When, for example, a participant did not recognize the manifestation of colorblindness on their current understanding of their white identity, I discussed this point in the analysis section of this study, but did not mention it during the interview. Conversely, when a participant mentioned racism or class marginalization related to their antiracist white identity formation, I explored it in the analysis section. However, in the moment of the interview, I only asked questions to further explore their understanding, without critiquing their understanding or pointing out the ways their understanding continues to reify white supremacy. Although the participant was discussing critical topics, I allowed the participant’s knowledge and understandings to stand alone as their truth. The tension between constructivist and critical perspectives resonates closely with the way I move through the world. Raised in whiteness, I was taught that individuals have complete control over their own experience and achievement. However, throughout my graduate education and career in higher education, I have come to know that this is not the case for the majority of people in the United States. My developing ability to see the influences of systematic oppression still has to compete with my socialized belief in our ability to influence our own lives. I continue to catch myself thinking along lines of individualism and remind myself to look for and name the influence of systems of power and oppression in the situation. The competition between these two paradigms keeps me vigilant for my own missteps and problematic assumptions. The match between my personal paradigm and the paradigm of my study increases my ability to gain deep insight into participants’ understanding of their identity formation and into the influence of systems of privilege and oppression on these experiences.
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Theoretical Perspectives Although this constructivist study primarily focused on participants’ understanding of their antiracist white identity formation and the stories they told to illustrate this formation, I also used a critical perspective in my analysis of their stories. Although my own critical perspective undoubtedly surfaced during data collection, as I stated in the example provided above, I attempted to minimize the extent to which my critical perspectives overshadowed participants’ recollections of their own antiracist white identity formation. Once I moved into the analysis stage, I more explicitly used the critical perspective of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to aid my constructivist analysis of participants’ stories. Below, I first explain Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), then describe the ways CWS influenced the analysis stage of my study. Critical Whiteness Studies. Critical Whiteness Studies is an outgrowth of Critical Race Theory (CRT), which holds the explicit goal of understanding how white supremacy exists and is maintained in the United State and “to change the bond that exists between law and racial power” (Ladson-Billings, 1999, p. 14). CRT originated as a critique of critical legal studies, adding an explicit focus on racism as core to U.S. society (Bell, 1992; Ladson-Billings, 1998). The first tenet of CRT is that “racism is a permanent part of the American landscape” (Bell, 1992, p. 92), so deeply embedded so that it “appears both natural and normal to people in this culture” (Ladson-Billings, 1998, p. 11). Second, CRT employs counter-storytelling and experiential knowledge to illuminate the experiences of people of color. Third, CRT critiques liberalism’s focus on the path toward social justice as a slow, but always positive movement through legislation. CRT argues that the constant harm of racism requires substantial and “sweeping changes” (Ladson-Billings, 1998, p. 12), as opposed to the slow progress of liberalism. The final tenet of CRT is that white people have been the primary beneficiaries of civil rights legislation, and that only the convergence of white interests and potential benefits will garner white support for changes that benefit people of color (Ladson-Billings, 1998, 1999). CRT has been used to understand the ways that white-centric norms and conceptions of knowledge serve to privilege white students at the expense of students of color in education (Solórzano et al., 2000; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Tatum, 2003, 2017). Importantly, CRT in education focuses squarely on “how students of color experience and respond to the U.S. educational system” (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002, p. 37), given the system’s basis in whiteness. For example, the creation of counter-spaces, “where deficit notions of people of color can be
54 challenged and where a positive collegiate racial climate can be established” (Solórzano et al., 2000, p. 70), are crucial to the educational success of students of color. CRT is the impetus for an understanding of education as a site of struggle, where curriculum, access, and pedagogy are based in and controlled by white norms and white people (Tierney, 1991). CRT examines and critiques U.S. systems of oppression based in white supremacy, and the harm these systems perpetrate on people of color, but does not specifically explore the origins of whiteness, what it means to be white in a system of white supremacy, and the ways that whiteness and white supremacy are perpetuated (Delgado & Stefancic, 1997). Critical scholars thus turned the focus on whiteness and developed the subfield of Critical Whiteness Studies (Delgado & Stefancic, 1997). Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) seeks to analyze whiteness, including how whiteness developed into the assumed norm for society (Cabrera, et al., 2016, 2017), how whiteness “mediates other identity categories” such as class and gender (Nichols, 2010, p. 4), and how whiteness maintains structures that divide U.S. society by race, class, and gender. To that end, CWS re-centers whiteness not to reassert white dominance or supremacy, but to explore its nuances, to “destabilize the ways in which white supremacy ...appear[s] natural or normal” (O’Sullivan, 2017, p. 21), and to problematize its primary role in maintaining structural inequality. CWS provides a lens for analyzing the ways whiteness is foundational to the values and assumptions of institutions of higher education and therefore shapes expectations for student learning and faculty and staff performance (Cabrera et al., 2017; Gusa, 2010; Roediger, 2001). Whiteness thus shapes the experiences of students throughout their time in college. Critical Whiteness Studies focuses on understanding the construction of whiteness as a structural system, not on individuals and individual actions. DiAngelo (2012) stated that examining whiteness is about understanding “how racism has shaped my consciousness and identity and how it has granted me unearned yet powerful advantages that result in disadvantages for people of color” (p. 133). Leonardo (2009) explained that “‘whiteness’ is a racial discourse, whereas the category of ‘white people’ represents a socially constructed identity, usually based on skin color” (p. 169), meaning that whiteness is a system and collection of habits, beliefs, and actions that influence individuals at conscious and unconscious levels. CWS “seeks to identify the contours of whiteness as a discourse while critically examining the material, psychological, emotional, and physical effects whiteness has on people of color” (Cabrera et al., 2017, p. 19),
55 regardless of the skin color of the individual actor. Viewing whiteness as a system also means that white people can actively work to challenge and dismantle whiteness and white supremacy (Leonardo, 2009). Components of Critical Whiteness Studies. CWS scholars hold three beliefs that serve as the foundation of the field. The first is that “whiteness is a modern invention” (Nayak, 2007, p. 738) and a “political alliance” (Three Rivers, 1991, as cited in Roediger, 2001, p. 92; Battalora, 2013) that has shifted over time (Roediger, 2005; 2007). The second belief is that whiteness is the social norm or standard that shapes both social institutions and personal expectations (Cabrera et al., 2017; Gusa, 2010; Leonardo, 2002; 2004). The third belief is that whiteness can be “deconstructed for the betterment of humanity” (Nayak, 2007, p. 738), which serves as the call to action for CWS scholars. Stemming from the three foundational beliefs of Critical Whiteness Studies are five theoretical components of whiteness that CWS scholarship critiques. The first is colorblindness, which maintains that race does not matter and differential outcomes exist because of individual differences in effort and talent (Bonilla-Silva, 2013; Bonilla-Silva & Forman, 2000; DiAngelo, 2010). Within higher education, colorblindness manifests as a belief in merit-based individual performance (Guinier, 2015) and in a likelihood of perceiving campus as a welcoming space for all people, regardless of social identities (Bonilla-Silva, 2013). The second, closely related component is whiteness as an epistemology of ignorance (Mills, 1997), characterized by “a willful aversion to the suffering caused by systemic white supremacy” (Cabrera et al., 2017, p. 21). While simultaneously denying its relevance and dismissing the perspectives of students of color, white students also position themselves as experts on race and racism (DiAngelo, 2011; Picca, 2015). The racial isolation that characterizes white childhood (Frankenberg, 1993a) and white college experiences (Gusa, 2010) contributes to this ignorance. CWS holds the explicit goal of disrupting and eliminating ignorance and its harmful effects (Cabrera et al., 2017). Ontological expansiveness, the third theoretical component of whiteness, is a sense of entitlement to access all types of physical, linguistic, and cultural spaces (Sullivan, 2006, as cited in Cabrera et al., 2016). This notion is reinforced by whiteness’ positioning as the institutionalized norm and standard (Cabrera et al., 2017; Gusa, 2010), which provides white students credibility in a space, regardless of other aspects of their identity (DiAngelo, 2012). This freedom of movement is not available to students of color and some campus spaces are
56 physically or emotionally dangerous for them (Cabrera et al., 2017). Analyzing and changing this disparity of access is a vital aspect of creating contexts that foster the success of students of color (Strange & Banning, 2015). The fourth component is whiteness as property (Harris, 1993), which is an understanding of the tangible economic advantages of whiteness that have been institutionalized in the U.S. through laws and practices that facilitate the accumulation of wealth (Lipsitz, 1995; Owen, 2007; Watson, 2013). Determining whom to exclude from possessing the property of whiteness is core to its perpetuation and reinforces whiteness as the “category against which all other groups are judged” (Cabrera et al., 2017, p. 25; Roediger, 2005). Opposition to affirmative action is an example of attempts to continue excluding students of color from a benefit originally restricted to those possessing whiteness (Cabrera et al., 2017). Assumed racial safety is the fifth component of whiteness and examines the harmful outcomes of the expectation of whiteness to avoid discomfort in discussions of race and racism (Cabrera et al., 2016). Specific to dialogues across race, creating safe spaces where all students can openly express their opinions fails to hold white students accountable for the harm opinions often inflict on students of color (Leonardo & Porter, 2010). Failing to challenge the problematic statements of white students both “normalizes the linguistic violence students of color experience” (Cabrera et al., 2017, p. 27) and inhibits the racial development of white students (DiAngelo, 2011), thereby doubly perpetuating white supremacy. Although these five concepts are delineated separately, they are interconnected and mutually reinforce each other to create the overall landscape of whiteness and shape the focus of Critical Whiteness Studies scholarship. To what end? Goals of Critical Whiteness Studies scholarship. Within the context of these foundational beliefs and core components, CWS scholars posit multiple end goals for the work. One substantial critique of CWS scholarship is the tendency to “emphasize individual transformations” (Roediger, 2001, p. 91) when discussing strategies for dismantling white supremacy, rather than truly focusing on dismantling the system of white supremacy. Roediger’s (2001) end goal for CWS scholarship, therefore, is to “identify the workings of white racial privilege, while encouraging whites to disidentify with what guarantees those privileges” (p. 91). Roediger (2001) uses disidentify to mean the process of a white individual actively dissociating from the privileges and habits of white supremacy. This approach advocates for the all-out abolishment of whiteness (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996; Roediger, 2001). Lipsitz (1998) posits that
57 the abolishment of whiteness must also include the end of whiteness as property (Harris, 1993). Only then can social transformation occur (Roediger, 2001). While agreeing that an abolishment of whiteness is ideal, other CWS and CRT scholars believe that abolishment is impractical in the United States, given the permanence of racism in U.S. society (Bell, 1992, Bonilla-Silva, 2001, Bush, 2011). Additionally, simply opting out of whiteness and the associated privileges is unrealistic, given the tangible impact whiteness and white supremacy have on people of color and society, in general (Harris, 1993; Lipsitz, 1995). Washing one’s hands of whiteness and the associated privileges to become a “good white” is impossible because those racialized as white are provided many benefits without their consent (Leonardo, 2004; Thompson, 2003). This is also harmful, as walking away from white supremacy in an attempt to be a good white person serves to re-center a different form of whiteness, while absolving the individual from further critique (Thompson, 2003). This group of CWS scholars instead focuses on the ways whiteness can be restructured to actively dismantle white supremacy (Nayak, 2007). This restructured whiteness approach to CWS also explores the impact of other identities on whiteness (Frankenberg, 1993b; Nayak, 2007), incorporating other systems of oppression and privilege for a more holistic understanding. Within the reality that whiteness cannot be abolished, CWS scholars posit that white individuals must be able to form an antiracist white identity that minimizes harm to people of color and actively resists white supremacy, while also acknowledging that they continue to benefit from whiteness (Nayak, 2007; Outlaw, 2004; Thompson, 2003). My study is situated within the perspective of restructured whiteness, as I explored how individual students came to understand their whiteness and created an antiracist white identity that actively resists racism and white supremacy. CWS shaped my analysis of the ways participants form an antiracist white identity from both an individual and systemic perspective, as well as the ways this identity shapes their actions and experiences in college. In my analysis, I specifically looked for and discussed places where whiteness continues to manifest in participant’s thinking and actions. CWS was also useful in minimizing ways in which I, a white researcher, could easily (dis)miss the influence of whiteness in their experience. I attempted to expose taken-for-granted norms that operate in higher education to reinforce white supremacy, specifically in conjunction with a subordinated class identity.
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Methodology: Narrative Inquiry Narrative inquiry is the process by which researchers describe the “storied lives” that people lead; where researchers “collect and tell stories of [those lives], and write narratives of experience” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 2). This form of inquiry both tells the story of individuals and accounts for the larger context in which those stories originated and were retold (Creswell, 2014; Patton, 2002, as cited in Merriam, 2009). Participants’ stories “tell us how people draw on different [identity] categories in the construction of their life-story” (Christensen & Jensen, 2012, p. 114). This dual nature of narrative allowed me to both attend to participants’ individual stories of their antiracist white identity formation and point out the ways class marginalization and white supremacy influenced these stories. The approach to narrative research that most closely resonates with me is that of Clandinin and Connelly (2000), which explores three primary dimensions of stories: temporality, personal/social, and place. Using this framework, “studies have temporal dimensions and address temporal matters; they focus on the personal and the social in a balance appropriate to the inquiry; and they occur in specific places” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 50). Temporal issues provide the opportunity for participants to both discuss the ways their experiences and interpretations changed over time and the ways their experiences prompted them to reexamine and possibly reinterpret past life experiences. The dimension of place is important to this study, as participants navigate both the physical spaces of the university and the cultural aspects of place at the institution (Strange & Banning, 2015). Participants experience college in a space dominated and shaped by white, middle/upper-classed values and expectations (Gusa, 2010). Institutional values and expectations share some similarities with the values of participants’ homes and home communities, particularly related to whiteness, though there were also differences as a result of social class. I view the personal/social dimension as most important to this study and most closely aligned with my paradigmatic approach that weaves together constructivist and critical views. This approach centers the meaning participants make (personal/constructivist), including “feelings, hopes, aesthetic reactions, and [resulting] moral dispositions” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 50), while also incorporating wider social structures that shape the experience (social/critical). The three dimensions of narrative inquiry are interconnected in such a way that attempts to parse them apart are both unrealistic and undesirable. However, explicitly thinking
59 about these three dimensions throughout my study contributed to a more complete and more complex understanding of participants’ stories of antiracist white identity formation. Also important to narrative inquiry is my role in the re-telling of participants’ stories and the tentative nature with which these interpretations should be made (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Clandinin and Connelly (2000) caution that “interpretations of events can always be otherwise” (p. 31), and that researchers must be careful of any level of certainty of their findings and analysis. My own story, which is detailed in the next section, impacted my ability to hear and understand my participants’ experiences of critical reflection (Coles, 1989). The co- constructive nature of narrative inquiry centers participants’ experiences, carefully incorporating my interpretations without overshadowing their own interpretations (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Analysis in narrative inquiry involved inserting myself in my participants’ stories with the dual goals of deeper understanding for myself as the researcher and of empowerment for my participants through the telling of their stories (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Such insertion was “a way of coming to know the [participant’s] story and as giving [their] voice” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 4) a platform to be heard and amplified. Centering participants’ stories of antiracist white identity formation also fulfilled my goal of providing additional nuance to the understanding of white supremacy in the United States to contribute to its deconstruction. Giving attention to multiple voices, experiences, contradictions, and interpretations at this intersection of class and race, rather than solely focusing on themes common to all participants, paints a picture of antiracist white identity formation that is experienced in many different ways, yet all within the context of white supremacy. Role of the Researcher As the researcher, I am subject to the context within which I exist, forming my own assumptions, interpretations, and choices as a result (Laverty, 2003). The interactions of my context with that of each participant cannot be ignored, as it forms a vital aspect of qualitative research, rendering each study unique (Kakkori, 2009; Laverty, 2003). I entered this study with the ability to name the privileged identities I hold and an increasing level of understanding of the impact of those privileges on my life and on the lives of others. However, I am still the product of more than 30 years of socialization that has taught me to see others and my daily experiences in certain ways. Therefore, I have conscious and subconscious assumptions and opinions
60 regarding the roles of race and class in college students’ antiracist white identity formation. I attempt to explore and share many of these assumptions here, providing context for my approach to this study and continuing my own work in unlearning my problematic socialization. I can unequivocally say that this study pushed my understanding further, qualitatively changing who I am as a person. I am a heterosexual, white, cisgender male raised in a conservative, heterosexual two- parent, upper-middle class family, with one parent holding multiple masters degrees. The neighborhood of my youth was racially segregated, and I did not have substantial contact with people of color until high school. I have earned and received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, each from a predominantly white institution, with substantial financial support from my family. I pursued this doctoral degree with financial support through my current professional position, attained partly as a result of my ability to attain a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. I will begin by exploring my racial socialization, followed by an exploration of my class socialization. Race and racialization. The neighborhood of my youth was racially segregated and surrounded by two wealthy and very white suburbs of a large city. My elementary school was small, Catholic, and overwhelmingly white, with two people of color across the nine grade levels (K-8). I was raised to subscribe to a colorblind ideology, believing that the United States was well beyond differential outcomes because of race, but rather that individuals or their culture were to blame for their outcomes in life. The racial composition of my public college preparatory high school was the inverse of my elementary school, with approximately 75% students of color. However, I remained ignorant of systemic oppression and my beliefs in meritocracy may have even strengthened during those years, as my teachers and administration reinforced individual agency as the route to higher education and upward mobility. This ignorance remained firmly entrenched throughout my undergraduate and master’s programs, as well as my first professional position, though cracks began to appear as I learned more about the systemic ways in which inequality is perpetuated. Throughout these experiences, I did not see the need to explore my own privilege and the systems that perpetuate it, given that I could move through the world as I pleased, without my race inhibiting my desires and efforts. Not until I entered my doctoral program did I experience a reckoning of sorts that forced me to face my own whiteness, white privilege, and active role in perpetuating white supremacy. Course readings and conversations with faculty and cohort members pushed me to a deeper level
61 of understanding related to my everyday actions and thoughts that are both manifestations and reinforcements of whiteness and white supremacy. This self-exploration is an ongoing process, with much work still to come. There were many instances during the study where I could identify with the experiences of participants as they describe their own antiracist white identity formation. As a white researcher, I worked to uncover structures of whiteness and white privilege that shape the experiences of my participants, while also understanding that my own racialization means I was not fully up to the task. I am sure there were instances where I left problematic statements or interpretations unquestioned because I did not yet seen why they are problematic. I am sure some conclusions or interpretations at which I arrived are clothed in white supremacy. While I attempted to avoid such problematic conclusions, I understand they are unavoidable and welcome the critiques that will serve to further dismantle white supremacy in higher education and in my own mind. These inevitable shortcomings did not serve to dissuade me from undertaking the study, but provided me with more inspiration to do so. Social class. Not until much later in life did I understand my family’s level of income. Outward signs of wealth, such as trendy clothing and nice cars, were not displayed in my family. We bought shoes and clothes at discount stores. Before my sister and I could drive, our family always had two cars, though never new. When my sister got her license, she received our great aunt’s car, which was almost ten years old. This car became mine two years later. Our parents subsequently bought us each a used car a few years later, continuing to pay our insurance and fuel costs throughout college. While I understood this was not universal practice, I was not fully aware until I went to college, where many friends’ families were not as privileged as mine. I began to more fully realize my family’s wealth when I learned that I was one of a few students who was attending college free of loan debt. This unique experience extended to graduate school, where my parents filled the gap between the graduate school stipend and my living expenses. Throughout high school and college, I always worked to earn discretionary income, but was still dependent on the assistance of my parents for necessities. However, I was able to point to my part-time jobs as indicators that I did not have it all handed to me, when I actually did. I included this short summary to illustrate my socialization around finances. My family never struggled to afford a vacation, let alone a necessity for survival. Our relative wealth was
62 masked from me, though readily visible to my peers, especially once in college. This deeply ingrained assumption of the ability to afford all necessities and many optional experiences influences my current professional work with college students and their families. Though I am beginning to center issues of social class disparity (among others), I often need to remind myself to step back and examine my professional work for assumptions of discretionary income that undergird the student experiences and narratives that are put forth as ideal, such as studying abroad or switching academic majors and possibly delaying graduation. As I met with participants and explored the ways their social class identity impacted their antiracist white identity formation, I was careful not to assume I know what they meant by certain statements and was diligent in asking for further clarification. Otherwise, there is an increased risk of misinterpretation that can misrepresent their experiences. Personal and professional goals. My goal to continue developing my own consciousness around issues of class marginalization and white supremacy is partially the reason for undertaking this specific study. I subscribe to the idea that most of the work of higher education educators perpetuates the systems of privilege and oppression on which U.S. higher education was built. However, my stated goal is to disrupt and dismantle these systems through my work. Undertaking this study assisted in uncovering my own biases and assumptions, further cultivating my abilities as an educator dedicated to social justice. I also undertook this study for personal reasons, primarily related to the future lives of my young children and the people with whom they will interact throughout their lives. Only by unpacking and understanding my own socialization am I able to change the ways in which my children are socialized and reduce the harm they do throughout their lives. Methods With my own positionality in mind and guided by the above paradigmatic and theoretical foundations, I now describe the methods I used in my study. These include descriptions of the study site, participant sampling, data collection, and data analysis strategies. Institution and Participants Miami University is a large, public, four-year institution in the Midwestern United States. The average income level of students at the institution, being used as an imperfect indicator of social class, is higher than similarly selective public institutions in the U.S. Approximately 30% of students come from families with annual income over $200,000 (24.5% at similar institutions)
63 and another 38% of students come from families with annual income over $100,000 (33.5% at similar institutions), while less than 10% come from families with annual income below $50,000 (16.6% at similar institutions). Additionally, 52% of students (41% at similar institutions) have no concerns about their ability to finance their college education, 42% (50% at similar institutions) have some concerns, and 5% (9% at similar institutions) have major concerns. The undergraduate student population of the institution is three-fourths white. The comparatively large population of students from high-income families, coupled with the high percentage of white students, makes the context of the institution particularly distinct for lower-classed/low- income white students (Titus, 2006b). Lower-classed white students are surrounded by peers who share their racial identity, but are unlikely to share a family income/social class background. In fact, the majority of their white peers are likely to come from very different social class backgrounds and assume that lower-classed students are from similarly wealthy families (Kunstman et al., 2016). Within this context, I posited that opportunities for lower-classed white students to engage in antiracist identity formation are distinct and offer unique insights. This is both because their marginalized class identity tempers their experience and perceptions of their white identity, and because of the relative isolation of this population of students at this institution. Sampling strategies. Purposeful sampling strategies were utilized, including criterion sampling and snowball sampling (Creswell, 2014). Participants were recruited for this study through personal recommendations from university staff and faculty. I asked staff and faculty members for recommendations of students who self-identify as white and low-income, working class, or poor, and that the staff or faculty member knows has some degree of an antiracist white identity. I first asked faculty and staff with whom I have a previous relationship, requesting not only potential participants, but also recommendations or introductions to other faculty or staff I should ask. These included my own program department, staff around the division in which I work, and others whom I know from my time at the institution. Lastly, I asked faculty in programs known to engage in critical pedagogy and scholarship, such as Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Black World Studies, and Social Justice Studies. I also asked participants to recommend any peers who may not have already received an invitation or did not express interest, but identify as a low-income, working class, or poor white student who has similarly engaged in critical reflection. Recruiting participants took multiple asks of the same faculty and
64 staff, as well as the matriculation of a new class at the beginning of a new academic year. The full process occurred over the span of eight months. This population of students seemed to be well-hidden on campus. The message to faculty and staff that asks for nominations of participants, as well as the subsequent invitation to participants, are available in Appendices A and B. Sampling criteria. Criteria for participation in my study included current undergraduate enrollment at or recent graduation (within one year) from the main campus of the institution, self-identification as working class, low-income, or poor during college, and a self-described antiracist white identity. Allowing participants to self-identify as low-income, working class, or poor is aligned with positioning participants as knowers in a constructivist study and communicates a level of trust between myself and the participant. Interviewing participants with a self-described antiracist white identity also aligns with a constructivist paradigm, while intertwining the critical paradigm inherent in an antiracist white identity. I did not restrict my sample to students with a certain number of credit hours or to currently enrolled students, as I was interested in antiracist identity formation, whether it occurs before or during college attendance. I was also interested in reflections on this formation from various vantage points, including post-graduation. Once a student contacted me to indicate their interest in participation, I sent the individual a short online survey (available in Appendix C). The survey included questions about the individual’s major, hometown, gender identity, and their understandings of their social class and of critical whiteness. I asked the individual to write 2-3 sentences about their understanding of their own social class and what qualifies them/their family for this social class identity. I also asked the individual to write 2-3 sentences about how they understand their white identity and what it means to be white. The information from this survey assisted in determining their eligibility for the study and to gauge the representativeness of the sample. One potential participant was determined not to be eligible, based on responses related to their understanding of their white identity. After determining initial eligibility for participation, my advisor and I discussed the implications and limitations of any demographic overrepresentation on my findings and analysis. Given my recruitment through many faculty in academic programs related to culture and social justice, overrepresentation of the College of Arts and Science occurred. Additionally, all
65 participants identified as a cisgender woman. My advisor and I decided to proceed with the current participants and note academic college and gender as limitations and interesting findings in the study. Although a given participant may be the only individual in the study who holds a specific identity or characteristic, I worked to ensure that the participant’s experience does not represent the experience of all individuals who share that characteristic. Sample size. The final number of participants was not known until the study commenced and participant characteristics (noted above) were examined. Data saturation, meaning that no new perspectives are being offered, is often a goal of qualitative research (Creswell, 2014). However, I did not want to pursue that goal, given the focus of narrative inquiry on the individual story. I focused on the variety of individual stories of antiracist white identity formation at the intersection of these two social identities, rather than attempting to attain a complete understanding, which I view as impossible. I initially sought to recruit 8-10 participants as a starting point for my study and simply to have a goal, rather than starting my study without a numerical target (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003). Eight participants fully completed the study. The richness of the data from this number of participants provided nuance and variety in the stories that emerged. The final number of participants was an ongoing discussion with my advisor throughout the data collection process. Participants. The final study sample consisted of eight students, all of whom identify as a cisgender woman. Three participants were completing their first year during the study, three were in their second year, one in her junior year, and one whose interviews took place between her junior and senior years. Five participants grew up in Ohio and two were from outside the state. One participant moved to Ohio shortly before high school. Participants were pursuing majors across campus, though most were completing at least one major in the College of Arts and Science.
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Pseudonym Year Residency Major(s) Anne First Year Ohio Global & Intercultural Studies and [Behavioral Science] Becky Sophomore Ohio Spanish and [dis-identified] Beth First Year Ohio Anthropology Charlotte Junior Out of State Sociology and [Behavioral Science] Haley Sophomore Ohio Health-Related Jane First Year Ohio/Out of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality State Studies and [Behavioral Science] Pamela Junior/Senior Ohio [Behavioral Science] Penelope Sophomore Out of State Social Justice Studies Table 3.1 Participant Demographics Data Collection The primary method for gathering data was semi-structured individual interviews. Interviews provided participants opportunities to share their experiences of identity formation through stories in a conversational manner, eliciting the depth that is a hallmark of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Semi-structured interviews allowed for flexibility and the exploration of experiences and meanings that I did not consider when creating the interview protocol (Merriam, 2009). In November 2017, I conducted a pilot interview to inform data collection in this study. The student I spoke with was a currently enrolled student who possessed an antiracist white identity, but identified as middle-classed, not as low-income/working class/poor. In our conversation, I asked many questions from the interview protocol and discussed the full protocol, the structure of the interview, and the text of the invitation to participate. The participant affirmed the structure of the interview and invitation to participate, and offered two suggested additions to the interview protocol. The student recommended the addition of questions regarding the influence of romantic relationships on antiracist white identity formation and on tensions experienced with family that resulted from the formation of an antiracist white identity. I did not incorporate these suggested questions in my interview protocol because similar questions were already included. I did, however, remain attuned to the possibility of these two factors in participants’ stories of development. When a participant told a story that alluded to
67 either of these factors, I asked probing questions to further explore their influence on the participants’ antiracist white identity formation. Number and spacing of interviews. I asked each participant to take part in two interviews, each lasting approximately 60 minutes, as well as a third conversation, designed as a member checking session. I offered to schedule a study room in a university building for each participant’s interviews, after confirming that the space was acceptable to the participant. I provided participants an informed consent agreement form that outlined their voluntary participation, the study procedures, the confidentiality of their responses and procedures used to protect confidentiality, their right to end participation at any time and the subsequent deletion of all data related to their participation, and the possibility of being contacted by me for clarification during the analysis process (Groenewald, 2004). This consent agreement is available in Appendix D. During this conversation, I also asked for their permission to use their demographic survey responses as data. I reviewed this form with each participant prior to the initial interview, then again prior to the second interview, and provide a verbal reminder prior to the member checking session. Each interview was audio recorded, with the permission of the participant. All participants consented to the structure of the study and to audio recording our conversations. I conducted individual interviews in a stacked manner, with the initial interview for two participants occurring during the first week. I then conducted each participant’s second interview the following week or the week after, minimizing the time between first and second interviews for individual participants. My goal was to maximize the amount of information a participant provided across both interviews. A short time between first and second interviews provided time for participants to further consider their responses during the first interview and follow up on those responses, without forgetting their thoughts before the second interview occurs. After two participants’ two interviews were completed, the next set of two participants was interviewed using the same structure. I repeating the structure until five participants completed two interviews, then conducted member checking sessions with those five. My goal in sharing findings with participants at the halfway point was to assist me in adjusting my protocol or focus in interviews with remaining participants (Merriam, 2009). After conducting member checks with the first five participants, I did not find a need to adjust my interview protocol.
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Interview format and content. A two-interview and member checking session structure allowed for follow-up questions that arose from the first two interviews. Semi-structured interviews allowed me to gather similar data from all participants, while also allowing participants to discuss issues related to their experience that I did not originally consider (Merriam, 2009). The first interview was largely unstructured with broad questions to elicit rich narratives regarding participants’ experiences before college. Depending on the flow of the conversation and the individual participant, discussion moved into when the participant was introduced to concepts of racism and class marginalization and began exploring their identities in relation to those concepts. I used probing questions as necessary to elicit more information. The first interview proceeded at a pace dictated by the participant, as I worked to build rapport and encouraged the participant to share their experiences, responding to the questions that are most relevant to them (Patton, 2002). At the end of the first interview, I provided an opportunity for the participant to talk about anything not yet asked, to expand on a topic or story, and to ask questions about my background and the project. Some participants quickly reached their college experience, while others spoke at-length about their childhood and early recognition of race or class in their lives. The second interview began with another opportunity for the participant to ask questions or expand on thoughts from the first interview and concluded with the same opportunity. The second interview focused (or continued to focus) on their antiracist white identity formation and more on the impact of experiences during college on this development and on their current conceptualizations of their antiracist white identity. The interview protocol is available in Appendix E. After each interview occurred, I reviewed that transcript as a standalone document to make notes and prepare for the next session with that participant. Additional information about this process is explored in the Data Analysis section below. Conducting the member checking session after multiple participants have completed both interviews provided me with the opportunity to conduct a review of interview transcripts, with a dual focus both on the individual participant’s story and on comparing across the group to identify common themes. I wrote a summary of the participant’s individual story and sent it to the participant for review before we met for the member checking session. Each summary included experiences they shared, arranged by themes that arise, other pieces of their story that stood out to me, and a general summary of findings common across the participants that have
69 were interviewed to that point. Additional information about these member checking sessions is explained in the Data Analysis and Trustworthiness sections. All three sessions included explicit opportunities for participants to discuss any topics about which I did not yet ask. I took notes during all interviews to record affective aspects of sessions that may not be captured in the audio recording, such as facial expressions, body language, and emotions, and record follow-up questions that arise from the interviews (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011). Immediately following each session, I often dictated field notes, including information describing the setting of the interview and initial impressions or hunches arising from participant responses (Emerson et al., 2011). This was a direct attempt to present context-rich descriptions of students’ experiences to assist readers’ understanding of the experiences (Geertz, 1973, as cited in Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014). Data Analysis Data analysis in this study marked the stronger presence of a critical lens in examinations of participants’ stories and experiences, specifically searching for the explicit and implicit manifestations of whiteness and white supremacy in the way participants discussed and understood the formation of their antiracist white identity. However, I do not want participants’ stories to “become secondary figures cast in a demonstrative role” at the intersection of oppression and privilege (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 140). I sought to both tell individual stories of antiracist white identity formation and to “illustrate how the social narrative[s]” (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000, p. 132) of white supremacy and class marginalization shaped those stories (Christensen & Jensen, 2012). Narrative inquiry does not prescribe a specific process for data analysis, but rather allows the researcher to “do what is necessary to capture the lived experience of people in terms of their own meaning making” (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003, p. 260). I began analysis after the first interview, focusing only on the individual participant and not yet on themes that arise across participants. I reviewed the individual’s transcript closely to re-place myself in the midst of the participant’s stories as they were told, noting ideas and themes that seemed important to the participant through emphasis or multiple mentions of the topic or idea (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Josselson & Lieblich, 2003). These included instances, people, and experiences that influenced their antiracist white identity formation. I paid attention to the temporal (past, present, future), personal/social (inward and outward), and place
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(context of the institution) aspects of the participant’s stories to understand the stories as thoroughly as possible (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). I annotated transcripts and wrote memos to form initial impressions, and made note of anything I wanted to revisit during the second interview. After each interview with a participant, I also wrote a short summary of the interview to capture salient themes in a format that can be readily reviewed. Prior to the second interview with each participant, I again reviewed the summary and memo from the first interview to reorient myself to this participant and any themes I wanted to explore during the second interview. After the second interview, I repeated the process of reviewing the interview transcript to create a summary and memo, first looking specifically at this second interview, then drawing connections across both interviews. This served as the starting point of my construction of the participant’s overall narrative. I used these notations and memos to draft the summary of the participant’s story of their antiracist white identity formation, including salient themes that seemed to arise in multiple places. These notations and themes formed the beginnings of my codebook, which included experiences that influenced their antiracist white identity formation, current conceptualizations of their antiracist white identity, and initial ideas regarding manifestations whiteness and white supremacy in their antiracist white identity formation. I returned to this draft for each individual after completing interviews with the first half of my participants, reviewing the summaries as a group to create the themes that were common across participants. This process further refined my codebook. The common themes formed the second part of the personalized document I wrote and sent to each participant prior to the member checking session. An example of this document is available in Appendix F. I reviewed this summary and the summary of each of the participant’s first two interviews prior to the member checking session. During the member checking session, participants had the opportunity to provide feedback regarding both my summary of their own story and the general themes for all participants, noting the extent to which both resonate with or refute their understanding of their identity formation. I also recorded these sessions and reviewed the transcripts for additional insight into each participant’s story. After all three in-person sessions occurred for a participant, I again reviewed the full body of data for each participant, including transcripts, memos, and their individual summary. Throughout this review, I focused on specific statements or stories that related to my two
71 research questions. I organized these statements and stories to form the outline of my analytic narrative for the participant (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). Each narrative is composed of individual stories and experiences that illustrate the overall story of the participant, given that “narrative explanation derives from the whole” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 7). As I wrote the narrative for each participant, I noted themes and ideas that relate to those expressed by other participants. These themes and the overall summary I wrote prior to the member checking session formed the basis of my overall analysis. This data collection and analysis process was repeated with the second half of my participants. During this second iteration, I intentionally looked for themes that arose in the first half of analysis, while remaining open to new themes and nuances that arose. No new major themes arose during the second half of data collection. After all data analysis for each participant concluded, I composed my overall analysis of themes that arose in participants’ experience of antiracist white identity formation. Though I focused on race and class, I also made note of and attempted to remain attuned to places where other forms of oppression and privilege influenced participants’ experiences and antiracist white identity formation, such as gender expression, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability (Christensen & Jensen, 2012). Throughout the analysis phase with each half of my participants, I engaged with multiple people to review my analysis and initial findings. This process and other efforts related to trustworthiness are described later in this chapter. Ethics Qualitative research naturally involves questions and considerations related to ethical issues. These questions are beyond the typical IRB requirements of assigning pseudonyms and other measures for assuring confidentiality (Magolda & Weems, 2002). Qualitative inquiry must also attempt to minimize harm that may result from the intimate nature of (re)telling individuals’ life stories for the purposes of exploring a particular experience or phenomenon. All possible ethical dilemmas could not have been mitigated before I began the study, and I intentionally worked to remain aware of potential ethical concerns as I proceeded through all stages. Smith (1989, as cited in Magolda & Weems, 2002) cautions that researchers must also take into account the particular context and be ready to address ethical considerations as they arise: An interpretive researcher cannot come to a study with a pre-established set of neutral procedures, but can only choose to do some things as opposed to others based on what
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seems to be reasonable given his or her interest and purposes, the context of the situation and so on. (pp. 156-157) Below, I outline the measures I took to address ethical concerns related to my study. Confidentiality Although confidentiality is a standard aspect of research, the nature of my study and of my own role at the institution necessitated additional measures and careful planning. The combination of participant characteristics such as gender, major, hometown, and student organization membership potentially made the individual relatively easy to identify, especially for participants that were referred to me by staff or other students. I not only used pseudonyms for all participants’ names, but also used generic terms to de-identify other characteristics (e.g. “rural hometown out of state”, “feminist student organization”) that could have revealed the participant’s identity. The uses of any pertinent characteristics and details was at the discretion of the participant. However, permission to share a story or other detail does not guarantee its inclusion in the study, as I also used discretion to minimize the possibility of the participant being identified by a future reader of this dissertation. For some participants, I intentionally left out stories of particularly meaningful experiences because the unique nature of the story put their confidentiality at risk. My professional role as a full time employee of the institution often places me in contact with students and their parents and family members. While these instances are most often with first-year students and their families and at a surface level, there was still a potential that a student interested in participating in the study will have closer contact. During the recruitment process, I planned to exclude participants if my professional role placed me in any type of position to evaluate or supervise them or have close contact with their parent or family member. Possible examples included being an undergraduate associate in a class I regularly teach, serving as an orientation leader, or being the child of a member of the board of parents with which I work. To minimize the chances of this occurring, I clearly stated both my status as a doctoral student and my professional position in the initial meeting with each potential participant. One participant in the study formerly held a position over which I had partial supervisory responsibilities, but the participant completed the role prior to taking part in the study.
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Who Benefits from the Study? I recognize that I am certain to accrue benefits from interacting with and learning about my participants’ life stories. Earning a doctorate brings benefits that continue throughout my lifetime. These benefits include credibility with colleagues on campus, the potential for increased compensation in my professional role, and a positive impact on my job advancement in the field. As addressed in Chapter One, I hope participants benefit from this study through both deeper reflection regarding their identities and through inspiration to engage in more conversations with white peers regarding whiteness and white supremacy. My hope is that discussions regarding participants’ own antiracist white identity formation and the (lack of) opportunities they observe for similar development at the institution also inspired and empowered them to engage their peers in such conversations. To these ends, I provided participants with a small collection of articles and materials to both help continue their reflections on their white identity and provide strategies for resisting systemic racism and engaging their white peers. This engagement is not without risk to participants, who may experience negative social consequences among their peers, as well as from faculty and staff. An additional potential for harm lies in the matters of confidentiality outlined above. Participants may describe events or relationships on campus that can negatively impact their standing with an organization, office, staff member or faculty member with whom they are affiliated. Describing issues of class marginalization and manifestations of white supremacy on campus can be seen as a negative reflection on a specific person or organization, which may bring retaliation upon the student. Thus, assuring confidentiality through de-identification will assist in preventing this harm to participants. Trustworthiness Narrative inquiry seeks to re-tell participants’ stories in ways that are true to the individual’s experience and their intentions in telling the story to the researcher (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). I did not seek a singular truth or interpretation about the experiences of participants at the intersection of these identities, but recognized the role of individual participants in constructing their realities and the existence of multiple realities and truths (Merriam, 2009). This also applied to my interpretations of their experiences, which meant I must make plain my efforts to increase the “relative plausibility of [my] interpretation when
74 compared to other specific and plausible alternative interpretations” (Mischler, 1986, p. 113). There are several strategies that increase the level of trustworthiness of credible reflections of participants’ experiences in narrative studies, including sustained engagement with participants and data, member checking, peer debriefing, researcher reflexivity, and the use of thick, rich description. Sustained Engagement with Participants and Data Prolonged time spent with participants and their stories is imperative when “trying to get as close as possible to participants’ understandings” of their experiences (Merriam, 2009, p. 219). This means not only spending time with participants, but adequately thinking through interview questions, mentally preparing for interviews, and re-reading and reflecting on interviews throughout the collection and analysis process. Adequate engagement with the data and participants also entails “looking for data that support alternative explanations” or experiences of the phenomenon being studied (Patton, 2002, p. 553). Searching for and collecting many possible iterations of an experience will strengthen the analysis (Merriam, 2009). There is not a specific amount of time, number of participants, or number of explanations that fulfills the goal of prolonged engagement, but a sense that I have gleaned “more than [I] will ever be able to contain and communicate” and “feel [I] have [data] of interest to write about” (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003, p. 267). As a new researcher, there was a potential for me to reach the saturation point early in the study, but regular conversations with my advisor assisted me in assessing the level of saturation. These conversations are discussed below in the peer debriefing section. Member Checking Providing my participants the opportunity to give me feedback on the summaries I write of their stories and my subsequent interpretations was not an option, but a requirement in a constructivist study. Maxwell (2005) posits that member checking is “the single most important way of ruling out the possibility of misinterpreting the meaning of what participants say” (p. 111, as cited in Merriam, 2009, p. 217; Creswell, 2014). As outlined in my description of the data analysis process, I gave participants multiple opportunities to ask questions and give feedback about the study and my interpretations of their stories. During each interview, I provided dedicated time for them to ask questions and discuss anything not yet asked or at greater length
75 than already discussed. I created summaries for each participant after their two interviews that served as the basis for the formal member checking session. I believe that participants were able to recognize themselves in their individual summary and in the themes that arose across participants, though I may have used different words to describe their experiences (Merriam, 2009). I also intended that these summaries provide participants with a holistic overview of their antiracist white identity formation process, as I understood it. Member checking is one instance where a critical paradigm overshadowed a constructivist paradigm. Although I was focused on participants’ understanding of their antiracist white identity formation, my own critical paradigm did not allow me to ignore areas and instances where they continued to perpetuate problematic whiteness. Given that these participants are, by definition of participation in the study, open to exposing and changing places where they perpetuate systemic racism, naming these instances served as a basis for their further reflection and development. As the researcher, I held the power in the relationship with study participants, ultimately deciding what is included in the final analysis and how the participants’ experiences are interpreted and depicted. Participants’ voices must not be overshadowed by my voice or “deprived of their own voice” by the requirement of confidentiality (Mischler, 1986, p. 125). Member checking was one strategy to minimize the chance that their voices are not adequately included in the analysis (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) and intentionally provide participants the opportunity to exercise a measure of control over the study (Mischler, 1986). Peer Debriefing Discussing my reactions, initial hunches, and thinking process with other researchers will help to deepen my analysis and provide another check on my interpretations of participants’ experiences (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 2009). I engaged in peer debriefing in two ways. The first way was during the analysis stage and occurred with another doctoral student who identifies as possessing an antiracist white identity and is researching aspects of critical whiteness and college students. He has engaged in critical whiteness work for many more years and has a more well-formed antiracist white identity than I do. His perspective assisted me in uncovering places for my own further development and ways my analysis may have perpetuated white supremacy. He also identifies as coming from a low-income/working class family, which is a particularly important perspective, given that I do not share that identity with my
76 participants. This conversation assisted me in deeply exploring my analysis and served as a place to discuss my first experience of the research process, which he was also undergoing. The second method of peer debriefing was through regular meetings with my advisor, which were ongoing conversation throughout data collection and analysis. The continuous nature of these conversations provided me with a level of insight not available through the one- time debriefing conversations with peer doctoral students. Conversations with my advisor also served as opportunities to engage with a researcher who has conducted constructive and critical research. I discussed experiences related to the process of conducting qualitative research, as well as the plausibility of my interpretations and their congruency with the data I gathered (Mischler, 1986). Researcher Reflexivity Reflexivity throughout the research process is of paramount importance to conducting a high quality study (Merriam, 2009). I did not come to this work without my own assumptions, biases, and life experiences; and my choice of this topic “implies a particular interest, station, or vantage point in life” (van Manen, 1990, p. 40). Thankfully, “narrative research does not assume objectivity” (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003, p. 271), yet demands that I explored and make available aspects of myself, my identity, and my assumptions that may influence the study (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). I attempted to do so earlier in this chapter as a starting place, which “decreases the possibility that they will be projected onto the participants” (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003, p. 271). My developing critical lens and my value for equity influenced me to pursue the doctorate and this study, and continued to influence me in all phases of this research project. Reflexivity did not end with outlining my identity and possible influences on the study, but I “continue[d] reflecting about the role of self throughout the project” (Josselson & Lieblich, 2003, p. 271) in a way that strove to uncover these influences in the moments and interactions with participants that were the heart of the study. During the data collection and analysis processes, I maintained a journal that assisted me in this end. This journal was separate from the memos I composed after interviews, where I recorded initial hunches and impressions about the stories told by participants. In this journal, I recorded my own emotions in reaction to interactions with participants, thought processes related to ongoing decisions I made throughout the study, and how I arrived at my interpretations, with the goal of understanding how my own
77 identity influenced my work. I recorded these reactions as they occurred; after an interview concluded, while I listened to or analyzed a transcript, or as I composed themes or interpretations. I was then be able to return to this journal for further individual reflection and during the regular meetings with my advisor to process the influences on my study. Use of Thick, Rich Description: Transferability Gaining a full understanding of a study’s results aids in the reader’s ability to incorporate findings into a setting outside the study’s original context. A thick, rich description aids in this aspect of trustworthiness by enhancing transferability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985); and the strength of narrative inquiry “derives from the whole” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 7), rather than a description of any one specific aspect. This includes a “highly descriptive, detailed presentation” (Merriam, 2009, p. 227) of the setting, participants, and findings to increase the reader’s ease of assessing similarity between the study and their own setting. Thick, rich description does not just mean details about the room where the interview occurred and the nonverbal actions of the participant, though this information may also be helpful for readers (Miles et al., 2014). This level of description also includes the “character and physical environment” (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990, p. 9), so that the reader can understand both the current nature of the context, as well as the past and the likely future that shape the present. Presenting these details extends to findings, including quotes from participant interviews, memos, and other documents that aid in the reader’s understanding of the physical and mental processes undertaken to reach the findings and conclusions (Merriam, 2009). Conclusion My intent in designing this study was to expand the understanding of the formation of an antiracist white identity among college students, specifically investigating the ways in which a marginalized social class identity influenced this process. I pursued the goal of this expanded understanding using constructivist narrative inquiry, adapted to include a critical worldview. I conducted two in-depth interviews and a member checking session with eight participants to provide sufficient variety of the experiences at this intersection. I read transcripts from these interviews multiple times to craft my analysis, in addition to member checking and peer debriefing, and next present a description that provides adequate context and information to gain a deeper understanding of this nuanced view of antiracist white identity formation.
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Chapter Four: Findings This chapter explores the variation in the antiracist white identity formation of lower- classed white college students. Each participant’s lived experiences provided different insights into the influence of social class on this process. I first present an individual narrative for each of the eight participants in the study, and then offer an overall analysis to highlight themes that arise across participants’ experiences. Each narrative in this chapter focuses on the participant’s experiences that are relevant to my research questions. My primary research question is “How do lower-classed white college students form an antiracist white identity at the intersection of their racial and social class identities?” My two corollary research questions are: How do the participants’ college experiences impact this antiracist white identity formation? and How do participants currently conceptualize their antiracist white identity?. I elicit themes across stories within each participant’s lived experience and relate the theme to the participant’s antiracist white identity formation. I strive to honor each participant’s construction of their lived experience and not overshadow this understanding with my own critical perspective. Consistent with a Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) perspective, however, I also include in each narrative some limited analysis related to systemic racial injustice and white supremacy. This analysis includes instances where I point out the influence of whiteness in participants’ current worldview, even if they did not see it. Each participant had the opportunity to review and provide feedback about my analysis during their member checking session. A more explicit incorporation of a CWS perspective is included in the overall analysis section in the second part of this chapter. Each narrative differs slightly in length and structure, owing to the uniqueness of each participant’s path to the formation of their antiracist white identity, as well as the extent of that formation. Consistent with narrative inquiry, I include many direct quotations from participants to focus on their understanding and to enhance the rich nature of the narrative. I removed names or other details from quotes that may reveal a participant’s identity, using generic replacements in brackets. Similarly, I protect confidentiality by employing select obfuscation of details, such as replacing a specific major with the broad subject area in which it falls. In some cases, I also omitted a story or experience that provided substantial insight into the participant’s experience because there was no way to include it without risking confidentiality.
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Charlotte Charlotte is a junior and came to Miami from a nearby state. She comes off as shy, but possesses an infectious laughter and sense of humor, which is often infused with sarcasm. Charlotte is a stereotypical student leader. She is deeply involved in one part of campus, holding different leadership roles since her first year, but is also involved in several other areas and student organizations on campus. “All warehouses, then a school and some housing” Charlotte’s parents met working on the floor of a warehouse and have worked in warehouses for most of her life. Her dad, though past traditional retirement age and drawing Social Security, “doesn’t have a degree and has worked in a warehouse his entire life,” where he still works ten hour days. Charlotte’s mom has a bachelor’s degree and was able to progress from working on a warehouse floor—where she met Charlotte’s dad—to becoming a buyer and eventually a manager in a different warehouse. Charlotte lived in a “squarely working-class” city until she was almost ten, where most people worked at the warehouses that filled the city. She described this city as “all warehouses, then a school and some housing, and that’s basically it.” Charlotte then moved to the next city over, into a neighborhood she describes as “a mix between working-class and lower-middle-class,” with “a lawyer who lived down the street” and another “neighbor who works at the casino and his wife works at a retail store.” Charlotte described the city she moved to as “half and half” when asked about the range of social classes and neighborhoods. Half of the city is “people that work in a warehouse and stuff like that,” and the other half are “really nice houses and people’s parents commute” into the nearby larger city where they are “lawyers and that sort of thing.” Most of her friends lived in the wealthier neighborhoods, even though she did not share their social class. The city was “very very white” and Charlotte can think of just “a couple of African American families” in her high school. She played basketball throughout her youth and she can recall “two African American players out of 25 or 30.” The team in high school was made up of “way more upper-middle class” students, with a few “that were maybe lower-middle class or working class.” She remembers when three foreign exchange students came to her high school her senior year, which “was a big deal” for the school.
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Charlotte recognizes that her hometown and area “is maybe not the place that [she] want[s] to end up in.” The area, “in many ways is a great place to grow up in, and in many ways [she’s] glad to get out of there.” This recognition helped drive her college search process. “This is your debt” and “your funeral” Charlotte’s parents “used to fight about money a lot,” which instilled in her a heightened awareness of money. She contrasts this awareness with her younger brother, who was not old enough to remember when their family experienced more financial strain. Simultaneously, her parents instilled in Charlotte values of working hard, being “humble with what you have,” and that a lack of money does make you less of a person. Charlotte is “proud of these values and tr[ies] to have them in every sense of [her] life.” Disparities in neighborhoods within Charlotte’s city contributed to her awareness of social class. Her elementary school was, “because of zoning, more like working class” families. When Charlotte went to middle school, she noticed disparities in where she lived versus some of her peers. Though Charlotte remembers making jokes about “going to this neighborhood [where her friends lived], like ‘Wow!’,” she also remembers frequent derisive comments about the elementary school she attended and where she lived in the city. When Charlotte was planning for college, she knew she “wanted to get away from home,” but also “that money would be an issue” in determining where she went to college. Before visiting Miami, Charlotte was unaware of the “super rich and super white” stereotypes about the student population. She visited and settled on Miami as her top choice, “but then it was [about] money again, so [she] waited for two days before the deadline to choose.” While her mom supported her throughout the process, she told Charlotte that “‘This is your debt, so you can do whatever you want, but this is a stupid decision’” to choose Miami. Charlotte persisted, saying “‘Mom, this is what I want,’” and her mom replied with a statement to the effect that it’s “‘your funeral’ sort of thing.” Charlotte readily identifies differences in peers’ views of money, which is something she “think[s] about a lot.” She has always had to work, and her high school jobs included working at a restaurant and working in a warehouse. Peers at the restaurants were there only “because their parents made them,” and they viewed money “sort of like a throwaway sort of thing.” Charlotte has also held a job during most of college, saying she’s “got to be working,” especially over the summer. Many of her “friends’ parents pay for their college” and they also have different views
81 around money. When searching for an off-campus apartment, her friends were quick to settle on a place and ready to commit to it. However, Charlotte wanted to “talk about price” and had to disclose that she did not know if she could pay for the apartment. Charlotte frequently finds herself in conversations at Miami where peers insert statements such as “my mom went to college, and this is what she says about college” or “my parents went to graduate school, and this is what they say about graduate school.” Charlotte’s “mom did go to college, but no one else in [her] family did,” so “navigating that is sort of hard.” Charlotte feels that her inability to contribute college-related words of wisdom from her family reveals her lower-classed background to her peers. When she does talk about her parents, she finds an even larger disconnect, particularly when talking about her dad and how he is one of the most important people in my life and how all the stuff he’s been through, and [then saying] ‘He goes and works at a warehouse for 10 hours a day. He’s like 66 years old.’ And I think that, sometimes, I wonder how much of that they really understand. Charlotte thinks that her peers cannot understand how she would look up to someone without a college degree who works in a blue collar job. She has heard peers make off-handed comments such as “I don’t want to grow up and work at McDonald’s.” Charlotte immediately connects this comment to her dad, who “doesn’t work at McDonald’s, but he doesn’t have a degree and has worked in a warehouse his entire life.” Charlotte’s dad exemplifies the values of hard work, humility, and that having less does not make one less of a person. “The stuff I heard day in and day out from all members of my family superseded anything I ever heard from my friends” Charlotte’s immediate family recognizes and rejects overt forms of racism. However, she has many memories of statements made by her grandpa that she recognized as racist or at least “sort of odd.” Her grandparents are very important to her and “they are also very conservative and also come from a very working-class background.” Charlotte and her brother “talked about how we love our grandpa dearly, but he’s certainly racist. And my grandma’s sort of also a racist, but more quiet about it.” Her grandparents are both from Tennessee and he would talk about growing up in Jim Crow South, and sometimes he says these things … He’ll equate sometimes … He was really poor and his dad ran out on him, and there were seven kids. . . He lived in close proximity to the African
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American community. And sometimes he’ll equate those two things … Like he talks about the things that the African American community had to face that he did. He would also “talk about the friends he had that were black” and Charlotte could recognize that her grandpa was making the “‘I have a black friend so I’m not racist’” argument. She remembers that “I didn’t agree with the parallel, but I also didn’t really know why.” At this point in her life, Charlotte and her brother were “not sure why he said those things. [They] didn’t know if it made him feel less racist,” but both recognized the overt and implied racism of his comments. When she talked to her mom about this, Charlotte would say that “he’s sort of racist,” to which her mom would remind her to “think about when he grew up.” Charlotte was careful to both distance herself from her grandpa’s worldviews and to express her love for him and his role in her life. Navigating this tension is something Charlotte has had to do in her own mind and, somewhat differently, in conversations with her immediate family. Her senior year of high school, Charlotte became closer with a group of peers who lived in a wealthier neighborhood in her town and “had very different experiences than [she] did, even though [they] live so close together.” Her best friend’s parents both work in the technology industry and have a house in the nicest part of Charlotte’s town. Charlotte remembers that her friend’s parents talked about racial privilege, and then she and her friends “would talk about these things because her parents would.” Overall, Charlotte described this group of friends as “more liberal and more politically active, at least in political conversations,” and that her friend group was “described as super liberal in the high school that we come from.” These conversations about white racial privilege “would stick with” Charlotte and she remembers thinking that “this is an interesting thought.” However, messages about class marginalization and the overall lack of privilege that she “heard day in and day out from all members of [her] family superseded anything” else. Charlotte’s marginalized class identity prevented her from recognizing and accepting that she possesses a privileged racial identity. Reflecting back on it now, she recognizes that when there's a stereotype and when you see things that confirm the stereotype, that means more in your mind than the things that don't. And so, you know, not even just from my family but most of the people that my parents hung out with or that I spent my time with, it was as constant sort of like... My parents loved the show Roseanne, right, because my dad said that Roseanne was someone my dad can relate to, more than anyone on TV that
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had a lot of money. And so I think that's superseded anything I could have ever heard from my friend’s parents. These messages came from her parents and the majority of those in her community. One vivid memory Charlotte has from her senior year was a student in her school who received a diversity- based scholarship to the flagship institution in the state. The student’s “family was very wealthy” and “people were really mad about it when they found out.” She remembers sentiment like “‘Yeah he’s Korean, but does it matter? He has all this money. He can pay to go to school.’” Charlotte shared similar feelings at the time. She now recognizes that her socialization into whiteness was much stronger than any singular conversations about racial privilege with her friend’s parents and her discomfort with her grandpa’s comparisons with his black peers, which were both anomalies in a childhood characterized by colorblind whiteness. “Felt like an attack sometimes” Charlotte recognizes that Miami “is certainly not the most diverse school ever, but definitely more diverse than” her hometown. She was quickly confronted with additional conversations and experiences that forced her to again examine at her worldviews. Initially, her lower-classed, white socialization outweighed these instances and she resisted acknowledging her own privilege as a white person. Charlotte repeatedly stated that she does not “buy into” the stereotypical perception of Miami students as white, “snobby, rich people.” She does not “find them to be snobby in any way, but they are wealthy,” which caused Charlotte to distinguish herself from her wealthier peers. Clarifying further, she said And I think that the rich part is true, to a certain extent. And I recognize that not everyone that goes here has a lot of money. . .but I think that, at least the people that I've met, that I'm really close with now. . .never said “Oh, I have a lot of money.” But then as I got to know them more, I was like “Wow you do have a lot of money!” And so I think that I was surprising to me, and so I do think that I sort of buy into that stereotype, but not in a negative way. It’s just like they do have a lot of money, that’s just their family. The fact that these were wealthy peers of color and white peers further reinforced Charlotte’s socialization that she does not have privilege because of her class identity, regardless of her race. Charlotte’s first year roommate was a peer of color from a working class family who also “has a hard time paying for stuff.” When her roommate discussed the difficulties of finding friends of color on campus, Charlotte’s initial thought was “we’re friends and you can talk with
84 me about those experiences.” Her roommate responded that “‘I appreciate your support . . . but it’s just different. I appreciate having my friends who are white and also, there are struggles I don’t feel like you can understand.’” Charlotte found this “hard for [her] to handle as a friend,” and felt that their shared class identity should have made it possible to be a close support. Another of Charlotte’s early close friends and her second year roommate is a peer of color from a wealthy family who “would talk about her family and her own experiences. And she’ll make jokes about being a black person as Miami” and discuss how isolating it can be to be one of “two people of color in the 75 person class.” These statements “felt like an attack sometimes” to Charlotte as a white person. She was initially “sort of resistant” to the validity of these statements, believing this peer “‘cannot possibly understand me because you have grown up in a very different situation, especially surrounding money.’” While Charlotte understood “that her [friend’s] experience is different from [hers] on one level” because of race, the extent of difference “never really sunk in.” Initially, her marginalized social class was a barrier to understanding race-based experiences of friends of color and acknowledging her own racial privilege. The values instilled by her family—hard work, humility, that having less does not make you less of a person—were “situated a lot around like money and success in life, and not so much about race” and further reinforced her resistance. However, interactions with close peers of color forced Charlotte to ask herself questions such as “‘What have I done? What kind of advantages. . . What does it mean that I'm white? What does it mean that I'm working class?’” These questions were the beginning of examining the ways that her white racial identity interacted with other identities to shape her own experiences. “I guess just like constant immersion, maybe.” During her second semester of college, Charlotte took her first sociology course, which is now one of her majors. She has “always been interested in sociology” and said that this class “was like ‘Let’s delve into privilege.’” The professor in this class, a white woman, served as a role model and Charlotte could “rant about her forever and ever.” This course forced Charlotte to reflect deeply about “the advantages or experiences that [she’s] had that [she’s] never had to look at” because of privilege. During this semester, Charlotte remembers that she felt like an imposter in conversations with her friends of color about privilege. She was more “interested in these things and. . .has these ideas,” but she did not “know what these words mean.”
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Charlotte also became close during this semester with two white women who are both from wealthy families outside Ohio. They originally all played an intramural sport together, then “talked more and hung out more.” These two women would talk about issues related to oppression and white privilege and Charlotte again experienced feeling like an imposter. One of these two women is majoring in a social justice-related field and frequently talked about that when they were together. Charlotte would discuss her thoughts from sociology class or from hearing about the experiences of peers of color, giving her a space to process her incomplete and potentially problematic thoughts. This friend helped Charlotte draw parallels between different types of privilege and oppression. The other one of these women is one of Charlotte’s roommates now and they discuss these topics so frequently that “people joke about that [they] scream about it in the bathroom all the time and people can hear it.” Charlotte remains close with two of her friends from home that first introduced her to racial privilege. Though all three went to separate states for college and have “all started to think…to grow differently” in their own lives, they continue to think together through a group chat. This group chat is another safe space for Charlotte to share thoughts and struggles, this time with peers who understand her childhood experiences and are not harmed by any problematic statements Charlotte may make. Charlotte laughed when she said that they “sort of fuel each other’s fires” with their continuous conversations. Charlotte’s sexuality is an additional place from which she drew “parallels in terms of marginalization.” She sits in classes and can “get so angry because it’s very heteronormative.” Reflecting on it, she experiences this sort of frustration and anger… It just builds up and builds up and it makes me think about how other people might experience that. And I don't want to draw these parallels in ways that are offensive, but when I think about like little . . . like the death of a thousand paper cuts sort of thing. And how little things that maybe you. . . if I'm a black person seeing this or experiencing this on a daily basis, how that can build up and build up and be so frustrating and exhausting… On a level, I don't understand that specifically, but I get it in my own experience. Charlotte’s experiences with oppression based on her sexual orientation provided her with an opportunity to build empathy with other types of structural oppression, further forming her antiracist white identity.
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Charlotte’s class-based resistance to understanding whiteness slowly dissipated closer to the end of her first year in college, but she is unable to tell exactly what happened. Rather than a specific instance, she thinks it was the constant. . . I was around these people all the time. I would take this class, and then I'd go home and then I'll be like. . . The things that I heard all along or the things that I can no longer let them go… “What, that doesn't make any sense?” . . . So, I don't know. I would say like… I guess just like constant immersion, maybe. Around this same time, Charlotte experienced training on topics of diversity and cultural competence for a campus job. Charlotte had peers of color willing to discuss their experiences, white peers and faculty as role models and safe spaces to process her observations, her own marginalized sexuality, and classes that examined privilege and oppression from a theoretical view. Social justice topics, in general, are now “just something that [she] always talk[s] about” in the course of everyday conversations. These all combined to help Charlotte form her antiracist white identity and overcome the socialization of her upbringing, when she “put too much emphasis on social class.” Charlotte’s “social class is [still] important, but not in the way [she] made it out to be” when she was younger. “Individual change can spur institutional change” or “Something small will be said at Dairy Queen and we have a screaming match.” Charlotte used to feel “a ton of guilt” about being white and where that positions her in society, but “maybe not so much now.” Now, Charlotte makes sense of her white identity in a way that “means [she doesn’t] have to feel guilty about it, but that’s not enough.” She believes that feeling guilty for being white is not useful, “unless maybe that guilt drives the change” that a person works to enact. She knows that “I have this privilege and I can feel bad about it all I want, but that’s not going to change anything” about the system that provides the privilege. Charlotte thinks that the key is to push past the guilt to understand specifically that it is a system. You did not create that system. I did not create that system. But we’re a part of it, no matter what. And so we talk about the path of least resistance. And so everyday people follow the path of least resistance, instead of doing or saying something to resist the perpetuation of privilege and oppression. Charlotte readily admits that “I have certainly heard people say racist, sexist, whatever things and I have not said a word,” but she attempts to push “past the guilt and the feeling of ‘you did
87 this. It’s your fault.’” She does still feel guilt for the way she used to think. Even though Charlotte “was never super outwardly conservative,” she “ certainly had different thoughts than [she] do[es] now.” “Education is really big thing that’s important” in Charlotte’s life and she plans to go into education to be able to teach on subjects such as sociology. She “thinks[s] it’s really important that we don’t shy away from talking about race,” regardless of the composition of the group. However, she is still working through appropriate ways to educate and show up in different spaces. With white peers and family, Charlotte feels strongly that one of her roles is “directly confronting” problematic statements, even if it is difficult or unpopular. While Charlotte has let many of these opportunities pass, she is also proud of times when she has taken a stand, both in words and actions. Charlotte’s family is an ongoing source of tension related to her current understanding of systemic privilege and oppression. As she learned more and became more willing to confront problematic statements, “it became harder to be at home” and not say something each time, whether the comment is related to racism or another system. Charlotte was recently making gingerbread cookies with her mom, who continually used “gingerbread men” to describe the cookies, even “after many times of me being like ‘Mom don’t say that; they’re just people.’” When Charlotte said “‘the ginger people will be done soon,’” it was “enough to set her [mom] off. And then it became ‘You go to college and you think you’re better than we are’ sort of idea.” With Charlotte’s grandpa, “almost every single little thing can just make [her] mad, but [she] just won’t say anything, or something small will be said at Dairy Queen and [they] have a screaming match.” Her relationship with him has evolved, saying “even though it always made me uncomfortable, now I'm more uncomfortable with it than I was” when he makes racist statements. At the same time, she “get[s] what he's trying to say,” in that “not having class privilege in the society that we live in can feel sometimes like the most important thing.” Charlotte has not yet found the right formula for deciding when to say something or when to stay silent about a problematic comment by a family member. She also realizes that the ability to stay silent in the face of problematic comments is a form of privilege. Charlotte thinks “it can be less isolating to talk to your peers” at Miami, compared to her family or other people at home. There are typically “one or two people who are like ‘You know
88 what, maybe I’ve never thought about that before, but I can see that.’” She is not the only voice confronting problematic statements, nor does she experience fierce resistance to these concepts. In the sociology class her second semester of college, Charlotte “felt bolder, especially because [she] liked the professor,” and had a one-on-one heated debate in front of the entire class with a white peer about the merits of affirmative action. Similarly, in one of her campus jobs, Charlotte was the lone voice advocating that “we need to talk about these [race-related protests]” on campus and that “it is important to bring everybody into it,” rather than purposefully avoid such conversations. Beyond educating other white people, Charlotte “think[s] coalition-building is important” in dismantling systems of racial oppression. While Charlotte “can never fully understand what it’s like to be black,” she “can imagine what it’s like, and then be an ally” in efforts, taking the lead from people directly impacted by racism. However, she knows that allyship is not letting students of color “lead the charge and I’ll jump on your back.” Charlotte wants to make racism issues “not a black students’ problem,” but a problem that everyone has a role in changing. When she hears a white peer saying that “‘The black students think that this is not right,’” her reaction is to ask “‘Do you also think that that’s not right too?’” She wants to make it “‘we,’ rather than ‘they’” when discussing how to confront racial oppression. Charlotte also recognizes, however, that her role shifts in a space of primarily students of color. She said “I want to express my solidarity, but sometimes feel like I might not be representing it in the way I want to,” meaning she “doesn’t want it to seem like I’m taking over the space, or anything like that, because it’s not my space to take over.” Charlotte remembers being with a group of peers of color who were discussing being “the only black person” in a class, whereas she “see[s] people that look like [her] all the time.” She knew that “this is a listening sort of thing” and that she “will never be able to understand their experiences.” She still struggles in this area because she also values the ability for people to “express their opinions,” but is “not sure that that’s the space that is best for [her] to do that.” Charlotte recently attended an academic conference on racism, which was “the first time that [she’s] heard tons of people speak about” and focus on the problematic nature of “being colorblind.” Charlotte benefited greatly from this conference because she could draw connections to her family, from whom she learned “the ‘We’re all just people’ idea.” She admitted that she “probably even said many of these things, like ‘We’re all just people, why does
89 it even matter?’” The new understanding of the manifestations of colorblind racism has made her “more attuned to” statements that are implicitly racist and impacted how she resists problematic whiteness. Conclusion Charlotte was raised to avoid overt forms of racism and treat everyone equally, regardless of the color of their skin. She has always recognized the impact of her family’s social class identity on her childhood, but was unaware of the impact of her racial identity. Charlotte resisted acknowledging the existence of systemic racial privilege, instead focusing on her lack of class privilege. The accumulation of experiences with close peers of color, conversations with a couple of white peers about racial privilege, her own marginalized sexual orientation, academic coursework, and student leader training experiences caused Charlotte to reflect on and understand her individual racial privilege and systemic white supremacy, in general. She now recognizes the constant impact of her white privilege on everyday life, alongside the impact of her class identity. Charlotte has devised several strategies for decreasing her own exertion of white privilege and for resisting white supremacy. She continues to seek opportunities to educate herself about her own privilege and the systems of privilege and oppression in society. Penelope Penelope is a seemingly-bashful junior, from a small town out of state. She describes herself as a “super queer, tattooed, funny-haired person.” She is primarily involved in social justice spaces and organizations on campus. Penelope has a dry sense of humor, with a fiery passion that was evident multiple times during her interviews. “So everyone’s struggling a bit” When she was younger, Penelope moved around a lot and “lived in a lot of really nasty little places” in lower-class neighborhoods of her town. Penelope characterized the county she grew up in as “in a constant battle with one other for the poorest county in the state.” Many people there work in the service industry and the economy generally relies on tourism. Penelope grew up living with her mom, who mostly worked as a waitress. They lived paycheck to paycheck until very recently. Penelope turned five while living outside the United States, where they lived for a few months because her mom “was between jobs and it was easier to live on savings there than it was at home.” While living there, people frequently approached her mom and asked to touch Penelope’s hair for good luck because she was a “bright white child
90 with bright blonde hair.” Not too long after returning to the United States, Penelope and her mom moved in with the person she now considers her stepfather. She describes him as amazing and someone who “evened stuff out for a long time” in her family. Her stepfather is now in a managerial position at a building supply company and eventually moved Penelope’s family into a middle class neighborhood. Her parents “have a few friends that are gay” and a few that are immigrants to the United States, which Penelope understood as normal growing up. When she was a high school freshman, her mom and stepfather separated. She continued living with him, and still does when she goes home. Although her parents were “never really together,” Penelope’s fraternal grandparents have made substantial financial contributions to her education and healthcare. Her fraternal and maternal grandparents jointly paid for Penelope to attend a private, one-room elementary school. She then attended public schools for a few years before attending a private high school on financial aid. Her fraternal grandparents continue to fund her college education at Miami. “Felt very entitled and bad” The difference in income between her immediate family and her fraternal grandparents caused Penelope to “have a weird relationship with money and social class.” Although her fraternal grandparents fund her education, they do not contribute to her everyday expenses “because it wasn’t their kid parenting [her].” Penelope had a cousin who could ask for and receive things she would never get. Penelope’s constant proximity to family members with much more wealth created a unique experience around social class and values. Her mom “always really emphasized self- sufficiency and trying to put yourself in positions where you don’t need people.” Penelope saw this extend into romantic relationships, where her mom tried to “keep herself and [Penelope] kind of separate” from her partners. Penelope overheard many conversations of her grandparents offering financial support and her mom refusing the offers, which caused “a lot of passive- aggressivity between them.” She did not understand why her mom would refuse the assistance until she was much older. Penelope is now proud of her own self-sufficiency, especially when she compares herself to her grandparents, who she says “can’t really cope if they think something isn’t up to standard.” They are offended when anything happens because “it just doesn’t occur to them that they can’t buy the best treatment all the time.” This feeling extends to their family, such as when
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Penelope did not get an internship and they felt she was unfairly turned down. She sees this as “a disconnect when you’re in their position. . . To not be able to pay for something to happen or to intimidate something into happening, it’s just really overwhelming for them.” When Penelope was preparing to attend college, her grandparents encouraged her not to apply for financial aid because they could afford to pay for her costs of attendance. They told her she “shouldn’t take resources from people who need them,” even though Penelope clearly qualifies for financial aid. She felt that not accepting the money would exude entitlement, saying “if someone’s going to give you free money [because of high financial need], why won’t you take free money?” Penelope did not seem to perceive the irony of wanting to refuse “free money” from her grandparents in order to accept it from another. However, it was a stark example for her of how “they can’t seem to wrap their head around why [she] still feel[s] like [she’s] a different social class than they are.” Penelope’s maternal grandparents attempted to have conversations about class differences, both in income and values, and the larger systems of inequality that structure these differences. However, both sides of Penelope’s “entire extended family lives in a tri-county area, so [their] whole situation was more complicated than [her] mom wanted [her] to try and contend with.” To keep the peace in the family and not overtly denigrate her other grandparents, Penelope’s mom dissuaded these conversations any time they occurred. Her unique values and class experience were also salient when Penelope started attending public school. She drew a line between herself and others who shared a social class, which she “can only refer to as white trash.” Penelope characterized her lower-classed peers as lacking an emphasis on education and possessing an internalized sense of class position for life: “This is where I live and this is where I’m always going to live. I’m going to graduate and go get a job . . . and that’s going to be my life.” Penelope remembers that “conversations about that group for [her] were mostly people in [her] family expressing frustration” from interactions with this group. Her family works in many service roles and were frustrated when they perceived that people are being intentionally rude. Although Penelope shares a similar income, she made it clear that she holds different values and a different outlook on life. The people Penelope wanted to be around because they shared her sense of ambition “were very aware that they were upper-middle class and we weren’t.” She found herself between these two groups during her time in public school. This
92 changed when she went to the private high school, where most people were wealthy, but “there were also a lot of people there on scholarship.” At Miami, Penelope continues to navigate tension around her social class identity and educational experiences she’s been afforded because of her grandparents. She is not aware of the class makeup of the student population, but she gets the sense that lower-classed students “aren’t supposed to be here because there are wealthier people who are.” Penelope also feels a lot of guilt about calling myself anything but comfortably middle class because of the money my grandparents have put towards my education. It’s hard to tell people that I went to two different private schools, but also we were poor. Penelope’s relationship with money and social class is indeed complicated because of the financial support she has received from her grandparents, as well as the influences on values and ambition. This relationship is further complicated by Penelope’s (lack of) experiences with race before coming to college. “It’s amazing coming from that place of zero diversity and trying to get to a place of understanding” Penelope described home as a “super white town” in a “super white state,” with so little diversity that race “isn’t really brought up.” She repeated this sentiment multiple times, adding that the lack of the physical presence of black people removed the “platform for [racism] to come up on.” Barack Obama’s election was a time when Penelope remembers first hearing outwardly racist comments. She specifically mentioned her great-grandma, who is “very racist and very loud,” making comments like about “one of them in office.” Penelope also referenced racist “things on social media that would be shared from other places” during the 2008 election. Her great-grandma and social media “really brought [her] up to speed on the whole thing.” In addition to her great-grandma, Penelope knows she encounters “a lot of people who probably have racist feelings,” but those feelings are rarely voiced in her hometown. Penelope sees the lack of people of color as targets for racism in her town as an advantage in the formation of her antiracist white identity. The combination of coming from her home state, where she “never had to encounter racism in a real way,” and a family that modeled a diverse friend group decreased her socialization into problematic whiteness and white supremacy. Penelope thinks “there’s something to be said for just being taught that everybody is a person and not having any first-hand examples of people who think otherwise.” Importantly,
93 any time she “would say anything problematic, [her] parents would sit [her] down and say ‘No. Here is why you are wrong,’ instead of just telling [her] to shut up and not say that.” Penelope learned by both the example of her parents’ friend group and explicit lessons when she made a problematic statement. She characterized this as “a pretty good passive education, but also an active education on equity.” Penelope’s queer identity “was really [her] foray into social justice issues.” While “[her] family is really great about it, [she] come[s] from a place where it’s not an okay thing to be.” She believes that “being a problem for other people [outside her family] really was a nice primer for putting [herself] in the shoes of other people who are more visibly a [uses air quotes] problematic group.” It was a natural segue from learning about LGBTQ issues to other social justice issues. While she researched racism and white supremacy in the course of learning about LGBTQ issues during high school, “there wasn’t a great deal of a platform to talk about those things.” Penelope continued to learn more about various social justice issues, but did not have many concrete examples or opportunities to further develop her knowledge about racism in her hometown. When the time came for her college search, Penelope was aware enough of social justice issues that she “wanted to come here to do social justice as a major.” Originally, Penelope planned to major in another behavioral science and was interested in Miami for that major. She visited campus and skimmed a list of other majors available. She “found the social justice major was [she] was like ‘Oh, okay. I guess I’m coming to this school then.’” That was the end of her college search process. “It's been a series of puddle hops” Although Penelope recognizes “that Miami has a tragically low diversity rate,” she was around more people of color than ever before in her life. She experienced a “bit of a learning curve” as she learned about different types of diversity and the associated terminology. Penelope lived in a living learning community focused on social justice issues, with many people of color and people with LGBTQ identities. Penelope has gained most of her friends from her living learning community, which she described as a “percolator of people of new and different perspectives.” These friends and other peers of color have been the primary source of learning and challenging perspectives for Penelope.
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As she met different people and experienced culture shock being in a different region of the country, she learned “ways that [her] experience is different and [her] expectations are different.” One poignant experience was in a conversation with a peer of color where Penelope mentioned that the lack of racial diversity in her youth made it possible for her to not think about race as much. The peer responded that, while it’s nice that Penelope’s not a racist, there “‘are other cultural things, beyond the color that I am, that make me a black person.’” This difficult conversation Penelope forced her to consider if there are “cultural things that make [her] a white person.” This was Penelope’s first experience thinking about the culture and socialization of her whiteness, rather than seeing her customs, expectations, and values as normal. Her reflection on cultural aspects of whiteness were expanded in small and large ways, such as debating with a peer of color what is traditionally included in a holiday dinner. Penelope had a queer friend of color that she encouraged to join her at an LGBT student organization meeting each week. The peer repeatedly said “‘I want to, but I’m not going to,’” which exasperated Penelope. Eventually, when Penelope asked why she did not attend, her response was “‘because it’s not for me.’” This was another turning point in Penelope’s understanding of the power of race and whiteness. She said that the idea of. . .marginalized spaces being closed to intersectional people hadn’t really occurred to me, especially because there are people of color who show up, but they’re just not black overall. So that was a moment of realizing I could only go to a marginalized space because I’m white. [It] felt really weird and bad. Penelope assumed that a space for a marginalized identity would welcome all marginalized identities. However, understanding that many of her queer friends of color “intentionally don’t go to LGBT spaces on campus because they’re very white” changed this understanding. She now realizes that this is a “useful reminder that whiteness is threatening” and that part of white privilege is being allowed to forget that she’s white. Penelope traveled abroad one summer, spending two months alone, which she called crazy and awesome. As a “queer, monolinguistic, tattooed, funny-haired person,” she knew that she was “very obviously American.” Penelope felt “extremely, visibly othered for two months,” because of both her physical appearance and because “there was no person to take half of [her otherness] or buffer it” throughout the experience. She found it a good lesson in perspective that she can apply to understanding race in the U.S. Penelope observed overtly racist treatment of an
95 oppressed ethnic group while abroad, with majority people physically separating themselves and pulling her away from members of the oppressed group while waiting at a crosswalk, for example. Importantly, she also observed members of the oppressed group “get really scared and uncomfortable if you smile at them on the street or say hello.” These interactions further developed her understanding of the ingrained distrust that she has experienced with people of color in the U.S., even when she explicitly identifies as an ally. She “feel[s] fairly fortunate to have come along now, instead of 50 years ago” in the U.S. because of what Penelope perceives as more options for white allies to work with communities of color. Even though easier than in the past, Penelope still found that it’s hard, as a white person, to get invited to black community events, no matter how many black friends she has. She believes that the insular nature of the black community is “pretty solid evidence of racism and white supremacy” on campus. Once she began to perceive the pervasiveness of whiteness and racial oppression, Penelope realized that she cannot identify with the experience of being a person of color. This is the case even if the person shares a class identity with Penelope, as do most of her friends of color. Her social class identity brings challenges not faced by upper-classed students, but Penelope summarized the key difference well, saying “It’s college. I’m on a meal plan. You can pretend to be of any class background, if you try hard enough.” The semi-invisible nature of social class, compared to the hyper-visible nature of race, decreased the salience of class identity for Penelope during college. Not only does Penelope have the ability to pass as another class identity, but the increase of racial diversity from home further shifts the focus from class identity to racial identity. She “think[s] that just comes with finally being in a place where it matters.” Penelope has also had her entire life to consider her class identity, while she was not challenged on her racial identity or to consider any issues of racial oppression before attending college. Penelope described her formation of an antiracist white identity as “a series of puddle hops . . .realizing how broad the problem” of structural racism is in society. Talking to people of color has been beneficial, as has her own observation and reflection on experiences in spaces with different racial compositions. Penelope feels as though she defines herself “by what people of color don’t feel like they’re allowed to be. Black women on Miami’s campus don’t feel like they’re allowed to be queer; [she’s] super queer.” She has come to understand that many aspects of her identity are possible to express because of her white privilege. People of color cannot
96 express aspects of identity because, “historically, white people are enforcing that people of color can’t have them.” Penelope has found the most helpful part of understanding her whiteness to be not only “finding out those things from people of color,” but more importantly, “trying to figure out how to even it out a bit” by disrupting whiteness in small and large ways. “I think it’s a tremendous responsibility” Penelope has developed and practices a number of strategies to disrupt problematic whiteness and racial oppression. Overall, she believes that white people “have all of this social power all over the world” that must be used to fight for equity and end structural racism. Strategies include continuing to educate herself, educating white peers, advocating with and for people of color, and seeking to make spaces more welcoming for people of color. She also has suggestion of what Miami should do as an institution, such as increasing the number of faculty of color and more education of all students about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Penelope’s definition of white allyship is nuanced and acknowledges the privileges associated with being an ally, rather than being the member of the oppressed group. First, she fully understands that not all people of color want white allies and “not every black person wants white people to go around telling people not to say the n-word.” However, as a result of her abroad experience, she believes there is more general willingness to have white allies than decades ago in our society. When she has found people of color who are willing to educate her and work with her on being an effective white ally, Penelope focuses on asking what actions they want white allies to take and how to take those actions. She was once listening to a peer of color speak about being called the n-word and that they wished “someone who’d been there had said something.” Penelope then asked this person how they would’ve preferred someone take action, instead of assuming that she knew how to handle the situation. She has also done research on her own, such as watching a documentary on the history of the Washington Redskins to learn “why that is a racial slur and not a team name.” She knows that “it’s an assertion of privilege to assume you know how to handle racism” and that “a trap a lot of white people fall into is if you say something at all, you’re automatically one of the good ones.” Similarly to learning how people of color prefer a white person to handle instances of racism, Penelope observes and asks how people of color prefer she acts when she is in their space. She believes that “being a good white social justice person is minding my own business and doing what the people who invited me there want me to be doing.” In one instance,
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Penelope and her white partner were the only white people at a black student organization event. She recognized that “people who were putting on the event [were] uncomfortable that a loud white man was in their midst.” After the event, Penelope asked her roommate what she should do in that instance. Educating her white peers is also important to Penelope. Educating herself is the first step to then educate white peers in ways that do not perpetuate whiteness. She then has “the tools to give those explanations from the people who are impacted,” rather than just assuming or giving a superficial answer, without the context that Penelope finds vital for lasting change. She spends much of her time correcting problematic language of her peers, “because language is something [she’s] really sensitive to.” She has also organized more formal efforts to educate white peers that focus on “what white people should be doing,” beyond attending protests. When Penelope realized that the LGBT organization she’s in is not a welcoming space for queer people of color, she made a more intentional effort to “present [herself] as non- threatening and minimize the threat of walking into a room of all white people.” She has not made much progress in making the white space more welcoming, so Penelope is also advocating for a space and group for queer people of color. She recognizes that she is not qualified to create this space and must tread carefully in order to not perpetuate white supremacy by assuming she knows or taking the lead in the effort. Finally, Penelope has suggestions for strategies the institution can take to systemically disrupt white supremacy. The first is to diversify the faculty and upper administration. She believes this is important for students of color at the institution. However, “and maybe more than that, for all of the upper, middle white people coming here with racist tendencies,” seeing no people of color in power positions reinforces that such a void is acceptable. Further, Penelope believes that it is easy to feel that there will be no consequences for problematic behavior if “no one in positions of power is definitely offended by what you’ve done.” Penelope believes that direct instruction is imperative for white students, but also important for all students on various issues of privilege and oppression. It is vital to go beyond that a certain behavior is unacceptable to include why the behavior is unacceptable. She “think[s] the ‘why’ gets left off a lot” and that it would be effective to communicate to first-year students about what is acceptable and unacceptable, the reasons why, and then to encourage them
98 to “‘go home and think about it.’” These efforts would both explicitly and implicitly communicate that the institution recognizes and takes action against structural oppression. Conclusion Before Penelope was in college, “a lot of time was spent more on class identity than on race identity,” rarely even acknowledging that she possessed a racial identity. Her lower-classed identity was complicated by the financial support she received from her fraternal grandparents. The overwhelming whiteness of her hometown and state shielded Penelope both from racist views and actions, but also from opportunities to recognize her own whiteness. She believes that the lack of people of color not only prevented her socialization into problematic whiteness, but positively impacted the formation of her antiracist white identity. Coming to college reversed the importance of these identities; her social class can be hidden, but she became more aware of experiences of people of color and her own role in perpetuating white supremacy. The lack of racial identity awareness prior to college and lack of class identity salience during college minimized the impact of Penelope’s marginalized class identity on the formation of her antiracist white identity. Not only was social class not an identity through which Penelope drew parallels to racial oppression, it was also not a source of resistance to acknowledging her racial privilege. More influential was her queer identity, which placed her in social justice conversations and spaces with people of color. Penelope knows it is important that white people use our “intrinsic social power,” rather than feeling like it’s not our place. She feels that white people no longer “have actual legal power to do something about it, [so] we all have to do the social part together.” Penelope has intentionally placed herself in social justice spaces and surrounded herself with social justice people, attempting to make a difference in a multitude of ways. Pamela Pamela is completing her final year of college in a behavioral science major. She is interested in going to graduate school, but has “a lot of loans that [she] need[s] to pay off.” Pamela frequently emphasized her points with well-timed sarcasm and self-deprecating jokes, which she mentioned using throughout her life. Pamela asked for the interview questions in advance of her first interview so she could reflect on them and provide thoughtful responses.
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“So now I'm an independent student and have no money” Pamela grew up in a suburb of a major Ohio city, where the population is “93% white, 5% Asian, and then other people. They just write ‘other races.’” She described the town as an upper-middle class suburb where “the median income is $130,000.” She remembers the majority of families had a father with a white collar job outside the city and a stay-at-home mother. Very few families shared a class identity with Pamela. Many of those who viewed themselves as lower class did so through a lens of “relative deprivation seeing what some people had,” though most were much more well-off than Pamela. For her second interview, Pamela brought the statistic that 3.2% of the town’s population is below the poverty line. Pamela and her brothers were raised by her mom who “was unemployed for basically the entire time [she] was growing up.” Her mom received long-term disability benefits and Pamela “could kind of play it off that she’s just a stay-at-home mom” without disclosing that she is dependent on government assistance. Her mom passed away while she was in college and Pamela is now an independent student who is “more worried about working and not as worried about school work.” Pamela’s college search was dictated almost entirely by finances. She applied mainly to Common App schools because she received a fee waiver, and applied to all schools inside Ohio, with one exception. While she “didn’t go into it blind” because her school “pushed college,” Pamela is a first generation college student who recalls not receiving the support many of her peers received during their search. She “applied to the schools that everyone kind of applied to” and hoped she would get scholarships. Pamela’s one school outside the state ended up being too expensive. She originally did not want to attend Miami because “it was so closely mirroring [her] hometown,” but also figured that she “already dealt with this for 18 years,” so four more was doable. Pamela chose Miami because of the reputation of her chosen degree program and because Miami provided the best financial aid package. “Things like that are just kind of the air of uncertainty” When she was younger, Pamela did not notice differences between herself and her peers. She began to notice small things that she pieced together to understand her family’s financial status. Pamela knew her family was on assistance, noticed her mom’s EBT card, and knew her mom received child support. Her mom told her that “‘I don’t have time or I can’t handle a job right now, and so I’m not working right now and so we just have this set amount’” of money.
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Pamela’s grandma lived close and they were frequently at her house, but the relationship between her mom and grandma was “always more strained or kind of awkward.” She has several memories of her mom asking for money and “[her] grandma would kind of be an asshole. She’d be really rude about it.” Pamela and her siblings wondered why their mom was crying, but eventually understood. Her grandma threatened to cut off her mom several times and told her “then you’re SOL [shit out of luck].” As they got older, Pamela remembers that they became aware of the tension and that “she was kind of nasty to [them] too.” Once she was aware of how unique her family was in her town, Pamela dealt with several situations that could potentially expose her class identity and income to her peers. One vivid memory is an annual food and toy drive at her school for “the super poor people in town.” Peers thought “‘there’s no one like that in [our town], so we must send it somewhere else.’” However, Pamela’s family then received some of the donated items at her house. Pamela also remembers multiple instances where she was one of the few who could not participate in something because of money. While peers took standardized test prep classes, Pamela told people she did not need the class, then “just took it and hoped that [she] did well.” She also could not afford driver’s education, so she “told everyone [she] was afraid of driving for three years, until [she] got a job and [she] could learn how to drive.” When at the mall with friends, Pamela regularly made up excuses to not buy more than one item so she had money for lunch. She remembers panicking when peers wanted to keep shopping. Her standard deflection was and is to “deal with things with humor in a terrible way,” rather than potentially disclose that finances are what drove her actions. In a service-learning course Pamela took her senior year of high school, the elderly and people in poverty were the two main populations of their service. When the teacher gave the class a “crash course in understanding lower classed people,” Pamela remembers already understanding many of the issues. However, her peers’ understanding consisted primarily of stereotypes and “misconceptions about things that are a part of [her] life,” including that people trade food stamps for drugs or that all lower classed people look like those who utilize a soup kitchen. Some peers even discussed the stereotype of the “Welfare Queen, a black woman with a kid.” The topics of this class did prompt some peers to share their own lower classed status, one of very few occurrences before college.
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Pamela’s financial situation continues to be a daily influence in college. She is “pretty focused on ‘Okay, I have to take this class and this class because I can’t afford to take another semester.’” Pamela was able to participate in a study abroad program, but was limited to the programs where her loans and scholarships were applicable. With other high-impact opportunities, Pamela has not been as fortunate. In addition to “big vacations for summer,” she watches her peers take unpaid internships, which are a large portion of available experiences for her future career field. Pamela feels “behind with the whole internship and career thing,” which, along with the loans she has already taken out, may negatively impact her ability to attend graduate school. All of these combine to create “the air of uncertainty” around Pamela’s plans after graduation. Although the majority of her peers at Miami do not share her class identity, Pamela is more willing to disclose it to her close friends. She has no interest in what she calls the “going out culture” of drinking, and could not afford to, even if she was interested. When friends suggest going out to eat, she’ll readily tell them “‘We’re not spending more than $10 or I’m not going to hang out.’” Pamela has found a group of friends who may not share her social class identity, but are understanding of the limitations it places on her. However, she still experiences larger limitations with impacts lasting well beyond her time at Miami. “But I don’t want you to be totally closed off” Pamela has few memories related to discussing or understanding race prior to coming to college. Pamela’s grandma was a “straight-up racist” who “would refuse to be seen by nurses and doctors of color.” Pamela remembers directly confronting her grandmother in the moment, and then apologizing to the doctor or nurse out of her grandma’s earshot. Pamela’s mom took them on many trips into the adjacent large city for all types of different activities. Her mom explicitly told her that their town “‘has really good schools, that’s why we moved there. But I don't want you to be like totally closed off’” from the real world. Pamela thinks her mom was trying to communicate that “‘there are different people out there. It’s not like what you see in [their town].’” No specific identities or disparities were mentioned, but she wanted her children to “see what actual places are like [and] the actual makeup of people” outside their town with a skewed class and racial makeup. Organizations in high school matched the makeup of the town because there were “basically three black kids in [her] whole school, and [she] was friends with one of them.”
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Pamela did not witness “overt hate crimes,” but can reflect now on “microaggressions that [she] would notice,” particularly aimed at her black friend, who also shared a social class identity with Pamela. When peers found out her friend lived in an apartment, Pamela remembers hearing them say that “even though she lives in [their town], she lives in an apartment,” which “was reinforcing their stereotypes” about black people. This friend was a year older than Pamela and attended college out of state. During Pamela’s senior year is when she remembers “the conversation about #BlackLivesMatter” becoming more widespread. Her friend was vocal about it, and Pamela thinks that seeing someone that I knew close to me writing about her black identity, and things like that, things I never talk to her about. . . made me reflect too on white privilege and things like microaggressions. Like “Am I doing that?” Reading about the experiences of her close friend were instrumental in starting to explore structural oppression and whiteness. At the same time as her friend’s writings on her black identity, Pamela was in her service-learning class with “the only teacher in the school district that made an effort to actually talk about class and race.” This is the first time Pamela remembers hearing about the wage gap and other “barriers in society that don’t affect white people” the same as people of color. Pamela also recalls a white peer repeatedly becoming defensive in any discussion about “police brutality and black men specifically being targeted by the police.” His father is a police officer who was at Ground Zero during 9/11. Every time police brutality was mentioned, he would say “‘Well my dad was in 9/11,”’ which immediately shut down any conversation. Pamela saw the way her peer equated discussions of police brutality with an indictment of his father as evidence of whiteness and the way white people view any discussion of racism as a personal attack. She remembers thinking she is “never going to experience [police brutality] because [she’s] white,” but also that it “sucks that it’s a thing” that is disproportionately occurring against black people. “But then taking a step back and just feeling like garbage for saying things” At Miami, Pamela immediately sought out spaces where she thought she would find peers who were not “stereotypical sporty party kids.” She continued to seek out such spaces and experiences throughout her time on campus, both to find people like her and to continue educating herself on issues of structural oppression. Avenues include non-required courses,
103 research, student organizations, and friend groups. Through direct interactions, as well as observation and reflection in these spaces, Pamela has formed her antiracist white identity. Pamela quickly joined several student organizations at Miami, most of which focus on social justice, marginalized identities, and/or activism. In these spaces Pamela began to truly understand the pervasiveness of white supremacy, even when paired with one or more marginalized identities. Although one organization was focused primarily on gender disparity, members readily spent time in discussions focused on race, class, or another identity. They were ready to “talk about [an issue] and break it down” to also include the impacts on people with multiple marginalized identities, such as the wage gap for women of color. Pamela did not often participate in discussions, but remembers thinking many times “‘Oh, I’m white. That’s different from the experiences for these people’” on a specific issue she might also face. She remembers observing older white members who “would contribute to the conversations that would have to do with checking their own privilege.” One of the leaders of this organization individually served as a role model for Pamela. While she “didn’t sit down and have nuanced conversations” about different topics, Pamela learned a lot from “being around them and the people that were around them.” She watched the way this person handled discussions of issues and awareness of their own privilege. Pamela does not recall many times when “anyone confronted [her] and was like ‘Hey that thing you said was really terrible, and this is why.’” However, she has a close friend of color who subtly reminds her of the additional marginalization of being black on Miami’s campus, particularly when Pamela complains about the difficulty of not being like most students. Inwardly, Pamela still reacts defensively, thinking “‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.’” But she then finds herself “taking a step back and just feeling like garbage for saying things” and for immediately trying to defend her actions, even if only in her head. Pamela knows that discussions with individual peers and in organizations made me more aware of my place in society as a white person. It made me realize more of the privilege and the little things, . . . like microaggressions. When people think of a racist, people usually think of a person that goes around and is super overtly horrible to people who aren’t white. But it’s kind of made me realize that there’s a bunch more smaller things that are unconscious and things to watch for.
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The willingness of peers to both discuss their own experiences with marginalization, and to be challenged when their own actions perpetuated oppression served as models for Pamela’s own actions and thoughts. She works to find similar ways to decrease the negative impact of her racial privilege. In a recent semester, Pamela took an feminist theory class “just for kicks” because she considers herself a feminist and was excited to engage with the material. She was exposed to non-white feminist theorists “that talked a lot about intersectionality and led [her] to reflect more” on topics like race and class, and how they intersect with gender. The professor discussed “the Women’s March and how a lot of people saw it as white feminism and not very inclusive,” even though fighting structural disparity was the stated goal of the march. While the theory is difficult to digest, Pamela thinks that reading “more writing by non-white people and their experiences and how they view the world on a philosophical level” helped her realize “how deeply ingrained white supremacy and stuff is in society.” Intentional conversations about types of oppression and privilege have equipped Pamela to notice other places where structural oppression should be included in a conversation and when people are perpetuating it, directly and indirectly. Many of her classes examine society and societal institutions, which Pamela recognizes as great opportunities to include discussions of structural inequality. She took two economics classes, but did not discuss inequality in either one. She has also noticed that almost all of her faculty members are white men, limiting the perspectives to which she is exposed. One of the very few faculty members of color she had was for a class focused on politics in Africa. Pamela noticed the irony that even her feminist theory class was “a class of white people talking about feminist theory that is inaccessible to women of color” because of the disparity of access to higher education. Generally, Pamela views “the campus culture in a way of people being either complicit or not really caring when students of color are faced with stuff.” When a white student called a black student a racial slur in a group chat of mostly black students, Pamela remembers white peers either not wanting to discuss it or replying that “‘it’s wrong that they took a picture of the group chat.’” She experiences exasperation at their focus on this aspect of the incident, rather than the act of racism. Pamela also sees the general lack of outrage at other instances of overt racism, like posters from a white supremacist group on campus, as evidence of the presence and
105 power of whiteness. Overall, Pamela feels like “people don’t want to engage in the conversation, especially if it doesn’t really affect them.” “Is it really something I should do?” Pamela’s lower classed identity is both an entry point and has given her pause when it comes to understanding racial oppression and structural disparity. In discussions of class inequality, Pamela recognizes where she fits and sees vivid examples of the ways that structural inequality is perpetuated. Peers in one class expressed the view that “if you don’t have money, obviously you’re not trying hard enough” and that “America is fine the way it is” with extensive class inequality. Pamela knows her family works hard, but still is in a marginalized class position in society. She makes direct connections to racial oppression and the common views that place the blame of racial inequality on the effort of individuals of color. Similarly, while Pamela typically observes conversations in her student organizations, Pamela will participate more if social class is a topic. These conversations were important both to her understanding of structural oppression and to her sense of belonging, seeing others in her organization be open about their lower-classed identity. Because these conversations never focus on only social class, but the nuances of overlapping identities, Pamela also deepened her understanding of the impact of a privileged racial identity on marginalized identities. Similarly, Pamela’s research with a faculty member on campus deepened her understanding of overlapping oppression. Another type of oppression is the focus of the research, but class inequality has emerged as a major factor. She and the faculty member have “had to analyze how [financial] resources play into” the larger situation and Pamela sees that class inequality is often the deciding factor. Pamela is a part of a program that supports students from underrepresented backgrounds. She “feels weird” about receiving this support because of her privileged racial identity. “Even with being queer and stuff,” Pamela has some discomfort in applying for diversity scholarships, given her deeper understanding of the large amount of privilege she has because of her whiteness. She wonders “‘Is it really something I should do,’” even though she needs the financial assistance for her education. Pamela’s white identity has become more of a focus and something she thinks about on a daily basis. Before engaging in deeper exploration and reflection on her white identity, Pamela “didn’t realize how much of an effect it had on [her] life experiences.” She now understands
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“how important race is and how it’s based on white supremacy and basically how it permeates everything.” Pamela’s class identity is still important and impacts her everyday life, but she now has a different view of how that impact is tempered by her privileged racial identity. “Doing what I can as a white person using my privilege to basically lessen my privilege” Pamela spoke at length about her struggle to find appropriate ways to resist white supremacy and racial injustice. “Realizing how much race plays into things,” she wants to use her privilege to lessen her privilege and break down white supremacy. These efforts include steps she intentionally takes or should take, as well as actions she intentionally refrains from doing that otherwise may perpetuate or reinforce whiteness. Pamela also has suggestions of what Miami could do to disrupt whiteness. Many times, Pamela does not do something because doing so may intentionally or unintentionally reinforce white supremacy. When she hears “a blanket statement like ‘White people who do this are racist and terrible,’” Pamela intentionally gives the speaker the benefit of the doubt, particularly if it is a person of color. She thinks that “they must have a good reason” for their perspective and knows she cannot completely understand because she is white. If a person of color says “‘white people shouldn’t say this or this [action] is problematic,’” Pamela is “not even going to touch it.” She does not want to unintentionally harm someone when she could just as easily not do or say something and avoid the risk. Though she studies a specific culture closely, she will not even consider wearing the culture’s traditional attire because “some people would argue that’s cultural appropriation” and “it’s not [her] decision whether or not it’s right or wrong.” When Pamela does take action, she tries to do so without “overpowering other people’s voices” and sometimes wrestles to know if it is appropriate for her to do so. She is “hesitant to engage in conversations” and demonstrations on campus because, “as a white person, [she] couldn’t even come close to understanding.” Similarly, the topic Pamela is researching with a faculty member is closely related to one of her identities, but not specifically her identity. She “sometimes [feels] guilty about that” and knows “there’s got to be a [this specific identity] student on campus” that could do the research. Actions Pamela take include showing support for students of color and working to educate and push back on her white peers on issues of racial injustice. She participates in on- campus activism and shares messages on social media “so people could see the kind of thing
107 students of color want changed on campus.” Pamela tries to work with white peers “so that burden doesn’t have to be put on people of color” who already experience the daily burden of racism. One example is using the credibility of whiteness to communicate messages that may not be heard or heeded if coming from a person of color. If she is “calling them out on it,” Pamela believes people may feel less attacked. If calling people out does not work, Pamela will disassociate herself from them and actively shun the person from the friend group or organization, which she has done with at least one person at Miami. There were multiple times Pamela mentioned that she tries not to “associate with anyone who [she] think[s] is overtly racist or anything.” She referenced this when discussing the lack of opportunities she has to confront whiteness or white supremacy. However, Pamela also readily named multiple instances where she witnessed something she considered problematic. This appeared to be an excuse for not taking action more to resist whiteness. Pamela believes that Miami could also take action as an institution to also resist white supremacy and foster racial justice. She agrees with the recent suggestion from a group of students of color to mandate online diversity training “so that people understand a little bit more of nuance before they coming into Miami.” More generally, Pamela thinks it is imperative to include structural oppression throughout the curriculum where it’s relevant. She remembers people with the sentiment that “we shouldn’t talk about gender in a politics class because it doesn’t matter.” Pamela believes that Miami faculty should always seek out those structural factors and include them for a more realistic and meaningful discussion of a topic. Finally, she wants the institution to “be a little bit more receptive to the students who are actually experiencing these sorts of things.” Pamela believes that the perspectives of students of color and other students with marginalized identities are important voices of the true campus climate. Conclusion Pamela’s experiences growing up poor in a wealthy town provided her with a firsthand experience of marginalization. This was good preparation for understanding and accepting that she possesses white privilege. What was surprising through her story is that Pamela’s resistance to understanding her racial privilege seemed to be minimal. The in-depth formation of her antiracist white identity involved more observation and reflection, rather than directly seeking out information or participating in discussions. Overall, these experiences have pushed Pamela’s
108 understanding of structural oppression, the roles of her various identities, and her ability to take action to disrupt white supremacy. Anne Anne came to each interview with a big smile on her face and exudes genuine kindness. She holds deep family ties to Miami, where she finishing her first year in school. She is double majoring in a behavioral science field and Global and Intercultural Studies and holds an on- campus job. “Education is the key.” Anne is the youngest in her family, who moved around often when she was young. They moved in with her grandparents before Anne started school, and have lived with them her entire life. Anne grew up in a smaller city not far from Miami’s campus, which she describes as majority working class. Her neighborhood was mostly retirees, with one other family, and Anne could not recall a single person of color living in her neighborhood. Anne lived right in front of a small city park, which she called “really just a giant patch of grass, not really a kids park.” The park was part of a city program that improved parks in middle or lower class neighborhoods “to help kids have something to do during the summer.” Anne’s family moved in with her grandparents because her father’s company had several rounds of layoffs. Her dad completed an apprenticeship program that allowed him to advance in the company, but “was always vulnerable because he didn’t have a college degree” like many of his colleagues. Instead of laying him off, the company offered to move him to another location several times, triggering their family moves. Anne’s mother last worked in a retail position before they moved in with Anne’s grandparents. Her parents divorced during Anne’s sophomore year of high school. The grandparents Anne lived with both graduated from college and worked in professional positions directly related to their degree programs. Anne’s grandma always said that “education is the key” and that she worked her way through college and got a degree in a field that would guarantee she would never be poor again. The importance of education is a value Anne’s mom and Anne also hold. Anne’s siblings worked jobs throughout high school “just so they could afford things.” But her mom refused to let her have a job so Anne could focus on her AP classes and going to college. Anne is the only one of her siblings to complete more than one semester in college.
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Anne’s characterized her college search as “a lot of going blind,” and that she applied to some schools because she or her mom thought it “seems like a nice place to go.” She applied to schools in and out of Ohio, including some with high tuition costs. Anne was “banking on getting scholarships” and went through her search with the “full acceptance” that she might not be able to go to a school because of finances. Anne remembers coming to Oxford several times during her youth, seeing “a place where everyone really looks like a carbon copy of each other.” This was her sole vision of a college campus and Anne assumed that anywhere she went, there “was going to be a significant amount of whiter, wealthier people.” Anne was nervous about fitting in during college because she is “already an odd person anyways.” The combination of Miami’s generous financial aid offer and proximity to the comforts of home helped Anne chose Miami. Anne now feels that, because she’s “always been the odd person out,” coming to Miami “wasn’t that much of a difference” from her previous educational experiences. “I don’t know the specific way in which I was impacted or anything like that.” Anne did not talk much about a childhood awareness of her own social class. She recalls that her “parents wouldn’t let [her] go to certain playgrounds because they thought they were in bad neighborhoods.” Anne knew they were in more rundown areas of town and thought the people there were likely poorer. Most of the town is working class, however, so the difference was not stark. She remembers being aware of her own social class, but does not have many examples of “the specific way[s] in which [she] was impacted or anything like that.” One example of Anne’s awareness is because it was a frequent topic of tension between her parents. If her parents fought, it was about money. She said my mom didn’t trust my dad with money and she would get upset if we didn’t have enough money. And my dad would get upset that she was upset, because he was working. . . More than once, my dad stormed out and my mom cried and we thought he wasn’t going to come back because she accused him of not handling money well. Anne remembers that her mom “didn’t want [her] to think that [they] are different than anyone else,” so they never openly discussed it with Anne and her siblings. Anne observed these arguments and knew that her grandparents sometimes helped her and her parents out with specific costs. Anne’s social class impacted her friend groups and she thought “about social groups and how to maintain friends” of a similar class. Her older sister repeatedly complained to their mom
110 about not having birthday parties at special venues, as their friends did. Anne began the think that the peer’s “family must be well off because they had his birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.” She would then think differently about that peer and “worried in every way how they would perceive [her]” if she was unable to do something because of money. Anne had one friend with a similar class identity that she “latched onto,” but this friend intentionally befriended wealthier peers, which made Anne uncomfortable. However, the main reason Anne stayed away from wealthier peers is because she did not want to “make [her] parents uncomfortable” if she asked for money. One summer, Anne asked to attend a science camp that cost $400 and her parents told her “no way.” She unaware of the cost and remembers that she “wouldn’t have asked them if [she] had known it was $400.” Anne did not want to put her parents in that position. On the rare other occasions that cost prevented Anne from doing something, she “came up with different excuses” that did not involve money. The only other occasion Anne remembers potentially not being able to do something important because of money is related to the honors and Advanced Placement classes she took in high school. Her grandmother was able to cover the costs of books and the tests, but she remembers asking “‘What happens if someone couldn’t pay for it?’” Anne’s teachers made several statements about coming to them if someone could not afford the books, which made her wonder if “on a teacher’s salary, are they just expected to buy books for kids too?” When she asked her mom what would happen if someone could not afford it, her mom was defensive and kept telling Anne that her grandparents were taking care of it. Anne was not thinking about herself, but “about the other kids who aren’t lucky enough to have someone” who can pay. The conversation ended and the topic was never discussed again. In high school, Anne was also involved in student council and honor societies within her school, as well as a city-wide community service organization, where she held a leadership position. The differences between the community service organization and the honor society and student council were stark for Anne. The community service organization was made up of mostly working class peers, while the honor society and student council were upper-middle class students. The racial composition of the groups were also opposite and Anne could count one hand the number of people who weren’t white in those groups [the honor society, AP classes, student council]. But then my community service organization, I
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could probably count on one hand the number of white kids in that group. There’s a lot of diversity in that group. Even though Anne went to a large high school with “a large range of socioeconomic status and a lot of diversity in it,” student groups were relatively segregated by class and race. She found herself crossing lines of class and race frequently and was aware of these differences, though she does not feel her social class had a large impact on her daily life. “I’ve always thought about it, but I didn’t think about how people were disadvantaged because of it.” Anne shares a birthday with Martin Luther King, Jr. and her parents told her that from a very young age, “even before [she] fully understood who he was.” She loves history and always loved sharing a birthday with someone her parents described as an “iconic, legendary figure.” Anne remembers asking her parents to write “Happy Birthday [Anne] and Martin” on her birthday cakes. She was “fully obsessed” and remembers her parents showing her a picture when the monument to him was completed in Washington, D.C. Anne’s parents never explained the full details of what King was resisting and advocating for that made him iconic. Anne thinks her parents assumed that she learned that information in school, given her focus on academics. She read about the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights Movement, but “didn’t think about how people were disadvantaged because of [racial discrimination].” Anne certainly did not think about how many of those patterns continue to disadvantage people of color today. One of Anne’s few memories related to her parents discussing racism is related to her father’s parents, who she described as “very racially insensitive.” Her parents sometimes acknowledged inappropriate comments, but would dismiss them as a product of the time in which they were raised. Anne remembers a few instances, “where they would say something blatantly racist,” and her father would later say “‘You know she didn’t mean it.’” Her parents did not go any further in acknowledging or discussing the origins or implications of her grandparents views. Anne recognized the racism of the comment, knew that she did mean it, and knew “that’s generally her [grandma’s] opinion,” but did not yet recognize the implications of such a worldview. Unsurprisingly, another early instance where Anne noticed racial disparity was in school, where some students were tracked into honors classes and others were not. Though Anne was in third or fourth grade, she vividly remembers noticing that “that there is a lot of white people in
112 the honors class, which [she] thought was strange because [she] didn’t think it was possible that white people were just smarter.” There were only white peers taking the assessments to get into the honors track, though “there are not only white people in [her regular] classes.” Anne thinks that teachers “just looked in the class and picked the kids” who would take the assessments, and “subconsciously, they just picked an all-white class.” She can now recognize the subconscious bias of teachers, but was unable to put words to her thoughts at the time, making statements like “don’t you think that’s weird?” She had “already learned so much about discrimination, but [she] didn’t think that it was in [her] life until when they started to so obviously break [them] apart” in school. Anne further put the pieces together her first and second years of high school, where she was still in honors classes with all white peers and one peer of color. Her black peer was “very vocal about her opinions and sometimes they were controversial,” which made most classmates dislike her. Other students would voice supposedly liberal opinions about topics outside of the school, but when Anne pointed out the lack of racial diversity in AP classes and tried to talk to them, like “Isn't that kind of weird?” and they said “I don't know” and just moved on with it. But then they would tweet about all these things about how they hated a Donald Trump, and I was like “But you don't care that in our own school. . . Our school is full of diversity, but yet only one person, one black person made it in the AP program?” But that's also when I thought about the cost, and like did that deter other black students from being in it? Even though her friends acted like they cared about social justice and Anne thought they might treat their peer of color differently if she pointed out the systemic disparity, they dismissed Anne’s opinions. Anne remembers wondering how she was the only white student in the class who noticed and voiced that observation to others. She was beginning to understand structural oppression. “I feel like it’s just something I’ve gathered over time.” Unsurprisingly, academics are at the center of many experiences that led to the formation of Anne’s antiracist white identity and deeper understanding of white supremacy. Both specific people and specific assignments were meaningful in this process. One of Anne’s middle school classes had a student teacher of color for part of the year. The topic was explorers and conquistadors and this was the first time she heard explorers described in negative terms. Anne
113 remembers thinking that “white people are the villains. They’re doing horrible things” throughout history. When she asked her best friend and her mom if white people are “the villains in the world,” both attempted to help her understand that “that has nothing to do with you” and changed the subject. The counterarguments from her family and friend frustrated her and caused Anne more conflict when attempting to process this realization. Anne had another student teacher of color early in high school. This teacher introduced the class to “a ton of books by African American authors,” including Invisible Man. Anne remembers “feeling so ridiculous that [they] were talking about the plight of the black man in America,” although everyone but the student teacher was white. When she again brought up her feelings of white people as villains, she was again told that she should not feel that way. Most students did not read the book and many made comments blaming the main character for his misfortunes, rather than any type of societal forces. The student teacher and Anne gave up on the discussions in class. Anne wrote individual essays on the discussion questions and her teacher read them and provided feedback. Anne felt much more comfortable writing about these topics than engaging in person in a classroom of her peers. Anne gained further insight by observing the eagerness with which her peers critiqued the financial elite in The Great Gatsby. Anne felt that her peers were more engaged because white people were the victims, as opposed to being the perpetrators in Invisible Man. She also noticed similar themes when her class read Slouching Towards Bethlehem and peers praised the “flower kids” who “just sat around talking about how they’re changing the world.” Anne pointed out the inherent privilege of these characters, who take no action to make change. Peers reacted angrily, which Anne believes is because they saw themselves in these characters and felt attacked. Around this time, Anne finally understood the target of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s advocacy and resistance: white supremacy and whiteness. She previously did not put the pieces together that white people were the people who held slaves and were the oppressors of people of color. A paper Anne wrote on racially disparate treatment during the AIDS epidemic and a documentary about mass incarceration of African Americans further increased her understanding of the systemic nature of white oppression, particularly of black individuals. While she can see “the importance of a shared African American culture” of resistance, she cannot see a shared white experience, except for discrimination and oppression.
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When Anne’s incoming class at Miami read Hillbilly Elegy, she thought more about what it means to be white, outside of oppression and privilege. Anne also connected this to a her white teacher from sophomore year who emphasized that “just because [she’s] white, doesn’t mean [she] doesn’t have a story.” This also helped Anne move past only focusing on guilt of being the oppressor in history. She began to see her race and historical privilege “as a part of [her] identity, and not like [she’s] a blank slate for race.” This teacher ultimately spurred Anne to find her life purpose. The class wrote “I Believe” essays and that’s when Anne understood that working against oppression and discrimination was “something [she] want[s] to do with [her] life.” Though peers laughed at Anne’s essay, they knew she “put everything in school” and gave her enough respect not to call it ridiculous to her face. Anne continues to focus on understanding systems of oppression and privilege and her relationship with those systems in college. She makes a point of observing interactions and different people on campus, as opposed to her previously “assuming that everyone would just be the same” when she came to college. Anne’s second “major [in Global and Intercultural Studies] is [her] trying to look for those conversations” and opportunities to deepen her understanding. She enrolled in an introductory Black World Studies course because she “really wanted to take it,” but Anne was so taken by the content that she added a second major so she could take more courses in a strategic way. She is using the flexibility of the major requirements to take courses across diversity and identity in the United States, focusing on “how they’re looked at and how they’re treated in different ways.” Anne combines her coursework, observations on campus, and personal reflections to continue forming her antiracist white identity. Her social class identity plays a major role in her reflections and understanding of systems of oppression and privilege. “I knew what it felt like to always come at a situation from a disadvantage” Anne credits her lower-classed identity as a major source of her ability to understand and accept the existence of structural oppression and privilege based on race. She is able to draw parallels between racial oppression and the marginalization she faces because of class. Anne related to the main character in Invisible Man because she’s “had some struggle in [her] life and [she has] not had everything handed to [her],” like she feels many of her wealthier white classmates did. She cannot name specific instances where she was the target of discrimination because of her marginalized class identity, but she knows how it feels to have “a part of who you were that you had this disadvantage no matter what. . .regardless of your individual actions.”
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Anne could also identify with those in The Great Gatsby who were exploited by the wealthy elite, particularly because of her class identity. However, Anne was also able to understand the structural disparity when an identity she holds is the perpetrator of the oppression. Reading Hillbilly Elegy further provided Anne insight into the shared culture and somewhat unique position of the white working class in society. While Anne acknowledges that she possesses privilege because of her race, “the white [financially] privileged never really identify them as being part of their group” and, therefore sharing the benefits of whiteness. In situations where her social class identity is known, Anne feels she is set apart from her wealthier white peers. She made the distinction that “even people who are the African American privileged class. . . are never not aware of how other people in their race are discriminated against.” The shared history of being oppressed ties all black people together, to some extent, but lower-classed white individuals are set apart by their wealthier white peers. In Hillbilly Elegy, Anne could readily identify places where the author’s fortunes relied on being given chances that “would not have been given to people in the African American working class.” Although the author discussed teachers giving up on working class students, Anne feels this is “exceptionally so” for students of color. She understands that there are still ways that, “because of their race, [white working class individuals] can still get further, even with disadvantages they have, than African Americans with the same level of [class] disadvantage.” Other times, her class identity inhibits Anne’s ability to see the pervasiveness of white supremacy. Anne had an international student roommate that frequently engaged her in discussions about differences between Asian culture and American culture. In one conversation, her roommate shared the name of her white domestic student culture buddy, which Anne viewed as a stereotypically upper-class white name. Anne could not even say it without sarcasm, and often followed it with the statement “ugh, white people” with just as much sarcasm. When her roommate replied “‘but you’re white,’” Anne was unsure how to explain why she sees herself as different. However, she distinguishes herself from the wealthy, white people who have no care in the world, other than what they look like or what they’re doing that night. I know what I think of when I say that, but I don’t know why I just brush people off like that and why I feel like I can say that and generalize an entire race that I’m also a part of, but I don’t include myself when I say that.
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Anne finds herself judging other white people on their dress and actions. She is surprised when she finds out they share a social class identity and are dressing or acting in an attempt to fit in with their wealthier peers. Even she automatically associates whiteness with wealth and finds it difficult to tie a lower-classed identity with a white identity, which she sees as evidence of the pervasiveness of whiteness. Anne understands that her whiteness transcends other parts of her identity. At Miami, she is most often with people who share that outwardly obvious part of her identity. Most times on campus, Anne feels a “really big imbalance between the [white] privilege and social class.” She characterizes her class identity more important than her race most of the time, but because of the student population, she “always let[’s herself] forget that [she’s] here all on scholarships.” Anne’s whiteness allows her to forget or obscure her marginalized identity, an option not available to peers of color. While Anne’s identity exploration is “always in the context of that white privilege,” she get frustrated when her whiteness makes her hesitant to interact with people based on other identities. She has not yet found the balance of integration of her marginalized identities and her privileged racial identity, which is “always at the forefront” when she enters a space. Anne is “so interested in diversity, so [she’s] always looking for diversity in [herself].” She seeks to find parts of her identity that she “can connect with other struggles” so she can better understand the experience of that identity in society. Anne liked the example of Sojourner Truth and sought to connect to it as a woman, but when she learned that white feminists sought to fundamentally alter Truth’s background and experience, she further understood the influence of whiteness. She tries to stay aware of the influence of whiteness on her experience of a specific identity, which therefore prevents her from truly understanding “the struggle.” This includes when she looks for and decides to take action to resist whiteness and racial injustice. “It’s always from a place of sitting back and listening, and taking it, and trying to observe, then going forward.” Anne has dedicated her life to working against oppression and discrimination. She is still formulating ways to enact this purpose, without unintentionally perpetuating white supremacy. She starts by trying to focus less on the guilt of being the villains of history, and more on ownership of wrongs and finding ways to change them. She has not fully released the guilt and knows it is important not to do so, lest she forget her role in the system of structural oppression.
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Anne tries to take that ownership and turn it into a one-person mission to “create relationships that aren’t based off of discrimination.” She knows her white privilege is still present and impacts every aspect of her interactions, but she wants to practice a different kind of whiteness that is intentionally opposite of the white villains of history. Much of how Anne approaches this goal is through genuine curiosity, in both coursework and learning about experiences of people with identities she does not share. Anne seeks out classes that expose her to perspectives she has never considered. This curiosity led her to her first Black World Studies course and eventually her second major. Reading works by authors of color and generally approaching topics from a non-white perspective expands her knowledge of the world, including views of whiteness from the oppressed side of the equation. Anne is also curious to learn from people who have identities that differ from her own. When peers of color talk about experiences of discrimination on campus, Anne “can never know what it feels like or that it’s a problem.” She views these instances as “a place of sitting back and listening, and taking it in, and trying to observe, then going forward.” She is intentionally unengaged in these conversations and tries to understand her peers’ experiences. Once Anne has a base level of understanding, she thinks “it’s really important to talk to people about how their experiences are different” from her own. She tries to not be afraid to ask questions or “worry about what someone thinks of [her] because [she] ask[s] them those questions.” Anne often hesitated with her international student roommate, who would then ask a question about Anne’s experience. Anne does not fully recognize the exertion of privilege if this curiosity is practiced without intentionally choosing a person she knows well and is confident will be open to the questions. However, she knows learning from others’ experiences is vital, rather than assuming she understands and can contribute in helpful ways. Anne takes her new understanding and tries to speak up when she hears or sees something she perceives as problematic. Anne sees this as her role as a white person because if someone's willing to be that openly discriminatory to someone because of their race, then if they tell them back that's wrong, I don't feel like that maybe crosses. But if maybe other white students told those white students who are being discriminatory, like “This is wrong, and this is why, and this is why you shouldn't do that,” then maybe it would have more of an effect.
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Anne attempts to leverage the automatic credibility of her whiteness to disrupt white supremacy in her peers. Anne wishes more of her faculty members would address individual comments or instances of racism in the classroom. One example she cited was a course with a group of white males who “always have their hand up, they always have something to say.” Their statements are generally problematic and couched in whiteness, often with incorrect facts. The faculty member is “so concerned about them feeling like their opinions are validated,” that he never corrects them. Anne thinks the faculty member is missing an opportunity to correct them and “show them how these different points of view will help them” in their future careers and life. For Anne, taking action goes beyond confronting individual instances of racism. It is important for Anne to not be “constantly okay with what [she] sees around [her]” in a more systemic sense. She tries to always be aware of when spaces lack diversity and thinks “about what [she] can do to change that as an individual.” Anne sees this in major classes for her second major, which is a popular major on campus. It is a popular major and Anne thinks there would inherently be more people of color in courses, so she thinks it may be “an overarching system problem.” However, she is unsure what actions she can take to change that fact. Anne is confident entering and engaging spaces of color that are within academic coursework, such as a Black World Studies course, but not more informal spaces. Her confidence in school situations and relatively safety of a classroom setting is different from walking into a student organization or space. Anne knows this is because her racial identity is at the forefront, though she does not recognize that her hesitancy is less prevalent in academic settings. She feels “like diversity groups aren’t meant for [her]” and that it would be “a lot of inherent white privilege” if she walked into a meeting for one of these organizations. Her racial identity is the first thing others see and “the other parts of who [she is] definitely take a backseat.” Even though her social class “is the diversity that [she’s] coming in with,” Anne knows it would be a challenge to overcome the first impression and for her to gain trust in these spaces. She has not yet found a way to feel comfortable entering spaces “meant for diversity,” but hopes to do so as she continues to find various ways to fulfill her life’s goal. Conclusion Anne has been interested in and observant of disparity throughout her life, whether she is in the privileged or marginalized role of the specific instance. Anne’s marginalized social class
119 most often serves as a source of understanding in the formation of her antiracist white identity. Her experiences with marginalization did not overshadow her acknowledgment of the privilege she receives because of her racial identity. She instead draws parallels between her understanding of class disparity and racial oppression. However, her social class identity sometimes causes Anne to distinguish herself from other white people and verges on attempting to disown her white privilege. After she overcame almost paralyzing guilt related to her whiteness, Anne found her life’s purpose in resisting oppression and discrimination. She tries to leverage her whiteness in this goal, as well as seeking out knowledge of those with oppressed identities that she does not share. Anne continues to learn the ways she unintentionally perpetuates whiteness, even in her attempts to dismantle the system. Jane Jane was completing her second year of college when she participated in the study. On- campus, Jane is a member two student organizations on campus, one of which is focused on gender-related issues. She is completing degrees in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGS) and a behavioral science field. Jane unabashedly calls herself a feminist and a liberal. Her social class identity is unique in the study because of a significant change in family income when Jane was in high school. “Everyone’s dad had a job, but everyone’s mom didn’t have a job.” The majority of Jane’s childhood was spent living in the South, in the white suburb of a smaller city. Their house was custom built and the neighborhood was full of kids and families. Jane’s family mirrored the rest of the neighborhood; her dad was a businessman and her mom did not have a job. She has one younger sibling. Jane does not remember any people of color in her neighborhood, with the exception of one Chinese family. There were also many Latino and Indian people who worked for one of the two large corporations in the city. The Chinese family was headed by a single mom who ran a Chinese restaurant by herself after the her husband walked out of the family. Jane remembers the daughter suddenly having to work at the restaurant frequently, but also focusing on “really good grades because she needed to get into a good school.” This was one of Jane’s first significant encounters with financial strain, and even with a single-parent family. Jane moved during middle school to a suburb of a large city in Ohio. Jane found it odd that all the “moms had jobs, even if it was just so they had something to do.” This suburb was
120 almost all white, and was similar to her previous neighborhood. Jane went to high school in the large nearby city, which she remembers as “very contrasting experiences” from her suburb. Her mom was “very nervous” for Jane to attend school there. The student population was half white, half black, which Jane knows is relatively unique and that the district was “intentional in placing it there” to attract diverse students. Jane “really hung out with three people [her] first year” in high school, which she attributes to her transition from a different state. Jane was taught that she could accomplish anything, given enough hard work. Her parents instilled the value that “everything they have, they’ve earned,” implying that “when we would see someone with less, it's because they didn't work hard enough. Or they were lazy. They didn’t earn it.” Jane remembers wondering why people had children if they could not afford the costs of raising them. Her parents “were never compassionate when people needed things” unless they knew the person or the person was seeking religious help through their church. These lessons and values still impact Jane’s worldview today, though she now has a much different perspective on society. “I grew up in the South and we don’t talk about stuff like that.” Jane “used to not think about race at all because growing up, it just wasn’t a thing.” There was a Confederate flag in her history classroom and statue honoring a Confederate soldier in the her town. People around her, including her parents, made the argument that those symbols “were about the South and to preserve history.” Jane did not give it a second thought because these symbols were always there in her childhood. “Abraham Lincoln ended slavery” was the extent of discussions about slavery in school. Only after moving to Ohio did Jane understand more about the system of slavery and the lasting structural impacts on black people. The church Jane’s family attended growing up was mostly white, and the two black families that attended were “a big deal.” She thinks the church was trying to be inclusive, but “black people was far as they’ll go.” When discussing a black family in the church, Jane’s grandma always mentioned their race as a descriptor, which she never did for white families. She also remembers her grandma describing everyone as sweet and nice, but with a different tone when talking about one of the black families. Because her grandma is “from actual Deep South,” Jane thinks “it’s kind of impressive that she doesn’t say a lot of things” that are overtly racist. Racial disparity is so ingrained in Jane’s parents and grandma that “it’s kind of a surprise” to them if black people have similarities to white people. There was a mosque built
121 just outside Jane’s neighborhood and she remembers the outrage from neighbors and her parents. They told Jane “if you’re crossing the street or something, don’t go near that building.” She was told that they want to kill people and she began to assume that “they’re probably doing crazy stuff.” While Jane is sure there are people that care about racial oppression where she grew up, they were “not in positions of power or positions of education to talk to people about it.” So she grew up in a place where “we don’t talk about stuff like that.” Jane attributes this to the high percentage of white people who are very religious and get nervous when the topic is broached. She was taught that “[she’s] white, this person’s black; there’s now difference in how [they’re] treated.” Her perspectives have shifted significantly in the intervening years. “Well, you’re not going to marry a black guy; you’re going to marry a white guy.” Jane’s perspective began to change shortly after she started high school, where she first had to consider experiences vastly different from her own. Early in high school, when she “hung out with three people,” Jane had an implicit understanding that she “was supposed to find people who are a similar class as [her], the same race as [her].” She was “still weirdly a Republican” and did not expand her circle of friends beyond peers with similar backgrounds and families. There were several instances throughout Jane’s high school years that forced her to examine her understanding of the world and contributed to the early formation of her antiracist white identity. Jane had a black teacher for the first time in her first high school class and remembers thinking “‘Okay, this is weird.’” The high percentage of black students at the school made her “realize immediately that there were other people around [her]” that she had not previously encountered more than in passing. Jane dated a couple of black peers throughout high school, in addition to dating white peers. Her dad spoke to Jane about being cautious with sex when she had a white boyfriend, but more about physical safety and that black men are more aggressive when Jane had a black boyfriend. Her parents and grandma both dismissed her black boyfriends as not serious and told Jane “you’re not going to marry a black guy, you’re going to marry a white guy.” Jane grew frustrated and thought her dad’s comments were “horrible” because her black boyfriends are “literally just people,” and should not be treated differently than her white boyfriends. Her parents’ statements made her consider for the first time that she is different from her black peers, though she did not yet think about implications of the differences. Jane does not think her parents thought they were better than people of color, but preferred being separate.
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Jane joined an athletic team her first year of high school, though she only competed for a year because the time commitment was too high. Most athletic teams in the school were composed of predominantly black student athletes, but this team was mostly white with a couple black members. Jane noted this and that most of her teammates “were suburban white people” who drove into the city to attend the school. Jane also began to learn about other lived experiences when she join a feminism student club and all different types of people spoke about their lives. They talked about topics like having a single parent, food insecurity, and cultural appropriation with Halloween costumes. Jane appreciated the openness of the organization and that members would “take the time and explain it to them” when a question was asked. However, administrators and teachers did not often take the time to deeply explore issues or structural forces behind those issues. For instance, when a student wore a KKK costume to school around Halloween, the student was suspended and there was no effort on the part of the administration to discuss the incident, beyond a “pretty general” statement condemning hate. Additionally, a black cultural organization was formed when Jane was in high school, which sparked debate and statements about starting a white cultural organization. A teacher mentioned that he would serve as the advisor of the white organization. Jane originally wondered why they should not start an organization to learn about white culture, but had a peer explain that “all we’re taught is white history.” Around the same time, a student took a doll from an art project and hanged it from the ceiling. Black peers were very upset, while white peers continued to adamantly state that it was just a joke. Later, when a black student was suspended, a protest was staged at Jane’s school. As the vice principal, who was black, broke up the protest, he was called Uncle Tom and yelled at by the student protestors. Jane felt out of place because she had the sense that she should be participating in the protest, but was not sure why. Afterwards, she went home and looked up the term “Uncle Tom” because she had never heard it. The first high-profile police shootings of unarmed black men occurred around this time and Jane remembers a peer saying that “you guys can get pulled over by the cops and it’s fine.” She felt embarrassed hearing that as a white person, but still dismissed the argument because she had not considered these topics previously. Still, Jane “didn’t accept that [she] had certain privileges” related to her race. Jane worked at a fitness center during high school, where she was often the only white person in the facility and the only white employee. When Jane did not acknowledge another
123 employee’s greeting one day, she was accused of being a racist, which was the first time Jane felt directly confronted because of her race. When she told her parents, “they said very ignorant things” that did not help Jane process the incident. The tension continued through her time there, particularly if she had to speak to a member who was not following the center’s policies. Interlude: “And that was the first time that ever happened to us.” Jane’s dad lost his well-paying job less than a year after the family moved to Ohio. Her family “had to move into a very small, old house on a busy street,” while they had previously only lived in neighborhoods. The family “had to cut back a lot” until her dad got another job, though not making the same income. They eventually moved into a larger house again, where the family still lives today. Her dad lost his job a second time and has not been employed in one full-time position since. He currently has multiple part-time jobs and is starting a small business with Jane’s mom. Her dad works every day of the week, often arriving home after midnight. Jane’s college search process occurred in the midst of her family’s financial changes. She applied to colleges in cities she wanted to go to all over the country, including multiple schools in Ohio. Jane “didn’t know about costs or anything” until she received a letter from a flagship school out of state and her parents asked if she knew how much that school costs. She focused on Ohio schools after that, trying to get accepted, then figure out how to pay for one of them. Her parents pushed her to go to a Christian school back in the South, where Jane could attend free because a family member works there. The student population of high school prompted Jane to look up racial demographics of colleges. Each school she was applying to was majority white, so Jane knew “it was going to be different,” no matter where she attended. Jane eliminated one Ohio school because she had an ex there and another was too close to home, leaving Miami as her choice, even though she received no scholarships. Friends made comments about Jane’s college choice and the wealth of Miami, assuming she is wealthy. Two black peers individually told her they were “‘definitely not going to go there because [they] would be the only ones.’” Now that Jane is here, she understands why they would not consider Miami and why people assumed she is wealthy. “If it was a black dude, they would dump his backpack all over the desk and go through everything.” Several instances during Jane’s senior year of high school made it a turning point for her understanding of structural oppression. Her school implemented random backpack searches and
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Jane saw differences in how backpacks were searched depending on the owner’s race. Jane’s backpack was “kind of combed through,” while, “if it was a. . .black dude, they would dump his backpack all over the desk and go through everything.” A black peer’s ibuprofen was taken, but not the pills in Jane’s backpack. She was beginning to recognize the baseline assumptions held about white people versus black people, and how that influenced interactions at every level. In her choir class that year, they were singing spiritual songs, many of which originated from slavery. The choir teacher invited someone to come in and speak to the class about slavery and music to the choir. Jane “was able to connect something that [she] enjoy[s]” to the topic of oppression, increasing her understanding of slavery’s lasting impacts. Jane also took a writing- heavy Advanced Placement class that year, where the class investigated and debated social issues. When she researched the death penalty and the prison system, her partner was a black man who discussed family members affected by the prison system. Her teachers in the AP class and her choir were both white men, who Jane watched “step back and let other people facilitate” the conversations. This taught Jane the importance of not dominating conversations, particularly when she does not have personal experience with the topic. The AP teacher made the class “read a lot of opposing viewpoints” and resisted telling the class his opinions until everyone else had a chance. “There were people in there who would say the wildest stuff,” which helped Jane develop her own opinions outside her parents’ influence. “I dare them to change my mind in the class.” Jane entered Miami with a changing perspective on racial oppression and a family income and class identity in flux. She was more aware of assumptions people make about both topics, particularly now that some of those assumptions negatively impacted her. Jane was also always looking for disparities related to gender, given her academic focus and her proud identity as a feminist. She often sees how these structures and identities overlap and impact each other, and reflects on her positioning within the structures. The “transition is very strange” between Jane’s Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (WGS) classes to classes in her behavioral science major. Her WGS classes frequently focus on issues of privilege and oppression in society. Classrooms include more students of color and students of different social class identities, though a majority identify as women. In her behavioral science classes, she is surrounded by mostly wealthy white men, and privilege and
125 oppression are wholly ignored, even when directly related to a topic. These issues are never the focus of a class discussion. Classes in her WGS major have forced Jane to examine multiple aspects of her identity. She took a class focused on masculinity, which was “everything [she] didn’t want to learn about” because she considered herself “radical anti-male.” Jane now understands that sexism impacts white men and men of color differently, and men of different social classes differently. The open discussions of race, gender, and class together shifted Jane’s self-concept to include her race, not just her gender. When classmates made statements, peers responded with ways that their lived experiences were counterexamples to the statement. They “basically just call[ed] each other out on everything.” Jane now knows she is both being oppressed and oppressing others and sees that there’s not two sides to a story, there’s fifteen. . . There are all these different things that are factors. All these different parts of your identity that are all mixed. Before it was just how much money you have, what gender you are, and your race. Jane now thinks more about how identities impact each other, as well as more about identities beyond race, gender, and class. Jane participated in a Women’s March, where “everyone was angry and ready to do something” about gender oppression. Jane also attended another march that advocated for progress on gun violence after a school shooting. Talking to people of color at this march made Jane realize that she’s “never been scared of being shot,” which she knows is an indicator of multiple types of privilege. While this march was “really depressing” and many people were crying, Jane also recognized that the level of anger and mobilization of white people never occurred at a #BlackLivesMatter event. She recognized hypocrisy in some white celebrities, who publicly stated that they would not “just hashtag something [on social media] because it doesn’t mean anything” during #BlackLivesMatter, but were present and vocal at another march, “doing all the hashtags.” The march related to gun violence occurred over Miami’s spring break and when a teacher asked if anyone went, many of Jane’s peers expressed that the march “will be our spring break. Why would we do that?” She does not feel that the majority of her peers, who are wealthy and white, care enough about issues like school gun violence and police brutality to forgo their social plans. Peers’ reactions and some white celebrities’ hypocrisy made Jane think “‘Oh wow, America really hates black people’” for the first time.
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When people find out Jane is lower class, “there’s an assumption that [her family has] done something wrong” because of their financial situation. However, these same peers would never say that to a black student because they accept that “there’s a structural weight on minorities keeping them that way.” Jane has come to understand the structural weight of social class, though it conflicts with the value of earning what you get, instilled by her parents. Jane has often dealt with the assumption that she is wealthy because she is white and attends Miami, which amplifies the assumed connection of whiteness and wealth. When she was preparing to study abroad, Jane did not feel she could apply for many available scholarships because she is white and is not a first generation college student, though she has significant financial need. She gets frustrated when the connection of whiteness to wealth negatively affects her. Members of one of Jane’s student organizations were asked to chip in to buy something for seniors, and she refused. She was told she “wasn’t being a good [organization] member” because she did not have extra money for a gift. Additionally, the organization has raised required contributions from members against the protests of Jane and a couple others who she knows share her class identity. Jane still subconsciously holds some of the assumed connection between wealth and whiteness, though nowhere nearly as strong as she once did. Racial disparity exists where Jane studied abroad, but class and gender disparity were not nearly as prevalent. However, even in a country where white people are the minority, there are still negative perceptions of people of color, often from other populations of color. Most police officers are black in the country, but Jane saw them exhibit the same suspicion of black people that occurs in the U.S. Though she was a racial minority in the country, her whiteness still seemed to provide privilege and safety. She felt safe walking alone at night, which she would not do at home nor would she do that as a person of color in the U.S., “because you never know what awful things people could come do.” The majority of doctors in the country were women, which also surprised Jane. When she first saw a female doctor, she remembers wondering “is this person qualified,” then quickly being frustrated that she even had that thought. Jane sees this as strong evidence of the power of gender socialization in the United States. While she thinks other people see her whiteness first, Jane’s gender identity and sexual orientation have more influence on her daily life. She often feels marginalized within the LGBTQ community because bisexual individuals are “not taken seriously” or people think she “[hasn’t] made up [her] mind.” Jane also recognizes that she has some privilege because she can
127 pass as straight. She knows that “white people are on top, but not white women,” and Jane’s gender is often at the forefront. “In some ways, being a woman is more important now than race, in terms of being marginalized” with the national #MeToo conversation around sexual assault “affecting all women.” The formation of Jane’s antiracist white identity is tightly interwoven with marginalized identities and more loosely connected to her change in income and social class. “If you’re silent about it, then you’re complicit to it.” Jane feels compelled to resist white supremacy and racial injustice, given her awareness of structural racism. She sees individual avenues for resisting and sees ways Miami can disrupt the system of whiteness within the institution, though she is still working through the implications and motivations of various actions. Jane’s gender identity, in particular, helps her think about these implications. Education is important for Jane, both of herself and of her white peers. Jane draws a parallel from feminism and whether it is “women’s job to educate men.” She understands the additional burden on people of color if they have to educate white people about racial oppression. However, Jane is not sure “who has the authority to educate” about racism. She does not seem to feel comfortable telling someone that “‘this thing you’ve always believed is wrong.’” Jane cannot imagine talking to her parents about white privilege, because of their financial struggles. She thinks they would dismiss her because “[she’s] just in college getting a women’s studies degree.” Additionally, Jane sees a fundamental limitation of white people educating other white people. Experiential knowledge of racism is diluted and a person of color most likely still has to educate a white person, to some extent, before that person can effectively educate their white peers. Jane has intervened multiple times when she witnesses a white peer exhibiting overt racism. She recognizes that “white people listen to other white people more” and can have some impact. However, Jane is unsure if this action is as effective because the white person lacks personal experience with racism. Jane also works to disrupt white supremacy and oppression through topics she chooses for class projects. She wrote a paper about inaction being complicity in oppression and plans to complete her capstone on ally behaviors that perpetuate oppression, regardless of intention. Jane knows that picking these topics are also important for her own ongoing formation, because she is
128 forced to reflect as she writes. She feels “very angry at people who don’t want to talk about [oppression and privilege]” and sees this at an individual and societal level. There are also structural actions Jane sees being impactful at Miami. All of Jane’s WGS professors so far have been white men, which she understands limits the discussions in the class. She thinks “it’s an interesting reflection on Miami” that faculty diversity is lacking, even in a major with social justice as a core value. Jane knows that increasing this diversity is vital. Additionally, Jane strongly believes that all students should be required to take a Black World Studies or a WGS class, instead of a more general humanities requirement. Currently, students “can come to Miami and avoid all of the progressives easily.” This requirement would force students to at least be exposed to these topics and likely “eventually talk about it.” Conclusion Jane’s recent change in family income level made her unique to this study. She enjoyed financial privilege for the majority of her childhood, in addition to her racial privilege. The income change makes her consider finances more than her wealthier white peers and makes her college experience “more realistic, more in the real world.” However, Jane believes her other marginalized identities have more impact on the formation of her antiracist white identity. Gender and sexual orientation are identities Jane has been forced to think about for most of her life and inform much of the way she sees the world. Therefore, it was from these identities that she drew initial connections to understand white supremacy and structural oppression. Jane’s childhood with financial privilege can also inhibit the formation of her antiracist white identity. She still has an assumed connection between people of color and a lack of wealth, as when she referenced her on-campus job and said “all of us here have to work, but it’s not because we’re minorities or anything like that. It’s all because we’re lower class.” Overall, Jane believes it is “a mindset you have to have,” or it would be easy for she and other white people to ignore racial injustice when it does not affect their daily life. Jane knows that resisting at the individual level and the structural level are important components of an antiracist white identity. She is still working through various actions and the appropriateness of taking those actions in different situations. Beth Beth is a first-year student from a small rural town in Ohio. She is still finding her place on campus, joining organizations and getting an on-campus job to earn money and support her
129 education. Beth laughed throughout her interviews, sometimes in a self-deprecating manner, but mostly at the absurdity of situations she has encountered in her life. “The housing market went crazy, so that threw us for another loop.” Beth’s “house was literally like corn field, block of green grass, corn field, corn field” in the middle of farmland. Most people who lived around Beth worked in other towns, unless they were a teacher, farmer, or worked in one of the small factories in town. Once she went to middle school in the city, she met friends’ parents who also worked at one of the local universities, mostly in custodial positions. Many of the faculty and administration at those institutions commuted from surrounding areas. Beth describes the town as 99% white and mostly lower- middle class, though there are families across the full class spectrum. The town is small enough that it is easy to know someone’s class “based on what they’re wearing, based on how they look,” if Beth did not already know their family. Beth’s mom worked as a medical technician until she decided to return to school when Beth was in first grade. Beth’s dad worked as a case manager, and “an investment with his friend flipping houses” on the side. Her family had already adjusted to living on only her dad’s income when the 2009 recession hit “and the housing market went crazy.” Beth “started to get an inkling of what was happening” with her family’s finances when she stopped receiving the small toy that was a staple feature of trips to Walmart. Her parents divorced when Beth was in middle school. Her dad stayed in their house and her mom moved into town. As her mom continued school, she also worked as a substitute teacher and “a lot of odd jobs, like waitressing. Even now, she’s a bartender on the side sometimes,” in addition to her full time job helping students get to college. Many of Beth’s values can be traced to her family’s shift in income. Practically, Beth learned about budgeting from a very early age. This also taught Beth the difference between her wants and her needs. She “never wanted to inconvenience her [mom] and make her struggle to support [Beth’s] wants.” Though they struggled, Beth’s parents are the most generous people she knows. They role modeled kindness and generosity “no matter who they were interacting with.” As a young adult, Beth sees how these lessons shape her current values. She does not “worry about having the nicest clothes” and other material goods. Beth is also disciplined in her time management and always works ahead on schoolwork, rather than watching a show on her computer or otherwise occupying free time. Beth hates to spend money on herself and defaults
130 to spending money on others first when she is out with friends. These lessons “affect [her] political values too” and the formation of her antiracist white identity. “My way to deal with that was kind of to just make self-deprecating jokes.” The majority of people who lived around Beth and made up her friend group were middle class. She continued to think of herself as middle class after her family’s financial situation changed, because of who she associated with and where she physically lived. Beth “felt like [she] was pretending to be in the middle class” and did not want to associate with lower-classed peers. Beth remembers shopping at second-hand stores because her mom always wanted her to look nice and have clothes similar to her peers. Beth’s mom tried to shield her from their hardship, but she readily saw evidence of the shift. Beth’s dad, however, “grew up poor” and never shied away from telling Beth that money was the reason why they could not do something. Shortly after the family’s financial situation changed, Beth remembers several instances of asking her parents to buy something her friends had. The response was always “‘We’ll try. We’ll see what we can do,’” but she never received the item. While Beth was envious of her friend with the item, she stopped asking because I didn’t want to stress them out, because I could tell I was stressing them out when I asked for these things. . . I knew I would be disappointed in not getting what I wanted, so there’s no use anymore. Her care for her parents and understanding that her effort was futile changed Beth’s actions. Beth credits these instances as the reason why she now understands the differences between wants and needs. As much as she attempted to conceal her class identity from peers, she was aware of the ways it impacted her high school experience. Beth played a sport for all four years, joining the team originally to get out of gym class, but also because “all the preppy girls” played another sport. Like Beth, many teammates were “misfits that didn’t want to be in [the preppy sport] or felt intimidated by the [preppy] girls.” Beth was also a member of a group in high school designed for young women to talk about common issues faced by high school women and work through barriers. Students from all social classes were in the group and it was a “very equalizing environment” where honest discussions were encouraged. Beth remembers cliques and social intimidation being discussed and seeing higher-classed peers openly admit that they make
131 judgments of lower-classed students. Most times, the end result was empathy and acknowledgement of the pain the upper-classed peers caused. Beth was initially interested in studying anthropology, so she started her college search by looking for the best programs in the country. When Ivy League schools came back as the top institutions, she “dialed it back down” and narrowed the search to schools in Ohio. Beth knew she was going to stay in Ohio, unless she received a great financial aid package for outside the state. Completing the financial aid process made her aware of her mom’s actual income, which shocked Beth. Her mom told Beth that she was somewhat glad about their financial situation because “‘I never want you to value money more than anything else.’” The financial aid process also changed the way Beth felt about her social class identity. She had always hidden her class identity, but “almost started bragging about it” when she learned how much her wealthier peers were going to pay for college. Beth now thinks that this was her way of dealing with her realization, now that she was mature enough not to be ashamed. Beth’s perception of Miami University was “what you think of when you think of the popular kid in high school; they just all congregate at Miami.” She expected to be one of few people with her social class identity, which made her question whether she really wanted to attend. Beth was more worried about finding a community of people where she belonged and about being incorrectly “labeled as a preppy, white sorority girl,” and not as much about the actual cost of attending. Although she sees peers who fit this stereotype and has friends who are wealthy, she has also found friends who do not fit this mold. Beth’s wealthy friends often reveal their own wealth and unintentionally remind her of her own class identity. She frequently sees them shopping online or making comments like “‘My mom just keeps putting these $100 sweaters in my cart.’” While Beth’s impulse buy is an extra snack at the Emporium, she has seen friends impulse buy a $400 pair of shoes. She has also had a wealthy friend offer her a Louis Vuitton bag he no longer uses. Before college, Beth had a mental image of wealthy people spending and giving away money with little regard, but these situations with her wealthy peers “brought this unrealistic expectation of rich people to the forefront.” Beth and another friend who is not wealthy share this shock together, confirming that she is not alone in this feeling. In-class discussions are another place Beth often sees peers’ lack of knowledge about class disparity, implicitly revealing their own wealth. When discussing the wage gap in one class, a peer expressed shock at learning about the median family income and
132 that many families survive on less than $30,000 per year. Beth occasionally feels emboldened in these situations to educate her peers, while other times she decides to remain silent. Beyond these extreme examples of social class disparity, Beth experiences daily life in a very different way than her wealthier peers. She has “to juggle work, class, undergraduate research, and then [her] homework,” which she never starts before five o’clock. Her peers who do not have a job are often done with everything before Beth begins her homework. This is also one place Beth sees race and social class come together. She knows her wealthier white peers “have more time to be social and less stress” overall because they deal with neither financial constraints nor the stress of racial oppression. However, Beth’s deeper understanding of race, and the interaction between race and social class did not develop until just prior to college. “I don’t remember, for the majority of my elementary experience, there being any race other than white.” Beth attended elementary school with mostly other people who lived outside of town on farmland like she did. She does not remember any classmates of color or even encountering any people of color in her elementary school. Beth was labeled gifted and went to an elementary school in town once a week to do activities with other gifted children in the district. Here she noticed students of color for the first time, thinking “you don’t look like anybody in my school.” These students became her classmates when they all attended the middle school in town. Beth remembers students discussing their ethnic backgrounds when completing family tree projects in school. If a student had any Native American ancestry, “somehow that 2% Native American made a difference” and was important. Students also brought up their partial Native American heritage during Thanksgiving, which “was their way of standing out, being different from the other sea of white kids.” Classes discussed the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and racial disparity at a surface level, but Beth never really reflected on it or learned about impacts today. Otherwise, race and racism were just touched upon in curriculum before high school, discussing the existence of slavery in the United States as the impetus for much of the black population in the country. In the midst of her interview, Beth had a realization about race and her family. She has two cousins of color adopted from outside the country and another cousin who is half white. To her, “those are just [her] cousins. [She] didn’t really pick up on the fact that they are a different race.” Beth does not even think of them as not being white because they “assimilate[d] into the
133 family.” The only race-related comments Beth remembers from her childhood came from her grandparents and were implicitly derogatory towards black people. When she was six and riding through town in her grandma’s car, they passed a group of black children and her grandma commented “we better not be getting any gangs” in town. The other time was when her grandma described a person as a “big old black lady.” Even though Beth was very young, she recognized that her grandma’s tone meant race being used as a negative descriptor. “I really wanted to highlight how much my education has impacted my understanding of race.” Beth did not understand the definition of oppression until her first year of high school. Her English class read To Kill a Mockingbird and completed an in-depth examination of events and societal forces that led to the culture portrayed in the book. Connecting historical incidents, like Plessy v. Ferguson, to an individual through To Kill is when Beth first began to understand the nature of racial oppression in the U.S. Beth remembers appreciating the frankness with which her teacher approached the book, including the discussion of the use of racial slurs in the book. When a classmate asked “What about the rights of white Americans? Why can’t we talk about that?,” the teacher and other students in the class rebuked the question. They all understood that this unit was focused on the experiences of black people in the U.S. and did not diminish experiences of other groups. To Kill a Mockingbird is still Beth’s favorite book. Following this unit, Beth began watching documentaries on Civil Rights and Martin Luther King, Jr. because she wanted to learn more. The same teacher taught a class later in high school that analyzed political persuasion throughout recent U.S. history. Beth was in this class during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and they also examined speeches on the campaign trail. Her teacher made explicit connections back to their discussions of To Kill, helping Beth and her classmates make further sense of that election and politics today, in general. There were a couple classmates who were given the derogatory label of “SJW” [social justice warriors] by their peers. Beth was in classes and the student organization for women with one of these students. She vividly remembers the different reactions between those two spaces when the student attempted to talk about oppression and racism. The discussion was welcomed in the student organization, but when they tried “to bring those issues up outside of that group, it
134 wasn’t taken the same. It wasn’t appreciated.” Beth valued the conversations in the student group because she could learn without the conversation becoming negative and unproductive. Beth took a women’s and gender studies class at one of the local colleges her senior year of high school. Beth identifies this class as the point where she truly began to understand her racial privilege. The instructor discussed her own privilege and gave the class several examples of ways their identities might be privileged or oppressed. Beth had learned about privilege and oppression in earlier classes, but this was the first time she understood that although there are some areas where I am disadvantaged because I am lower class, because I am a girl, or because I have mental illness, I still have so much more privilege than people of other races. I think that’s when I really took that idea of whiteness. . .more as the opportunities that I had and the privileges that I have, that other people don’t. Beth’s definition of race shifted from the color of her skin and the ethnic background of her family to a socially constructed set of privileges. Defensiveness, anger and guilt were Beth’s first reactions to her newfound knowledge about racial privilege and whiteness. She knows she was “trying to rank suffering” and place herself higher in those rankings because of her lower-classed identity. She also wanted to deny these privileges because she did not want to have an advantage over other people. Beth was angry because society gave her those advantages, which also caused her to feel guilty that others did not have them. By the end of this class, she understood that her social class provided a measure of relatability to racial oppression, but that racial oppression is fundamentally different because of the power of white supremacy. Beth still felt some measure of guilt, but resolved to “actively try to understand [her] white identity, [her] privileges” every opportunity she gets. Beth’s family was all white and “too wrapped up in other stuff” to focus on race, so she learned about race almost solely in educational contexts. The combination of personal stories in To Kill a Mockingbird and analyzing historical events and forces led to Beth’s understanding of race in the U.S. and in her own life. These experiences “made [her] reflect more on [her] own privilege” in the context of her other identities. Although Beth was increasingly aware of racial injustice, it did not play a role in her college search. She did not consider racial demographics until after she narrowed her list of schools, finding that all of her choices had overwhelmingly white student populations. Additionally, her Asian American best friend discussed the pressure
135 she felt to join Asian-focused student organizations when she went to college. These made Beth consider race, but not to the extent that it changed any of her plans or choice of schools. “People of color wear it all the time. . .I can hide my economic status, but people of color can’t” Beth continues to explore race in college, where she has also begun to see overlapping impacts of race and class. She can go through an entire day without thinking about her racial identity because of the student population and she can hide her social class identity, if she so desires. Even though she can choose to hide her social class identity, she faces constant reminders that she is different from her wealthier peers, some of whom are peers of color. Beth’s social class marginalization are still a source of relatability to understanding the experience of her peers of color, even if they are higher-classed. Beth frequently hears comments that reveal someone’s wealth, like a peer’s dismay at the median family income, or a student complaining “‘I’m so broke right now,’” although they are clearly wealthy. She also notices displays of wealth by some international students, including clothing and cars, given that they are the largest group of students of color. Seeing groups of international students wearing expensive clothes stands out to Beth. There were very few people of color in her town and they were not wealthy, so Beth never encountered groups of people who were different from her in both race and class. Even though she frequently sees outward signs of wealth and often feels like an outsider, most other people at least look like her. She cannot imagine being a person of color on campus, where over 70% of people are white. These encounters and differences from her hometown have caused Beth to “think a bit more” about race on a regular basis. “The poster child for diversity” is how Beth described her friend group, which includes a mix of people of color and white people across all social class identities. Most live in her residence hall and this group “just kind of happened.” Beth did not intentionally seek out a diverse group of people. Of her three closest friends, one is a wealthy person of color. This group has presented Beth with many opportunities to deepen her understanding of people of color and her own whiteness, all within the context of social class. Beth’s wealthy friend of color lamented the lack of high quality food from his culture available in the Oxford area. He told Beth about the specialized markets in his hometown where his family shops for their ingredients. This friend also discussed the high academic expectations
136 from his family, which is related to a cultural expectation, whereas Beth’s family expects her to do well for the practical reason of getting a well-paying job. This is the same peer who impulse buys $400 shoes and offered Beth an expensive bag he no longer wants. These minor examples push Beth’s understanding of social class and race, given that he is a person of color and wealthy. When her peers discuss being on “colored people time” or other “CP things” in everyday life situations, Beth finds herself reflecting on her own upbringing. Her friends of color were shocked that Beth calls her parents by their first names, which they said would never happen in their families. When peers discuss “CP things,” Beth is silent because she is unable to relate. Her friends readily attribute differences to their racial identity, though Beth still wonders “what white people things are.” She is beginning to “realize the differences [and] how ingrained they are in everyday things. . .and how much race affects lifestyle.” Overall, Beth still finds it difficult to name norms that are white because they were shared by most people in her town. Beth and a friend of color joined a student organization focused on a particular ethnic identity. Neither of them share this identity, but both are interested in pursuing their chosen careers within this culture. Beth hesitated to join the organization because she assumed “it’s their group that they get together to celebrate or talk about their heritage.” Even when they attended their first meeting and saw some other white people, Beth still “felt like [they’re] intruding.” She hesitated to impose on what she assumed is a space for people who share that specific identity. Beth eventually understood that one main goal of the organization is to share the culture with other students. When one of Beth’s classes read and talked to the author of a book about Mexican immigrants crossing the U.S. border, Beth reflected on the privilege of citizenship and its ties to race. She sees how “citizenship gives certain people privileges and oppresses or discriminates or others other people.” She sees this as particularly true for Latinos, who are “still discriminated against based on what you appear to be,” regardless of citizenship. Beth’s reflections in this class, combined with her experiences in the cultural student organization and her general interest in learning about other cultures, crystalized her understanding of “the environment acting on the people versus the people acting on the environment.” She is beginning to understand the scope of structural oppression and privilege in society.
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Beth’s short time in college has provided many opportunities to continue exploring and learning about racial oppression and class marginalization. She continues to draw parallels between her own lower-classed experience and the experiences of people of color. One of her core values is putting other people before herself, which impacts her views about society and injustice. Beth’s experience of being lower-classed, yet watching her parents’ generosity is what she credits with her ability to accept that she possesses unearned privilege and must work to disrupt the structures that gave her privilege. She could just focus on her own disadvantages, but firmly believes she has “to try and mitigate [racial injustice] as much as possible,” even though that is counterproductive to her own life. This drives the actions Beth takes to resist and disrupt whiteness in her life. “I’m still working on the how, but every time the opportunity arises, I will try to acknowledge it and work against it, I guess. I don’t know.” Overall, Beth views “being white as a responsibility to educate. . . other white people.” One main aspect of this is to first educate herself and be open to learning about cultures different from her own. She attempts to encourage this outlook in her peers, in addition to directly confronting problematic behavior when she sees it. Beth also has ideas of ways that Miami can make resist racial injustice at the institutional level. Beth is certain that “understanding different cultures and just learning about them helps immensely in fighting white supremacy and racism.” She tries to learn about other cultures through explicit efforts, such as joining the cultural student organization and by listening to her peers of color discuss their own lived experiences. She is aware that she often has nothing to add to a conversation and does not want to intrude by inserting herself. Additionally, Beth tries to enact a mindset of openness in uncomfortable situations, such as when she has an instructor or teaching assistant who speaks English with an accent. In a class with a TA from China, she watches peers dismiss the TA when they cannot quickly understand something he says. Instead of “‘I don’t understand this, I’m leaving,’” Beth attempts to react with “‘I don’t understand this. Tell me about it,’ and [then] have a conversation with them.” Modeling this openness to her white peers is one way Beth works to resist white supremacy. She talks frequently about enjoying the cultural student organization and thinks this helps white peers decide to enter similar spaces where they can learn about other cultures. Beth thinks that spaces like the cultural student organization or a broader event, such as a world
138 cultures day, can help people learn about other cultures in a lower-risk setting for those doing the teaching. Further, she would like to see Miami promote more opportunities for this type of learning, which she opens the door for deeper conversations about structural injustice. Learning about and reflecting on the experiences of people of color through lectures and student organizations were impactful for the formation of Beth’s antiracist white identity. Confronting peers when they make racist or otherwise problematic comments is another way Beth works to resist white supremacy. This sometimes takes the form of talking about her lived experiences as a lower-classed student or her disability when a peer reveals their ignorance of a topic. Beth does not always take advantage of these opportunities because she sometimes “feel[s] ashamed in the moment.” However, there are many times when she feels a duty to educate her classmate. Beth has also confronted white peers when they make a racist comment, whether or not they realize it is problematic. She overheard students in her hall talking about getting an Asian peer to help them with math “because he’s Asian.” Beth told them “unless he’s a math major, don’t bother him please.” She knows she could have gone further in her explanation, but that pushing back even to this degree “makes other people around [them] be like ‘Oh yeah, this is kind of not cool.’” She hopes this will make peers think twice about their comments and assumptions the next time they are in a similar conversation. The inclusion of authors of color throughout the curriculum is another step Beth believes would go a long way towards disrupting whiteness. She applauded Miami’s example of a black author for this year’s first-year reading program and thinks it should be done more broadly. Beth was first deeply exposed to topics of privilege and oppression when taking a college class during her senior year of high school. She recognizes that not everyone has the opportunity to do this, or even to attend college. She wants these topics to be covered in academic courses that are more widely accessible, particularly in overwhelmingly white towns like her own. Explicitly and implicitly exposing white people to different cultures at an early age and throughout their education is what Beth believes would be the most effective on a large scale. Conclusion Beth’s family experienced a significant income shift at a point where she was aware of the change. She recognized ways this impacted her daily experiences and how others perceived her. Her family did not discuss race because they were “too wrapped up” dealing with their financial issues. Her town was overwhelmingly white and race was not discussed in any depth in
139 her education. Not until high school did Beth begin to be taught about oppression and privilege. And not until her senior year did she understand how she possesses racial privilege, even though she is disadvantaged because of her social class. Beth’s social class helps her understand how it feels to be othered in everyday life, constantly surrounded by peers who do not experience any of the same struggle. However, she knows that this parallel is limited. Most of the cultural norms of Miami match her family and she is still surrounded by others who look like her. Beth watched her parents model generosity, even when they were left wanting. She credits this with her ability to acknowledge her racial privilege and work to disrupt the systems that provide it to her. Beth works to disrupt whiteness in individual situations, but also has ideas for larger, systematic ways Miami can work towards racial justice. Becky Becky is from a larger city in Ohio and is in her second year at Miami. She remains closely connected to people and places near home, including her boyfriend and a part-time job. Becky is also a member of a cultural student organization on campus. She is focused on using her racial privilege to benefit communities of color with whom she is close. “I always felt an undercurrent of financial anxiety.” Becky has always known her dad as being retired and never working. He experienced a significant health issue before she was born and was unable to work as a result. He has received disability benefits for Becky’s entire life and still experiences intermittent health issues. Prior to his health issues, her dad had a well-paying job in media. Becky’s mom worked in sales and her income fluctuated each year depending on her success. Becky remembers years when sales were good and they celebrated, as well as bad years where they “had to keep the heat at 62 degrees and bundle up in sweaters.” After Becky’s parents divorced when she was in elementary school, “there was a bit of rocking [her] world.” Her father moved around and now lives in a small place bought with an Federal Housing Administration loan. Becky lives with him when she goes home. Her mother remarried and stayed in the same house until her new husband passed away and she could no longer afford to live there. Becky remembers mostly white, and middle- or lower middle-classed people in the neighborhoods where she lived, with very small populations of people of color.
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Aside from a short stint in public schools, Becky attended a private school on a need- based scholarship for her K-12 education. Her family places high value on education and sacrificed to cover the remaining costs so Becky can “be in a higher class than [they] are, eventually.” Her mom consistently talked about independence and making sure that, if she died tomorrow, Becky would be okay. While Becky never had to help pay family bills, she learned early on the importance of earning and saving money for things she wanted. Her mom’s explicit focus on independence caused Becky to “ravenously save” and carefully decide whether or not an expense is necessary. The fact that she is able to save money “brings [her] a lot of pride.” “I consistently remember fluctuating between periods of controlled debt and concerning debt while living a pseudo-affluent lifestyle.” Even after her dad stopped working, Becky’s family continued “behaving like they were making money.” One vivid example she remembers is a masseuse regularly visiting her house, which Becky recognized as unsustainable by the time she was in kindergarten. Becky believes that part of this “lifestyle bloat” was to shield her from the knowledge and shame associated with their financial situation. Becky felt “more well-off or even poorer depending on the context.” When she visited a friend from work who lived with four other family members in a trailer home, she felt wealthy. Conversely, when surrounded by her wealthy peers at school, she felt very poor. Becky’s school experience shaped most of her understanding of social class marginalization. The relative wealth of the student population caused Becky to believe she was poor, but also to eventually realize that her basis for comparison was skewed. Peers reacted with shock or pity when they came over to play and saw the size of her house. When a poorer peer commented on how big Becky’s house was, a wealthier peer laughed aloud because his own house was much larger. Another time, a peer asked “‘Where’s the rest of your house?’” when visiting for the first time. When Becky visited wealthy peers’ houses, she truly understood how different her life was. She had peers competitively riding horses in second grade and discussing spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a horse. Becky expressed interest in having a horse and one classmate recommended a boarder who “only charge[s] $1000 a month.” She was shocked, both at the cost and that the classmate saw this as a good price. Peers’ extensive international travel was another indication of wealth disparity between Becky’s family and others. She remembers classmates talking about surfing lessons in the
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Bahamas or going on a Caribbean cruise as early as the second grade. Her school coordinated trips all over the world to study different topics and one was described by a teacher as “only $7,000.” When Becky asked her parents about going, “their go-to [answer] was ‘We don’t want you to travel out of the country. We don’t care if the school is sponsoring it.’” They then added “‘And it’s really expensive,’” almost as a secondary reason, though Becky eventually understood that cost was prohibitive. Becky’s parents encouraged her to conceal the fact that she received a need-based scholarship “because they will treat you different.” Most people assumed Becky was not a scholarship recipient, which she quickly understood was because of her race. The student population was overwhelmingly white, but the group of students who received the scholarship was mostly black. Becky became more outspoken in high school about her status as a scholarship recipient, subsequently developing a sense of solidarity with other scholarship recipients of all races. She credits this solidarity with preventing her from feeling shame about her family’s social class. Speaking out about her social class also caused negative consequences for Becky. She remembers being bullied by a wealthy peer because has a job as a restaurant server. She had a verbal altercation with another wealthy peer who was taking an unpaid internship to get experience. Becky argued that everyone should work a minimum wage job to learn the value of work, and that not everyone can afford an unpaid internship. The peer said that “‘just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you need to be bitter! It’s not my fault that my parents work harder than yours do!’” Becky knew that her parents bore some responsibility, but that there were also structural factors unrelated to their work ethic that contributed to their financial situation. She was beginning to understand the negative repercussions of capitalism. The college search process was another reminder of Becky’s lower-classed identity. Many wealthy peers were either taking a gap year to travel or attending small prestigious schools, neither of which was an option for Becky. Peers looked down on Miami because it is a public institution. Becky limited her search to Ohio because she wanted to remain close to family and friends at home, particularly with her father’s ongoing health issues. She knew the stereotypes about Miami’s student population, but did not fear coming here because she had been in a similar setting throughout her education. She received a generous financial aid offer from Miami that made it her obvious choice for college.
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Becky continues to experience social class marginalization at Miami. She frequently hears peers disparage others, whether because “they always wear the same jacket” or because a peer “can only go to Gatlinburg” for vacation, while they are going to the Caribbean. She has a job on campus and continues to work at the restaurant near home. Becky appreciates being around other students who work on campus because there’s “a certain mentality from students who have a job.” She has prioritized her restaurant job, making sacrifices of time and spending money on car maintenance so she is able to remain connected to that community. On campus, she tries to connect peers in a cultural student organization to that same culture in the surrounding area, but many are wealthy and seem uninterested in connecting with lower-classed members of their culture. This experience exemplifies Becky’s evolving understanding of the intersection of race and social class. “Being poor has put me in situations and places shared with people of color, which has allowed me to witness racism as it occurs.” Becky’s maternal grandparents were deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. They moved her mom from a private elementary school to an inner-city high school with almost all black students. Peers called her Nellie Oleson, comparing her to the spoiled white character in Little House on the Prairie, which left a lasting impact on her view of race. While Becky “was well-versed when it came to MLK and civil rights stuff” through her grandparents, her parents were “never really telling [her] racial consciousness 101.” Many of Becky’s memories related to understanding race occurred within school, similar to social class. The general student population of Becky’s school was mostly white, with less than 20% students of color. This ratio was almost flipped within the population of the students receiving the need-based scholarship. Many students of color also came from wealthy families. However, Becky remembers many black peers from the scholarship group only attending the school for a single year before they were not invited back. They did not fit the social norms of the school, so the school “replace[d] them with a more well-behaved black kid” the next year. Becky does not remember this happening with any white students. When swimming with her classmates, one black peer was receiving individual instruction. A white peer said it was “‘because black kids can’t swim,’” even though there were also a handful of black students swimming near them. Comments like this stuck with Becky because they seemed to be focused on race in a way that did not make sense. Becky also thought
143 about race when her class discussed Mexican immigration and everyone looked to the one Latina student in the room “like she was the source on immigration, even though she had zero experience with it.” When her school hosted a diversity day, Becky noticed that only white students were on a panel discussing race. One peer discussed the existence of reverse racism and that “‘when you make fun of white girls for their UGG boots and Starbucks, that makes lasting damage!’” Becky quickly recognized that this person may look just like her, but the person is arguing that reverse racism exists, which Becky knew to be false. Becky points back to this time as a when she was first able to name racism. The internet is another source of Becky’s education about racism. She often used Tumblr, which suggests other content on similar topics or by similar authors. Becky was interested in arts programs and tried to convince her parents to go to a public school that focused on the arts, though her parents refused. As she read more about arts programs in public schools, she began to also read more about social class limiting access to arts. Tumblr then led her to information about racial oppression and privilege, which was the first time she read about these topics in any depth. Becky compared experiences at school with those in her restaurant jobs. At the first restaurant, most employees shared her social class and many were white. Becky was the only white person her second restaurant job, which she still holds today. The other employees here formed her circle of friends and invited her into their community. Through her friends, Becky began to hear about and “witness racism as it occurs.” Some of this racism was also directed at her because peers knew of her connections to the specific community of color. Becky recognizes that her social class forced her to take a job, where she was constantly in close proximity to people of color, most of whom also shared her social class. Her wealthier white peers were insulated from such in-depth interactions and, therefore did not hear about or see instances of racism. “For me, the police are like customer service.” Once Becky began to understand the concept of systemic racial oppression, she frequently saw it in action. Some instances were overt and easily identifiable, while others were more nuanced. These experiences have taught Becky about the pervasiveness of racism and made her consider her positioning within the system that perpetuates it. Her social class both informs and complicates this positioning.
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In some of her classes at Miami, white students share blatantly anti-immigrant sentiments. In one class discussion about Latinos and healthcare, peers argued that undocumented immigrants should not have any access to healthcare or be able to purchase insurance, and should have to pay for their own hospital translators “‘if they haven’t bothered learning English.’” One white peer even said “‘I appreciate that this course grades on the quality of my argument, rather than my opinion’” before she shared a blatantly racist opinion on this topic. Becky was particularly frustrated with these discussions because peers also argued against taxpayer supported insurance after she acknowledged being a Medicaid recipient. She understands that race and social class are deeply intertwined in these discussions and that the students talking often reveal their wealth through clothing, new laptops, and other outward signs. Becky has also found stickers on campus with “It’s ok to be white” printed on them, and remembers hearing about “White lives matter” fliers appearing on campus. She sees these as thinly veiled racism. At the restaurant where she works, multiple white customers have specifically asked for her as their server or said “‘A white waitress, what a pleasant surprise!’” While it may initially sound like a compliment, Becky immediately recognizes the racism at the heart of the comment. One of the most interesting themes Becky has found since she began recognizing racial injustice is the ease with which other white people share racist opinions with her. She has found this to be true regardless of the other person’s social class. One high school teacher openly complained to Becky about the need-based scholarship recipients. He mentioned their inability to “mesh with a structure of the school” and that the “school is supposed to be made for people who are willing to put the investment in. If you can’t put the investment in it, you shouldn’t be here.” And he is saying this directly to me, but he thinks that I’m not a recipient because of the fact that I’m white. It was very clear. Becky both understood that the teacher was really talking about the black scholarship recipients and that he chose to share this opinion with her because she is white and he does not associate whiteness with a lower-classed identity. Similar occurrences have also happened at her restaurant job, with customers sharing racist opinions about the culture of the restaurant. Additionally, when she went to get her car fixed, the mechanic saw a textbook in the backseat with a Spanish title. He immediately asked
145 her about immigration and said that U.S. troops at the Mexico border “‘should shoot to kill’” so they can protect our country. Becky knows people share these opinions because of “this shared plane of whiteness.” She believes that they see her with a certain textbook or in a certain environment and assume Becky has the same opinions about the environment or topic as they do. At the restaurant, Becky sees the power differential as an additional layer. She is reliant on customers’ tips so she cannot disagree with the customer or attempt to educate them. Encounters with police have also been a reminder of Becky’s white privilege. She was pulled over in one instance, but let off with a warning and the admonition to drive more carefully. When she looked over at her peer of color in the passenger seat, he was trembling from fear. She remembers thinking “‘Oh, that went really well for me. It could have gone really bad for him.’” Another time a peer of color locked her keys in the car and asked Becky to call the police for assistance. Becky was vividly aware of her privilege when the officer opened the car without asking for her identification. He believed her when she said it was her friend’s car. She then understood that she could expect fair treatment because she was white, unlike her peers of color. Becky is now willing and able to use this privilege when it can benefit peers of color. Overall, Becky feels a sense of closeness with her peers of color because of her experience with social class marginalization and her understanding of racial oppression. She felt very divided from her wealthy, white peers in high school and recognized that peers of color felt a similar divide, regardless of their social class identity. Importantly, Becky recognizes that I got a lot of shit for being poor, but I could have easily been able to turn off the discrimination by dressing well and not talking about where I live and making sure that no one saw my car. [Laughs] But a lot of people I knew could not turn off the discrimination. She understands that she can “put up the façade” and pass as affluent because of her whiteness. Becky can see people that look like her in most movies, wear her hair however she pleases without being told it is unacceptable, and see the police as customer service. “What are some things I know to navigate because of my privilege? And how can I take that and use it?” During her senior year of high school, Becky realized her privilege is “something that [she] would be able to leverage to be able to help people who didn’t have that benefit.” She has found that whiteness provides access to resources she can use to benefit her friends of color or to
146 conversations with white peers where she can confront their assumptions or racism. Becky has, however, become less confident in being able to shift opinions of individuals and focuses more on bringing resources to communities of color. She also sees opportunities where Miami could decrease the impact and presence of whiteness on campus. Becky has found that white people will “let their guard down to share with [her] bad opinions,” which opens the door to counter their argument with facts they would otherwise ignore, especially if coming from a person of color. When the auto mechanic discussed his opinions about the U.S.-Mexico border, Becky explained that the migrants “aren’t just running away from poverty, they’re running away from gang violence we are fueling every time somebody in Oxford buys heroin or every time somebody at Miami buys coke.” She believes that these conversations will not change the person’s whole worldview, but hopefully make them consider another perspective before forming their opinion. Explaining white privilege to her dad is one time she was able to make a large impact on an individual’s worldview. Becky’s dad “always wanted to know what [she] had to say” and then would challenge her opinions, which drove her to do more research and be ready to answer his challenges. When it came to explaining white privilege, she “made sure [she had her] argument laid out in a way that he could understand.” Becky found a way to explain racial privilege that still acknowledged social class marginalization and ultimately resonated with her dad. Her mom, on the other hand, referenced Welfare Queens when Becky attempted to explain police brutality or chronic disenfranchisement. With peers at Miami, she has become exasperated with changing individuals’ opinions. Most peers refuse to listen to the facts she presents or engage in a conversation about their own opinion. The hardened opinions of her peers have caused Becky to focus on accessing resources to benefit the people of color with whom she is closely connected. For her, those are my boyfriend. My co-workers. People where they’re seeing me every week and I feel like there’s something I can be able to do eventually, whether that is becoming more educated. . . being able to become a lawyer is something I want to do because I will be able to directly make an impact. Becky first approached education as a tool for long-term impact, asking large questions about society and seeking knowledge that can expose systemic oppression. However, witnessing the impact of that oppression on her closest friends pushed her to “get as many resources as possible
147 to become as competent as possible to be able to make this stop.” She now focuses on specific knowledge that can directly and immediately benefit those in her community. One example is a community organization where Becky frequently volunteers. Not only is she giving back to the community, but she is also becoming familiar the social services the organization offers, should her peers ever need to access them. When Becky enters a new space of color, such as a cultural student organization, she focuses on “mak[ing] it evident that [she’s] an ally” and is only interested in taking a supporting role. She does not want to shape the vision of the organization, but rather help enact the vision the members already have for the group. Becky tries to be attuned to how she is perceived and distances herself if she senses that she is being intrusive. She knows it is different interacting with students on campus than interacting with peers in the same culture at home, where her intentions and investment are known. Understanding the limited impact she can or should have because of her whiteness also pushed Becky to shift her career goals. She did not want to be the white professor teaching about the culture and lived experiences of a community of color. Even though “these are things that [she’s] witnessed and [she] considers [herself] pretty well-versed in them through what [she’s] seen,” she can only truly speak to her own lived experience. [Becky knows that] being immersed in a community of color or being the only white person there “doesn’t negate [her] whiteness.” Becky believes there are actions the institution can take to decrease the presence of racial injustice and whiteness on campus. One step is to increase the amount of physical space for students of color. In a space “for everybody to be able to fit and gravitate to, folks are going to feel more comfortable. It’s going to feel more open.” Becky believes that more dedicated space increases comfort and belonging for students of color, which in turn makes them less guarded or defensive around white allies. Similarly, another opportunity Becky sees is giving resources to specific populations, instead of “being allocated just to ‘diversity’” overall. She thinks that resources are not equitably distributed among groups of students of color when there is no specificity beyond “diversity.” These institutional actions can assist students of color and also positively impact the views and experiences of white students on campus. Conclusion Becky’s social class marginalization is the foundation of her antiracist white identity. This identity led to her “adjacency” with communities of color in multiple environments.
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Closeness with people of color allowed her to witness firsthand instances and impacts of structural oppression. Researching her social class identity through Tumblr also exposed Becky to information about racial injustice. Becky feels more connection with “lower class people,” regardless of race, because of her shared experience. However, lower-classed white people often share racist opinions with her, assuming she shares those sentiments. At the same time, she struggles to connect with wealthy peers of color from the same community with which she is close at home. This has helped Becky understand that both race and class influence a person’s experience. She is now focused on using her racial privilege to accumulate resources she can relay to her closest friends at home. Haley Haley is in her second year at Miami, studying a health-related field. She has one sister and grew up in a suburb of a large city in Ohio. She has a job on campus and is a member of a student organization. Haley is refreshingly blunt and does not shy away from expressing her opinion on a topic or her assessment of a situation. “And then the circumstances just forced me to be independent.” Haley’s family is one of the few lower-classed families in the wealthy, white suburb where she grew up. They lived in a condo that was older than most other housing in the city. Haley enjoyed living there because neighbors and other children were always readily available to play. Most residents in the city were white, but Haley’s area had more black residents and some Asian residents. Most families in her area were wealthier than her own family. Haley’s parents divorced before she was born, remarried and divorced again when she was young. Her mom worked in the medical field for most of her life, but also spent some time working in elementary education. Her dad “was constantly between jobs because he never got a college degree.” He worked in all types of roles, from medical lab technician to fast food. After her parents divorced, Haley lived with her mom because her dad moved frequently and was less financially stable. Both of Haley’s parents have passed away since she started high school. Independence and resilience are two values Haley learned from her mom, who had a “very bold personality.” Regardless of the situation, her mom was always there for Haley and her sister “doing whatever she needed” to take care of her children. From her dad, Haley learned to not take life too seriously and to always be cheerful. She understands that this is “not the best
149 thing in all scenarios” and has had peers question her emotional maturity at times. However, she appreciates the cheerfulness he brought to life. Haley saw him as a “friend parent, rather than a parent parent,” and would spend time with her doing fun activities, even if they did not have time to do so. Seeing how other people talked to and about their parents was a large indicator that her family was different from others. “Most of my day-to-day issues are because finances are hard.” As early as Kindergarten, Haley could tell that her family was unlike most in her area. The one thing “that bothered [her] the most about growing up poor was people’s clothes, because that was something [she] got to choose.” Clothing brands were important to Haley and her peers, and it was noticeable that her clothes were different. Birthday parties were another recurring experience that reminded Haley of her social class. Peers’ parents sometimes rented out parts of an indoor theme park for a birthday party, whereas Haley “never once had a birthday party that wasn’t like ‘Come over to my house and my mom has cake.’” Not only was her family unable to afford such a birthday party, but they saw the expenditure as frivolous and irresponsible. Most peers had married parents and Haley remembers the shock a peer would experience when their parents divorced. Haley knew her parents had been divorced once, so their second divorce was not a surprise to her. Additionally, her parents did not hide their marital or financial issues from Haley and her sister. She remembers hearing serious conversations, but cannot remember the exact topics being discussed. Haley “loved to eavesdrop and find out what’s going on,” then her sister helped explain what she heard. Haley attended a large high school that reflected the demographics of the town. She was involved in a sport and a student club, in addition to holding a job outside school. In the student organization, she found it easy to talk about her financial situation because she did not have a choice. When the organization had an event or trip that cost each member over $2,000, Haley had to talk with someone about getting the expenses covered. These expenses also helped Haley identify a few peers in the club with similar financial circumstances, though the majority of “[her] closest friends have always been very very well off.” When Haley tells people she attends Miami, and particularly when they know the high school she attended, many say “You go to Miami” with a tone that is laced with assumptions about her social class. However, “most of [her] day-to-day issues are because finances are hard.” Family circumstances forced her to take on many tasks her peers have never considered, such as
150 shopping for car insurance. Haley gets frustrated and feels “brushed over” when others assume she is wealthy because she is white and a Miami student. Haley’s closer friends, many of whom are wealthy, do understand her financial and family circumstances. If she has a friend from her classes or otherwise not as close, she does not take the time to clarify or disrupt their assumption. Haley does not think she would experience this frustration as often “if [she] went to another state school with a different identity.” Much of the way Haley currently sees social class in college is closely tied to race and structural racism, which she did not begin to understand until shortly before coming to Miami. “‘I’m poor, but I’m not black, and this is how this isn’t affecting me or this is how this is affecting me.’” Haley cannot remember if her parents ever explicitly discussed race when she was younger. She remembers her sister’s friends, many of whom were Asian or black, and seeing a diverse friend group as normal. Haley thinks she never learned to separate people of color because of her sister’s friends. However, she readily noticed the relative lack of people of color throughout her elementary and high school education. Discussing Native Americans is the first memory Haley has of learning about race in school. Her family has Native ancestry, so she took more interest in the history of Indigenous peoples’ experiences and oppression after white people came to this continent. She also learned about how that history influences the Native American experience today. Haley then applied this understanding when she learned about the Civil Rights Movement and the history of black people in the United States. She empathized because she could think “‘Oh, that’s really similar to this one thing that’s kind of similar to me.’” Discussing these topics were the first time Haley explicitly saw white people as the oppressors, though she only applied that label to white people in the past. Haley and her dad frequently watched history documentaries together, many of which focused on various social justice movements that occurred when her dad was younger. They also discussed her dad’s experiences attending a segregated school and his own parents trying to end his friendship with a black peer. Connections to her dad’s life made Haley more interested in the topics. However, she also remembers “comments from time to time where it would be like ‘Dad are you serious?!’” Haley was developing an awareness of the history of racial injustice, as well as a measure of recognition about race in society today.
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In high school, Haley was “into researching politics and seeing social class and welfare and then finding all out all these strange connections that different people will draw between the lines” of class, race and gender. She first focused on political candidates’ stances on social class issues because those affected her the most. She used Tumblr, which suggests sites and articles based on the topic a user is currently viewing. Haley is “definitely a fact checker” who likes to dig deeper when she reads a statement or assertion. These both led Haley to “a lot of string research where one thing led to another” and she found herself reading about social justice and racial privilege. She then began making connections to herself, thinking “‘I’m poor, but I’m not black, and this is how this isn’t affecting me or this is how this is affecting me.’” Haley was beginning to notice systemic forces at play, and the ways that those forces impact people differently depending on their combination of identities. “I didn’t want to go somewhere that felt like my high school” The college search process prompted Haley to further consider her own race and social class and how her identities influence her choice of higher education institution. She originally assumed she could not attend the main campus of a large or well-known institution because of the cost. She also knew that she was most likely limited to an institution in Ohio for the same reason. After doing well on the ACT, she shifted to include more main campuses and one out- of-state school in her search, all of which became interesting either because of the academic programs or the student population. The school outside Ohio was her ideal school, because while it’s not super diverse, it’s definitely more diverse than my high school and Miami. There is a lot bigger minority population than we have here. I didn’t want to go somewhere that felt like my high school, but Miami feels very much so like my high school, in terms of diversity and personality. Haley believed this institution would place her with more students from similar backgrounds, as well as more students of color, both of which she wanted for her college experience. This institution ended up not offering sufficient financial aid to make it feasible. Haley became interested in Miami because of the academic program and because she started receiving mail hinting at significant financial aid. Miami made good on the financial aid information and offered her enough aid, “so it was really an easy decision.” Rich and white were the two words Haley used to describe Miami. To her, it “always seemed like a prestigious, rich, white little school that people want to go to when they want a
152 college bubble.” Haley has since recognized that there are certainly subgroups that do not fit that persona, particularly in places where she has gotten involved. However, “the general population of [her] classes still feel like what [she] think[s] it would feel like.” This is true in her health- related major, where there may be more students of color, but many are also clearly wealthy. Haley’s experiences during her first year of college have deepened her understanding of racial injustice and her own positioning and role within white supremacy. “I was like ‘Well here it is and I wrote it, so you’re welcome.’” In high school, Haley did not often see racial injustice occur or hear it discussed. She knows “there were like 100% racial issues happening [at home], they just weren’t at the forefront” like these issues have been at Miami. Incidents of racism and accompanying activism, mostly by students of color, provide Haley with opportunities to witness how the campus climate fosters such incidents and responds or does not respond. Haley’s friends of color provide her with insight into the ways these incidents affect individuals. At home, Haley investigated structural oppression and privilege “out of choice, it wasn’t things that were thrown at [her].” Haley is a member of a student organization with many women of color and members across social class identities. The organization is involved in many different types of political activism, though that is not the primary focus of the group. They “love to take groups to anything” that involves activism, both on campus and in the surrounding area. Political topics are regular features of meetings and the group chats of members and alumni. Haley closely observes the in-person and digital conversations to see “how [older members] treat political activism and their own identities” when discussing these topics. As a new member, Haley was required to get to know each active member during her first year. She interviewed each one near the end of the year and these conversations were invaluable to the formation of her antiracist white identity. In conversations with peers, Haley learned about their experiences on campus or as a lower-classed student. She loves to get to know how a person’s experiences led them to where they are and how they view the world. Haley believes a person’s background is “really important to understanding how you’ve come about to who you are.” One black peer discussed how she feels about her personal safety on campus in the wake of incidents of racism. This conversation made Haley really sad to think that my own [peer] who lives on the same campus as me, and lives a very similar life to me, has all of these issues of she doesn’t feel safe walking alone at
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night. Not only because she’s a woman, but because she’s a woman of color. And that kind of puts my privilege in check pretty often. As Haley came to understand the experiences of peers of color, she experienced mostly surprise, thinking “it could’ve been worse [for her], but it wasn’t” because of her racial privilege. She reflected on the difficulties in her life and began to see the mitigating role whiteness plays. Haley often mediates conflicts between students in her on-campus job, many of which involve an international student and a white domestic student. Most of these incidents occur because the white student has not put forth effort to understand the needs of the international student or given them a chance to end up as a friend, then decided there is conflict that needs outside assistance. These interactions made Haley realize she never has to clarify her communication style for someone or think about how she communicates with another person. She knows this is a result of her racial privilege and whiteness as the norm in society. Haley wrote a paper on racial injustice in a class her first year that further helped her understand her own identities and the role of privilege in her life. She could see that she “was poor growing up, but [she] wasn’t a racial minority and [she] still [doesn’t] face any sorts of oppression due to how [she] just looked up front.” While she had these thoughts before the paper, exploring the topic in-depth deepened her understanding. Her faculty member, who Haley describes as “a liberal goddess,” helped her find legitimate articles about all aspects of the topic. When she read her paper to the class, her peers openly disagreed with her, but Haley remembers thinking “Well here it is and I wrote it, so you’re welcome.” She remembers feeling strongly about reading the entire paper to her class, regardless of their reactions. Generally on campus, Haley sees the lack of racial diversity creating a “day-to-day undertone where it’s just all white people and the occasional minority.” She believes this allows whiteness and white supremacy to continue unabated. Haley thinks that many of her white peers “feel safe using slurs and being openly racist because they think it’s the norm.” Haley’s knowledge and experiences on campus have forced her to continue reflecting on her own white identity. Her class identity still prevails because she has to deal with financial issues on a daily basis, but Haley knows she can also “uphold the Miami look” and blend in with her wealthier peers because of her race. Her class identity provides a source of parallel understanding, with some comparable issues. Her wealthier white friends can only discuss oppression and injustice “as a foreign subject” that is not a part of their everyday lived experience. Haley recognizes that
154 the parallel has limits because of her racial privilege, which further “puts her in check” when she thinks about the marginalization she experiences. “I think the biggest problem that Miami has a flaw in is treating students of color problems as students of color problems, and not as University problems.” Haley’s white identity brings her unearned privilege and, therefore, immense responsibility to use that privilege in a way that benefits others. She believes in the importance of acknowledging privilege, but that she does not need to apologize for racism in society because she is “not the spokesperson for white people.” Her goal is to find ways to make other white peers aware of their privilege and disrupt the system that provides privilege. She tries not to get immersed too deeply in her own marginalization because she knows it neither helps her nor helps end oppression. Haley joins activism efforts, especially when she can do so with peers from her student organization. Haley first participated in activism because of her social class identity, but her interest in racial injustice and in social class marginalization are now dual focuses. She has become “very passionate about racism being involved in our society right now” and has participated in marches on campus and in Cincinnati with members of her organization. She also believes that her social media presence, though a semi-artificial form of activism, is a form of activism she uses to make clear her stance on various issues. Self-education is another important part of Haley’s activism. She believes that she cannot educate her white peers unless she continues to educate herself. Haley attends different workshops and lectures on campus related to racial oppression. She knows that “no racist is going to show up to [a] Racial Consciousness 101” workshop and that concerted efforts by individuals are necessary to educate peers in everyday interactions. One action Haley frequently takes is calling out peers for using problematic language. While she has very few friends who make problematic statements, she is “always the type of person who will speak up, even if it makes [her] look stupid.” She will correct her own grandmother if the opportunity arises. At the same time, she understands why peers who might share her passion for ending racial injustice choose to remain silent, knowing they will be the minority expressing the opinion. One reason Haley believes it is vital to educate herself to then educate her white peers is that the institution is unwilling to approach the subject in a meaningful way that can produce substantive change. She referenced statements sent via email after an incident of racism occurs.
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These statements focus on the singular incident and call for addressing that type of behavior, rather than seeing the incident as the result of a culture that allows or encourages the behavior. Haley wishes the institution would take a coordinated and in-depth approach to educating students about racial privilege and oppression. She believes that this effort, combined with increasing the number of students of color on campus, would change the culture that currently allows this behavior. Conclusion Haley’s lower-classed identity plays a central role in the formation of her antiracist white identity. She draw parallels to her own experiences of marginalization to understand racial oppression. Her dad helped by discussing his childhood experiences observing racism in the segregated South, watching documentaries on various social justice issues, and helping Haley process white privilege and racism. Haley’s interest in politics and research into social class policy led her to learn about racial justice issues in government policy. Before college, Haley only understood racism and white supremacy at the abstract level. Her interest in learning about how a person got to their current self led her to discuss personal experiences of racism had by women of color in her student organization. Haley continues to draw parallels with her own experience, though she understands the fundamental difference because of her racial privilege. This privilege bestows a great responsibility on Haley to educate her white peers and otherwise disrupt systemic oppression. She has little regard for how her peers react when she calls one out for a racist statement, even if she is the only one taking a stand. In addition to individual interventions, Haley believes the most important step in disrupting whiteness on campus is to make racial injustice an “everybody problem” instead of an issue just for students of color. Social Class, College Experiences, and a Responsibility to Resist The eight participant narratives presented above show the range of experiences of lower- classed white students’ antiracist white identity formation. This section explores common themes that emerged across several or all of the participants, as well as counterexamples to those themes. I begin by exploring the role a marginalized social class played in the formation of participants’ antiracist white identity formation. I then highlight the people, experiences, and spaces in and out of college that influenced participants’ identity formation. Finally, I end by
156 detailing participants’ current conceptions of their white identities and actions they took to resist white supremacy and racial injustice. Impact of a Lower-Classed Identity on Antiracist White Identity Formation A marginalized social class identity did not have a uniform role in the formation of participants’ antiracist white identities. For some participants, class identity served as a barrier to overcome in the formation of their antiracist white identity. For other participants, class identity was the initial entry point or an entry point into understanding structural disparity. Still other participants were unable to identify any specific role of social class in the process, and often pointed to other marginalized identities as the entry point. Social class as a barrier. Awareness of wealthier peers’ attitudes about money and the obvious disparity in experiences and possessions were salient for all participants. Peers with an unwanted Louis Vuitton bag or renting out a water park for a birthday party made participants feel like an outsider, jealous, and inadequate. Participants needed to have a job throughout high school and college, while the few same-age peers who had jobs did so only because their parents forced them. Almost all participants expected this dynamic to continue when they started at Miami, seeing the student body as “rich and white.” These experiences associated with a marginalized social class identity served as a barrier to the formation of an antiracist white identity for some participants. The disadvantages of a lower-classed identity, mostly related to income and financial stability, obscured the benefits of whiteness and white racial identity. The daily struggles of managing expenses were a focal point that allowed Beth, Charlotte, and Jane to ignore the racial realities of society and dispute the assertion that they possess racial privilege. The constant need to consider finances and the stark differences between themselves and wealthier peers made it difficult for some to understand the privilege they still possess over peers of color, regardless of social class. Beth experienced denial, anger, and guilt when the topic of white racial privilege was explored in class during her senior year of high school. She remembered thinking “Yeah, but look at my disadvantages too. I’m disadvantaged too.” A sense of guilt often followed this defensiveness; guilt for the unearned privileges they possess and guilt for the oppressor role of white people throughout history. Beth tried to rank different types of suffering and place herself higher so she could ease the guilt of her racial privilege. Other participants for whom social class was a barrier shared this initial reaction.
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Messages from family often overshadowed initial conversations about racial injustice and whiteness. In Charlotte’s family, she heard implicit and explicit messages about the value of hard work and her ability to accomplish any goal with enough determination, regardless of outside circumstances. Even though she had friends whose parents openly discussed racial privilege and injustice, Charlotte initially dismissed any notion that those ideas applied to her because of her marginalized social class identity. Charlotte eventually understood that when there's a stereotype and when you see things that confirm the stereotype, that means more in your mind than the things that don't. And so, you know, not even just from my family but most of the people that my parents hung out with or that I spent my time with, it was a constant. . .And so I think that's superseded anything I could have ever heard from my friend’s parents. Jane’s family communicated that hard work is the sole factor in success and they earned everything they possess. Although her family’s social class identity shifted when she was in high school, Jane continued to hold vestiges of this view and still finds herself thinking along these lines. Seeing wealthy peers of color reinforced messages that racial privilege did not exist. Wealthy peers of color had a financial and often social comfort participants did not possess. Thus, many struggled to also see the lived experiences of racial marginalization and isolation that cut across social class identity. Many participants, even those for whom social class was not a direct barrier, still experienced a degree of defensiveness when discussing whiteness and racial privilege. They often mentally rationalized why a situation might also be difficult for them because of their social class. Many found themselves doing this, then quickly catching themselves and shifting their perspective to remember their racial privilege. Social class as the entry point. While some participants’ experiences of social class marginalization inhibited their initial recognition of racial oppression, these experiences were a direct source of understanding racial marginalization for Anne, Becky, Haley, and Pamela. Experiencing a constant sense of not belonging or fitting in with most people around them fostered empathy when discussing experiences of people of color. Participants noticed and could name examples of marginalization at both the individual and systemic level, which also helped in the formation of their antiracist white identity.
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As detailed above, wealthier peers in high school and college were often the source of individual acts and comments that reinforced participants’ marginalization. Hearing peers judge others’ clothing or inability to go on the same type of vacations, or call someone a bad group member because they could not chip in for a gift were daily experiences for participants. Because of these microaggressions connected to their social class, they readily understood the concept of racial microaggressions. Although each of the comments or experiences were minor in themselves, the frequency of these type of comments combined with systemic occurrences to form an overall sense of marginalization. Participants often heard conversations in classes that equate success with individual effort. Unlike some participants who closely held this belief, others drew on their own experiences to recognize the error in this oversimplified explanation of society. When Pamela’s peers shared the sentiment that, “in capitalism, if you don’t have money, obviously you’re not trying hard enough,” Pamela recognized that her family works hard and still does not find success. This was an indicator that larger systemic forces also play a role. She then drew a parallel between a social class structure and a racial structure that systematically privileges white people over people of color. Similarly, Anne talked about knowing what it felt like to always come at a situation from a disadvantage, that you had no part in. It was just a part of who you were that you had this disadvantage no matter what. . . regardless of your individual actions. . .It was just a disadvantage that [the character in a book] had because of how people labeled him because of his race. And so I felt like I could relate to that more. Anne took her own experiences of systemic marginalization and applied them to inform her acknowledgement and understanding of whiteness and racial privilege. Marginalization is not, as Haley put it, “a foreign subject” to be discussed in the abstract, as it is for some of their wealthy white peers. A marginalized social class was also an entry point into understanding racial oppression through individual research and because of technology. Multiple participants who fit this category credit the natural progression of research from social class-related issues to racial justice issues. Haley researched policies related to social class and political candidates’ stances on social class issues because they directly affected her life. She found herself in digital spaces where research related to other forms of marginalization and oppression were also discussed or
159 connections were drawn between social class and other forms of marginalization. The overlap between these issues inadvertently exposed her to information about racial privilege and forced her to think “I’m poor, but I’m not black, and this is how this isn’t affecting me or this is how this is affecting me.” The website Tumblr, which suggests articles or sites based on a user’s current page and past viewing history, directly ushered Haley and Becky from information about social class marginalization to information about racial oppression. Becky brought a unique perspective, directly attributing her understanding of racial oppression and privilege to a closeness with people of color because of her social class. Her family’s shift in social class identity changed where they lived. Housing was more affordable in an area with more people of color (itself a product of racism), so Becky was immediately in contact with more people of color. Most other students who received the same need-based scholarship as Becky were students of color. Finally, she needed additional income for spending money and found a job working with mostly other people of color who shared her social class identity. The combination of these experiences, all related to her lower-classed identity, placed Becky in “adjacency” with people of color, where she was able to witness incidents of implicit and explicit racism and understand the impact on her peers of color. Drawing this parallel between a marginalized social class identity and an oppressed racial identity has the potential to obscure the fundamental difference between the two types of marginalization. Understanding this difference was a defining characteristic of the participants in this category. Because of their race, these participants knew they could still blend in with the majority of their peers at Miami if they wanted, though they may still feel like they do not belong. Each participant explicitly stated this limitation and acknowledged that their whiteness means that the ability to empathize only extends so far. However limited the parallel is, these participants’ social class identity helped them understand structural marginalization and positively contributed to their acknowledgement of white supremacy. Nominal impact of social class and influence of other identities. Although a lower- classed identity assisted or inhibited the formation of an antiracist white identity for most participants, Penelope’s class identity played a nominal and almost neutral role. This made her unique among participants in the study. The demographics of her state and her family’s financial situation mitigated the role of social class, and her queer identity had a stronger influence for her.
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Identities beyond social class, especially a queer identity, influenced other participants’ antiracist white identity formation, as well. Penelope grew up in a state where over 90% of the population is white and she barely even knew that she was white before coming to college. However, she was vividly aware of the social class disparity between her immediate family and even her extended family. In college, she rarely thought about social class, given that her grandparents covered the costs of education and she could pass as part of the middle- or upper-classed white population. College is where she first learned about racial identity and privilege, heavily influenced by her queer identity. Because she no longer thought about her own social class identity, she did not connect her childhood experiences of marginalization with racial injustice and oppression. In a way similar to Becky’s class identity, Penelope’s queer identity placed her in proximity to queer people of color, who became her close friends. Discussions naturally segued from LGBTQ topics to issues of whiteness and racial oppression. During these interactions, focused on both queer identity and racial identity, Penelope did not recall considering her class identity at all. For other participants, their queer identity was not the primary way they understood systemic oppression, but functioned as an additional influence on the formation of their antiracist white identity.. Instances of heteronormativity in classes or marginalization within the LGBTQ community, and the associated feelings of being outside what is socially acceptable or the norm helped Charlotte and Jane empathize with the experience of racial oppression. Pamela did not discuss the influence of her queer identity on the formation of her antiracist white identity. However, she believed that the process of coming out and constantly discussing her queer identity with family and friends made her more willing to participate in the study and discuss the formation of her antiracist white identity. The inference could be made that the coming out process also made her more willing to explore racial injustice and her racial identity, without consciously drawing parallels between her marginalization and experiences of people of color with racism. All eight participants in the study identified as cisgender women. Multiple participants mentioned their gender identity when asked about other identities that influenced the formation of their antiracist white identity. Some participants considered themselves feminists and think about ways that gender intersects with race and class. However, most did not go into any depth
161 about gender influencing their antiracist white identity formation. Instead, they mentioned classes focused on gender that also discussed racism—discussed more below—or an implicit understanding that they are disadvantaged because of their gender. Their marginalized gender identity seemed to help set the stage for the formation of their antiracist white identity, but played an underlying role that was not readily recognized. Jane was the lone participant who focused on her gender identity as the main entry into her understanding of racism and the formation of her antiracist white identity. Describing herself as “radical anti-male” and a feminist, she drew on her understanding of patriarchy to explore racial oppression. She first viewed racism through a gender disparity lens, exploring nuances of how white privilege applies to white women and how racial oppression couples with sexism to doubly disadvantage women of color. Jane viewed her gender as more impactful on a daily basis than both her race and social class identities. This is in addition to the influence of her queer identity on her understanding of structural racism. Conclusion. All participants in the study felt the influence of social class on a daily basis, regardless of other identities and nuances of their social class identity. There was no connection between social class as an entry point and whether they held a lower-classed identity for their entire life or only part of their life. There was also no connection between social class as an entry point and their hometown—race and class demographics, rural versus suburb versus city, length of time living there. Some participants drew direct connections from their lower- classed experiences to understanding structural racism, while class identity served as a barrier for others and had nominal impact for still other participants. Regardless of the role class identity played in the formation of their antiracist white identity, the salience of that identity either decreased or was matched by the salience of their racial identity through the recognition of their racial privilege. Impact of College Experiences on Antiracist White Identity Formation Participants’ experiences in college facilitated or continued the formation of their antiracist white identity. Five participants had at least some understanding of white supremacy and racial oppression by the time they graduated from high school, while three had rarely explored these topics prior to college. Myriad people and places contributed to participants’ formation, though clear patterns emerged. Most participants’ antiracist white identity formation
162 occurred primarily through direct interaction and conversation with others, while individual research, observation, and reflection were impactful for others. Pre-college experiences. Participants who had pre-college understanding of whiteness gained it mostly through experiences that were not required and were often intentionally sought out. These included student organizations focused on another social justice issue, optional classes, and peers or friends of color. Seeking out such experiences inadvertently exposed participants to concepts of racial oppression and privilege. Student clubs and community organizations were impactful for Jane, Beth, and Anne. Anne compared the differences between the people in her community-based service organization and school-based student council. Jane and Beth were both in organizations aimed at empowerment of young women. These experiences led them to directly discuss or indirectly observe issues of structural disparity based on race. Anne observed that the service organization was composed of almost all people of color with lower-classed identities, while the student council was almost all middle- or upper-classed white students. She paired this observation with others she had made throughout her high school experience, adding further evidence of structural disparity to her understanding. Jane found herself in conversations about the intersections of gender and racial privilege in her student organization. Women of color discussed ways that their experience as women is different because of their race, a perspective Jane had not previously considered. Beth had two peers, labeled Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), in her student organization who frequently discussed issues of class, race, and gender, which were rarely discussed with such candor outside of those meetings. All of these experiences contributed to the formation of their antiracist white identity by adding more layers of knowledge and nuance to participants’ understanding of structural racism. Peers of color were impactful for Jane and Becky, and to a lesser extent for Haley. For example, Jane had several black friends throughout high school and dated a couple men of color. One peer helped her see the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on people of color, made more meaningful for Jane because this peer had incarcerated family members. Becky was the only white person at her job, and her coworkers of color eventually became her circle of friends. Closeness with peers of color provided them with personal examples of the everyday impact of racism, as well as larger structural impacts. Haley believed that observing the composition of her sister’s friend group, which was mostly of people of color, led her to not
163 internalize as much white superiority as most people and to be more open to acknowledging structural racism later in life. Two participants discussed a class in high school where they explicitly explored issues of racial oppression and other types of marginalization, a rare occurrence in their educational experiences. Anne and Beth described teachers that dedicated a unit to understanding societal context before reading a specific novel that focused on racial oppression. Their classes discussed U.S. Supreme Court cases, read non-fiction such as Letter from Birmingham Jail, and looked at other factors that shaped the time when the books were written. In Beth’s situation, the teacher and whole class was white, while the only person of color in Anne’s class was the student teacher who led the unit. Anne remembered “feeling so ridiculous that [they] were talking about the plight of the black man in American” in a class of all white students because they all had a limited ability to understand the impact of structural racism. Additionally, Beth took all college- level classes her senior year of high school, including a Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies course. It was in this class where she first directly confronted her racial privilege. Otherwise, participants rarely discussed structural oppression and privilege were discussed within the formal curriculum. College experiences. Unrequired experiences were also impactful at Miami, regardless of when a participants’ antiracist white identity formation began. All eight participants had a budding interest in social justice that drove them to seek spaces and people where these topics were discussed. Their entry was often through another social justice topic that intersected with whiteness and racial oppression. Again, student organizations, unrequired classes, peers of color, and some white peers were sources of learning about whiteness. Academic pursuits. Five participants chose majors related to social justice, such as Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Global & Intercultural Studies, Social Justice Studies, and Sociology. These were explicit attempts to further their knowledge of oppression and privilege and to prepare them for a career related to disrupting structural disparity. Anne, for instance, took a Black World Studies course because she was genuinely interested in learning more about different cultures and experiences. Her experience led her declare Global & Intercultural Studies as a second major because she wanted to gain more knowledge in a strategic way and because these topics were not covered in her other classes.
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Outside of these chosen classes and majors, participants were rarely in academic spaces where racial oppression was a common topic of discussion. More often, participants’ classmates actively dissuaded or avoided such topics in classes not explicitly focused on social justice. All eight participants recalled incidents where racial or social class disparity was clearly a factor in the current topic, but white, presumably wealthy, peers actively pushed back when someone attempted to incorporate notions of systemic disparity into the conversation. In a discussion about affirmative action, Charlotte got into a heated debate with a white peer who felt as though white people were disadvantaged by the program. When she brought up the realities of institutionalized racism, his response was “well whatever, race doesn’t matter.” She did not back down, but was also not backed up by any of her classmates. Other times, participants saw perfect opportunities for a faculty member to incorporate structural disparity, but the instructor never even hinted at the role of these factors. For instance, if Jane had a Women’s[, Gender, & Sexuality] Studies class earlier in the day and then I go over to a [behavioral science] class, the transition is very strange. We talked about white privilege and class privilege and all these things, and then I go to my [behavioral science] class and it doesn’t exist. . . In those classes, we’ll talk about “Why is this happening in this country?” and people will be like “Because of the economy.” And I’m like “What about all these others…?” Similarly, Jane did not even attempt to bring up issues of structural disparity or racism in her behavioral science classes or with her friends because they always responded to such issues with blank stares or denial of its relevance. Peers were much more willing to focus on individual effort as the reason for different outcomes in life. Participants continued to be frustrated by the explicit refusals and missed opportunities to incorporate key factors that structure society. This was especially the case as they understood more about whiteness and racial oppression. Participants expressed the most anger and exasperation during interviews when they discussed this topic. Their efforts to insert these topics into conversations and confront problematic statements are discussed in the next section. Co-curricular experiences. Many participants chose specific co-curricular experiences because they offered the opportunity for further discussion of various types of oppression and privilege or because the membership was not overwhelmingly white. Penelope’s living learning
165 community, focused on social justice, was a “percolator of people of new and different perspectives.” She was in constant physical proximity with people of color and people with LGBTQ identities and conversations frequently centered on issues of oppression and privilege. Similar experiences occurred for Pamela and Haley in student organizations, though neither explicitly focused on racial injustice. The racially diverse membership of the organizations naturally led to many conversations about racial oppression and white supremacy. Pamela specifically remembered observing one of the leaders of the organization, seeing the way she discussed and navigated her own privilege in a way that Pamela strived to emulate. Charlotte’s on-campus job provided her with explicit training on cultural competence. She chose this job partially because of its reputation for acknowledging and including issues of oppression and privilege. This experience contributed to the formation of her antiracist white identity through both specific trainings and the organization’s overall dedication to actively confront white supremacy and other forms of injustice. Participants sought these experiences, whether explicitly to learn about racial injustice or types of social justice, and the conversations contributed to the formation of their antiracist white identity. Similar conversations were not commonplace in other aspects of their lives. Interactions with individual peers. Interactions with peers who were willing to acknowledge and discuss racial privilege were also important to the formation of participants’ antiracist white identity development. Peers of color were impactful for some, while white peers played significant roles for others, and still other participants learned from both. Charlotte, Penelope, Jane, Beth, and Haley had close relationships with peers of color on campus. These peers shared their frequent encounters with racism, revealing racism’s pervasive nature to participants. Peers of color were also patient with them, as participants grappled with understanding their privileged racial identities and the associated emotions of denial, anger, and guilt. One of Penelope’s friends, a queer person of color, repeatedly refused invitations to LGBTQ organization meetings, eventually telling Penelope that she did not attend because the space was not made for her. This singular experience caused Penelope to recognize that she “could only go to a marginalized spaced because [she’s] white” and that whiteness even exerts itself in supposedly inclusive spaces. Penelope also had gracious peers of color who answered her many questions and taught her that sometimes “being a good white social justice person is
166 minding [her] own business and doing what the people [of color] who invited [her] there want [her] to be doing.” Many participants who learned from peers of color struggled when the peers of color were also wealthy. Beth and Charlotte had many conversations with wealthy peers of color before they understood that racism still impacts a person regardless of social class and income. These conversations played an important role in overcoming their socialization that social class is more important than race. They initially did not understand how these peers could feel marginalized when they had the same income and social class as the majority of their peers on campus. They eventually understood that whiteness provided them with the privilege of passing as the privileged group on the social class spectrum, while peers of color always faced racism and could not hide their skin color. White peers also served as role models for participants. Pamela remembered watching older white peers in a student organization focused on social justice. She saw the respect they received from peers of color and emulated many of their viewpoints and ways of interacting without dominating a space. As Charlotte learned from her close peers of color about racism, she frequently tried out her thoughts on two white peers. Although these peers primarily focused on other types of social justice, they helped Charlotte understand whiteness and racial privilege. These peers not only modeled an antiracist white identity, but also removed from peers of color some of the burden of educating and reliving experiences of racism. Participants were often socialized by family and society to believe that race and skin color did not matter, only a person’s effort. Finding white people who acknowledged their racial privilege was rare, while influential voices who resisted acknowledgment of whiteness and racial privilege was much more common. Family members and most white peers often ignored or outright shut down participants’ efforts to point out or discuss inconsistencies in this belief. Anne’s mother and classmates dismissed and even laughed off her concerns about the lack of people of color in honors classes and her guilt over white people’s role as oppressors throughout U.S. and world history. Charlotte’s parents “seemed uncomfortable” and changed the subject when she tried to discuss recent campus protests about racism. Becky’s father was one exception to these common experiences. He was receptive to Becky’s explanation of their white privilege, even in light of their social class marginalization. Peers on campus willing to discuss racism
167 were therefore essential in overcoming participants’ ongoing socialization and messages from most white family and friends. Role of self-reflection and observation. While most participants learned from direct interactions with peers of color and white peers, observation and self-reflection contributed to the formation of an antiracist white identity for others. Anne characterized herself as “so horrendous in social situations” outside of the classroom context that she spent a large amount of time observing situations and reflecting on their meaning. This included seeing the lack of people of color in her high school honors and AP classes, as well as her supposedly liberal peers’ lack of care about this disparity. Anne also reflected in writing when her class completely disengaged while reading Invisible Man in high school. She and a teacher conducted an ongoing conversation wholly in writing, allowing Anne the opportunity to express her thoughts on paper. At Miami, she made it a point to observe interactions between different people on campus and representation in classrooms. Observation also played a role for Pamela, as described above when she observed how an antiracist white identity manifested in older peers in a student organization. Becky and Haley conducted much of the early formation of their antiracist white identities through online research. Becky specifically discussed her relative social isolation that led her to spend more time online than most of her peers. She eventually found herself reading about racial oppression and privilege. Similarly, Haley’s inclination towards fact-checking led her to spend time online researching social class issues and eventually issues of structural racism. Both Becky and Haley then reflected on their role in perpetuating those systems. Conclusion. Several types of experiences before and during college contributed to participants’ formation of an antiracist white identity. Courses and student organizations focused on social justice topics, as well as individual interactions with peers of color and white peers were impactful for participants. It is vital to note that the majority of these opportunities were optional and not experienced by most Miami students. In fact, as Jane so eloquently put it, “you can come to Miami and avoid all the progressives easily.” Other participants also benefited greatly from individual observation and reflection. Participants’ thoughts about expanding opportunities for interaction, observation, and reflection are discussed in the following section about participants’ conceptions of their white identity and actions they and the institution can take to disrupt whiteness and racial injustice.
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Current Conceptions of White Identity and Actions to Disrupt White Supremacy The formation of an antiracist white identity is a departure from the prevailing, problematic white identity that denies the existence of systemic racial disparity or does not take action to disrupt the system. Taking action to disrupt white supremacy and racism was an integral part of participants’ antiracist white identities. This section explores how participants conceptualized their white identity and the actions they took to resist racial injustice, as well as actions participants suggested that Miami University could take to decrease the presence and impact of whiteness on campus. Current white identity. Participants’ current conceptions of their white identity were all relatively similar, but with minor nuances. All participants mentioned a responsibility to continuously uncover ways they perpetuate racial injustice and to take ownership for their position and role within systemic whiteness. Participants’ other marginalized identities, including sexual orientation and gender identity, made each of their white identities unique. Overall, participants saw their white racial identity as more important and salient than at any other time in their lives. All participants acknowledged that their white racial identity provides them with unearned privilege over all individuals not perceived as white. All participants also expressed some feelings of guilt for possessing that privilege, though the guilt lessened over time. For instance, Anne originally struggled with overwhelming guilt related to her privilege, so much so that it prevented her from taking action. She eventually shifted to “focus less on guilt and more on ownership” for her role in systemic oppression. Haley believed that white people need to acknowledge that you have these things. You don't have to apologize for racism. You're not the spokesperson for white people, but you have these things, so you need to be aware of them and understand that people of color do not have these things. She understood that she did not create the system, but that she is also unable to remove herself from it, so she is driven to disrupt the system. Apologizing for privilege does nothing to end oppression. Similarly, Charlotte recognized that she has “white privilege and I can feel bad about it all I want, but that's not going to change anything.” All participants expressed the need to move beyond the guilt to a sense of responsibility. Becky looked for “any way that [she] can be able to take [her privilege] and use it for the people who are clearly not benefitting because they’re not white.” Penelope characterized it as
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a tremendous responsibility. I think we have all of this social power all over the world, and to take it for granted that your life is what it is for absolutely no reason and fail to recognize that it's because of your race, or fail to recognize you are of a race because you're white, [Pauses, Laughs] is really irresponsible. Being aware of whiteness presented no other option than to resist and attempt to disrupt the system, exploiting the privilege the system provided. I discuss specific strategies participants employed to resist whiteness in the next section. Participants viewed their white identity as a never-ending process of trying to uncover ways they continue to perpetuate oppression. They also tried to remain open and not defensive when others pointed out problematic actions or statements, which often proved to be difficult in the moment. Pamela, for example, often felt defensive, but then found herself thinking “if I was black, I probably would be having a harder time” with the specific situation at hand. She tried to focus on not doubting the experience of a person of color, even in her head, because she knew she could never truly understand, regardless of her marginalized identities. While participants were unable to stop feeling defensive when confronted, they intentionally kept it to themselves rather than express it aloud. They recognized that a defensive response did nothing to contribute to ending racism and instead could be seen as a further exertion of their privilege. Participants felt the impact of their white identities in different ways. Many participants continued to experience times when they did not think about their racial identity at all, particularly because of the high proportion of their peers who were also white on campus. Often, their social class or another marginalized identity was what they thought about on a daily basis. Penelope and Jane thought about their sexual orientation more frequently than their racial identity. Penelope eventually understood how her racial privilege allows her to experience and express her queer identity in ways not accessible to queer people of color. Multiple participants mentioned their gender, but Jane was unique in believing that her gender was more important than her race, given the national conversation around gender and sexual violence occurring at the time of the study. Other times, participants were starkly reminded that they were white. Beth was regularly reminded of her whiteness (and her social class) as she walked past large groups of international students of color on her way to her on-campus job. She had rarely been the racial minority in any space during her lifetime. Anne experienced a similar feeling when she considered joining
170 student organizations or entering spaces focused on social justice. The thought of overcoming the initial impression of her white racial identity made her hesitant and ultimately stopped her from joining those organizations or frequenting those spaces. Regardless of how often participants considered other identities more important or did not think about their racial identity, they were aware that the ability to not think about race was itself a privilege not afforded to their peers of color. Each participant conceptualized and lived out their white identity in a different way, though there were themes present for all eight participants. The unique combination of other identities, marginalized and privileged, influenced how participants currently understood their racial identity. The two commonalities across all participants were that their racial identity was more salient than ever before and that a responsibility to resist racial injustice was a central aspect of their antiracist white identity. Actions participants took to disrupt white supremacy. Participants felt compelled to work towards ending systemic racism. Pamela focused on “using my privilege to basically lessen my privilege . . . Using what I have to support others and working to break [racism] down.” Her sentiment is an accurate summation of all eight participants’ views on taking action. Participants focused primarily on individual actions they take to confront whiteness and racism on campus, rarely pointing out how they worked to disrupt whiteness at the systemic level by changing the system itself. Other times, they decided that not entering a space or not participating in a conversation contributed to dismantling systemic racial injustice. Although participants could not readily name actions they take at the systemic level, they did have suggestions of actions the institution could take to disrupt systemic whiteness on campus. Educating white peers. All participants felt a responsibility to educate or call out white people when they observe problematic actions or statements. Becky had multiple experiences where a person also shared her class identity, which she believes caused them to “let their guard down” and share a blatantly racist view with her. She took advantage of the opportunity to “have a decent conversation” where she provided a different perspective and facts that countered the person’s view. Other participants shared the sentiment that their shared whiteness may make intervention more effective than intervention by a person of color. However, most participants could also name times when they witnessed racism and said nothing or could have done more to educate a peer.
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Penelope was the only participant who mentioned the importance of learning how to effectively call out individual perpetrators of racist actions. She remembered listening to peers of color discuss an instance of racism and wishing that one of the white people present would have confronted the perpetrating individual. Penelope then asked that peer how she could ideally handle a similar situation in the future. She understood “it’s an assertion of privilege to assume you know how to handle racism.” Jane readily called out white peers who were making problematic statements, but she also wrestled with knowing if she had the authority to educate white peers and questioned the effectiveness of that education. She drew parallels from feminism to understand it is the responsibility of the privileged group to educate each other, but seemed unsure if she should “go to someone and say ‘that thing you’ve always believed is wrong.’” This was particularly the case for white people who were older than her, including family members. Additionally, Jane thought the task maybe a lost cause with some white peers because it “usually doesn’t work anyway.” Three participants educated their white peers through their academic work. Beth conducted research related to geographic racism and Jane combined gender and race in a project on ways that well-intentioned white people further oppress black women through actions taken in the name of social justice. Haley “belligerently read [her] paper” on racial justice to a class of peers who were openly hostile to the topic. Participants felt that these strategies contributed to ending white supremacy in a way different than individually confronting their peers. They wanted to shed light on different aspects of structural oppression in an academic manner that potentially brought more credibility with their white peers. Decreasing the impact of whiteness. Six participants intentionally stepped back in conversations and spaces to decrease the impact of their whiteness. Their inaction was an attempt to not overshadow voices and views of people of color. This was particularly the case in spaces of color or where peers of color were discussing experiences of racism. Anne approached such situations “from a place of sitting back and listening, taking it in, trying to observe, then going forward” with a better understanding of an issue or experience. Participants knew they could not relate nor had anything to add to the conversation, so they viewed these instances as opportunities for learning. Pamela “never want[ed] to speak for the black students,” so she
172 carefully listened and then tried to work in a supporting role. Similarly, Penelope intentionally asked peers of color how they prefer that she act and show up in their spaces. Some participants took this idea further, choosing not to pursue leadership positions in student organizations and even shifting career goals because a white person in those roles would perpetuate systemic whiteness. Although Becky “always tr[ied] to just make it evident that that I’m an ally” when she entered a space of color or group of people of color, she also “tr[ied] not to push too much when it comes to the vision” of an organization if she was accepted as an ally. Anne did not get involved in any organizations or services offered through the Office of Diversity Affairs because she felt it would look like an exertion of “inherent white privilege. . .if I tried to walk into a meeting of one of those groups.” She and other participants felt that their privileged racial identity limited opportunities to find community related to their marginalized identity(ies). Penelope was the only participant who understood that not all peers of color want white allies. She recognized that “not every black person wants white friends and not every black person wants white people to go around telling people not to say the n-word.” She focused on finding peers of color who want white allies and are willing to educate allies on how they can assist in efforts to disrupt white supremacy. Penelope also intentionally worked on her own to access existing resources, including research and documentaries, that provided her with knowledge and strategies. She could then confront racism more effectively, while also relieving some of the burden of education from her peers of color. Avoiding problematic people and spaces. All participants attempted to avoid people and spaces that regularly perpetuated whiteness and racism. Most tried to form a peer group of people who do not make racist statements and generally understand systemic oppression. Multiple participants mentioned that this limited the opportunities they had to call out individual white people. However, some then contradicted themselves by discussing ways they have noticed whiteness in supposedly inclusive spaces. Their engagement primarily in social justice- oriented spaces made it easier to think there are not many opportunities to confront instances of racism and whiteness, which may serve to make them less vigilant in those spaces. While multiple participants felt that confronting white peers was sometimes futile, Becky was even more pessimistic. She still took time to have conversations with white peers when the opportunity arose, but was “afraid that, in this climate, there’s not a lot left to be able to do.” She
173 had many experiences where the person perpetrating a racist view was not receptive to even listening to her opinion and the facts she provided. In response to this, she has turned inward, “focusing on my community directly; very much trying to keep watch of me and my own.” For her, this is the community of color in which she is deeply embedded and where she saw opportunities for tangible impact. She focused on using her racial privilege to gain knowledge and skills that can directly benefit this community. Participants’ understandings of their white identities were characterized by acknowledgment of their unearned privilege, a dedication to continuously looking for ways they perpetuate whiteness, and a responsibility to take action that disrupts white supremacy. They took action not only in spite of the fact such action was not advantageous to them, but because action was counter to the unearned privilege they enjoyed their entire lives. Actions focused on educating themselves, educating their white peers, and intentionally deciding if, how, and when to engage with people of color and spaces of color. Participants also had suggestions for actions the University could take to disrupt individual and institutional whiteness at Miami. Institutional actions to disrupt white supremacy on campus. Participants’ recognized the role of the university in resisting and ending racial injustice on campus. Their suggestions were grouped around diversifying the population and incorporating discussions and topics of racial (in)justice throughout the institution. The combination of these two types of action could decrease harm for people of color at Miami and foster white graduates who are equipped to disrupt whiteness throughout their lives. Participants universally suggested increasing the population of students of color on campus. They empathized or attempted to understand how it felt to be the only person of color in most classes and rarely to have a faculty member of color. They all heard peers of color talking about this experience and how isolating it felt. Not only did the lack of people of color on campus make it harder for students of color to find community, but it also helped entrench whiteness on campus. Haley believed that the overwhelmingly white student population made “people feel safe using slurs and being openly racist because they think it’s the norm.” Related to a lack of faculty and administrators of color, Penelope believed that it was easier for white students to think there would be no consequences for racist behavior if “no one in positions of power is definitely offended by what you’ve done.”
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Multiple participants were adamant that issues of racism on campus must be issues that all members of the community care about and are interested in addressing and eradicating. Haley exemplified this feeling when she said “the biggest thing Miami has a flaw in is treating students of color problems as students of color problems, and not University problems.” Similarly, Charlotte felt that “diversity is very much a buzzword” on campus, but that concerted actions by the entire Miami community were lacking. Pamela suggested that the administration to be “more receptive to the students that are actually experiencing” racism on campus. All participants emphasized the importance of incorporating topics of oppression and privilege throughout the entire institution. As discussed above, participants often saw missed opportunities in classes to discuss the role of structural racism and other forms of injustice. Most students were never challenged to understand a key factor in topics such as economics and education. In addition to the formal curriculum, participants also suggested mandatory and ongoing direct instruction about topics of oppression and privilege. Haley knew that “no racist is going to show up to Racial Consciousness 101” if it was not mandatory. Many suggested education similar to the fire safety education required in the residence halls or the alcohol education required of all incoming students, with consequences if not completed. Penelope was adamant that education go beyond the fact that certain behaviors are unacceptable, but must include the reason why, or education will be ineffective. Jane suggested that a Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies class or a Black World Studies class should be required of all students, “instead of an overbearing humanities” general education requirement. Participants felt that a concerted effort across the institution was necessary to disrupt white supremacy on campus. Increasing people of color throughout the faculty, administration, and students would symbolically assist in this effort, but is not sufficient. Participants also suggested that the institution incorporate topics of oppression and privilege throughout the curriculum and into direct education for students. Charlotte understood “it’s a culture change that needs to happen,” not just responses to individual incidents of racism that do not address the underlying presence of white supremacy in the fabric of the institution. Conclusion Participants’ stories in this chapter highlight the multiple ways a marginalized social class identity can influence the formation of an antiracist white identity. Some participants drew direct connections between their class marginalization to understanding systemic racism, while
175 class marginalization was proof for other participants that systemic white supremacy does not exist. Still others felt that their social class had no discernable impact on the formation of their antiracist white identity. Regardless of the role social class originally played in the formation process, all participants were able to name the difference between racial oppression and class marginalization due to the pervasive nature of whiteness. Their understanding of white supremacy infused all participants with a responsibility to take action towards the disruption of systemic racial injustice. Participants’ actions focused on educating themselves, educating other white people, serving as allies to people of color, and finding ways to use their privilege to change the system of whiteness. In this iterative process of learning actions to take or avoid taking, participants sometimes perpetuated whiteness, but relied on gracious peers of color and, more rarely, other white peers who also held an antiracist white identity to assist them through the process.
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Chapter Five: Discussion and Implications The participant narratives and analysis in Chapter Four make clear the myriad ways a lower-classed identity influences the formation of an antiracist white identity, as well as the influence of college experiences on this process. In this chapter, I will incorporate relevant literature on whiteness and social class in a discussion of these ideas. I then offer several implications for higher education practitioners and for future research. Influences of a Marginalized Identity on Antiracist White Identity Formation Reason (2007) stated that it is difficult for lower-classed white individuals to “deny the negative influence of power and privilege related to race when they have incorporated an understanding of sexism or classism into their racial identity” (p. 133). This statement rings true in many of the participants’ narratives, but nuances related to a marginalized identity (or identities) are important to explore. I first discuss incorporating social class into white identity formation theory. I then discuss literature related to gender identity and antiracist white identity formation. Next, I explore possibilities for why a queer identity and a lower-classed identity have different influences on antiracist white identity formation. Finally, I discuss the findings of this study in relation to college experiences that foster an antiracist white identity for lower- classed students. Incorporating Social Class into White Identity Formation Theory Current research treats white identity formation and social class identity as separate phenomena. There are studies about white identity development where social class is a factor (Allen, 2004; Frankenberg, 1993b; Leonardo, 2002, 2009) and studies about lower-classed experiences that touch upon race (Martin, 2015a, 2015b; Schademan & Thompson, 2016), but none that focus on the impact of a lower-classed identity in the formation of white identity. The results of this research are consistent with critiques of white identity development theories explored in Chapter Two (European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness, 2007; Frankenberg, 1993b; Rowe et al., 1994), and further asserts the need to consider the nuances of a lower-classed identity in white identity formation. These critiques include the possibility of moving between different statuses of a white identity, rather than theorizing that a white identity develops in a linear progression without revisiting previously held ways of understanding. This critique is why I encourage the use of white identity formation theories, not white identity
177 development theories, which is more reflective of the lived experience of a white identity throughout life. Impediment to antiracist white identity formation. Incorporating a lower-classed identity complicates white identity formation, particularly related to the critique that white identity development theories do not account for white individuals’ interactions with each other (European-American Collaborative Challenging Whiteness, 2007). Middle- and upper-classed white people position lower-classed white people as the very embodiment of racism (Allen, 2008) by focusing on individual acts of prejudice perpetuated by “white trash” or “rednecks,” obscuring the systemic nature of whiteness perpetuated by capitalism. Even though lower- classed white people are promised the full benefits of whiteness vis-à-vis the American Dream and upward mobility (Guinier, 2015; Roediger, 2007), they are never offered full access to the racial and social capital of their wealthier white peers (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Kunstman et al., 2016). Participants in this study felt like outsiders compared to their wealthier peers, which may impact the formation of their antiracist white identity. Lower-classed students who feel like outsiders often make efforts to identify more closely with their middle-/upper-classed peers (Kaufman, 2003). This practice is known as associational embracement (Kaufman, 2003). For lower-classed white students, this may include (further) adopting white norms—from practices as artificial as clothing choices, to those more consequential as attitudes and behaviors—to more closely fit with their wealthier peers. Because of associational embracement, a lower-classed identity impedes the formation of an antiracist white identity, as the individual leans more deeply into whiteness in an effort to gain access to the desired peer group. Interactions between lower-classed white students and wealthy students of color may also serve as a barrier to antiracist white identity formation. Multiple white identity development theories have a stage or status characterized by uncertainty about previously held assumptions of white supremacy (Hardiman, 1994; 2001; Helms, 1990; 1995; Rowe et al., 1994). In Rowe et al.’s (1994) typology, white individuals experience dissonance as a result of “conflict between their previously held attitudes and recent experiential incidents” (p. 137). An encounter with a wealthy peer of color is a form of dissonance for a lower-classed white student, particularly when the student is also hearing messages about their own racial privilege, regardless of social class. This dissonance may slow or stop the formation of a student’s antiracist white identity,
178 unless the student is guided through the nuanced differences of race and social class and the role of whiteness in overcoming social class (Bush, 2011). Contributor to antiracist white identity formation. Hurtful interactions with middle- /upper-classed white peers and a sense of isolation in college (Kunstman et al., 2016; Lehman, 2013; Warnock & Hurst, 2016) may also facilitate the formation of an antiracist white identity by driving lower-classed white students further away from their wealthy peers. Traditional white identity development theories are based on the premise that the “attitudes most whites develop about their group and other racial/ethnic groups are reinforced by the stereotypes of the dominant society” (Owen, 2007; Rowe et al., 1994, p. 131). A lower-classed identity limits the applicability of theories based in this premise, as feelings of rejection by white peers may push lower-classed students to question white racial norms. This questioning is aligned with the dissonant type (Rowe et. al, 1994), where white individuals are “uncertain about their sense of white racial consciousness” (p. 137) and signals an openness to new information. If information is provided that explains the existence of racism regardless of social class, lower-classed white students may progress in the formation of their antiracist white identity. Rejection by same race peers may also drive lower-classed white students to seek closer relationships with peers of color, increasing the likelihood of learning about firsthand experiences with racism and whiteness. Family tension. Some participants in this study reported tension with their families as the formation of their antiracist white identity continued. Previous studies found similar tension as students formed an antiracist white identity and began to implicitly or explicitly question the racialization they received in their family (Kordesh et al., 2013). Lower-classed students, regardless of race, typically already experience tension with family members when they are in college (Aries & Seider, 2005; Lehman, 2013; Stuber, 2009, 2011). An expanded white identity formation theory must also account for this additional layer of tension and the cognitive and physical ways students navigate it. Extending white identity formation theory. White identity formation theories increase in both utility and complexity when social class is incorporated. A lower-classed identity, in particular, adds a new layer of explanation for the factors that influence an individual’s movement in the understanding of their white identity. However, the impact of a lower-classed identity varied across the participants in this study, underscoring individual complexity and the
179 importance of getting to know a person, rather than simply applying a theory as it currently stands. White identity formation theories must be modified to consider the impact of social class. A marginalized social class identity complicates the underlying theoretical assumption that whiteness “defines a particular racialized perspective or standpoint that shapes the subject’s understanding of both self and the world” (Owen, 2007, p. 205), which is one of “economic, political, social, and cultural advantage” (p. 206). Although Frankenberg (1993b) found that a white person’s other identities influence their perspective, Critical Whiteness Studies generally situates whiteness in a more monolithic sense. Lower-classed white students possess some, but not all of the advantages Owen names, limiting the accuracy of any theory of identity formation based in these assumptions. Modifying the underlying assumptions to incorporate the adjusted norms learned through a lower-class identity (and other marginalized identities) extends white identity formation theory to more accurately capture the processes by which white people understand their racial selves. Within the theory, this extension includes accounting for the psychological and emotional toll of rejection by same race peers and the subsequent reduction of political, social, and cultural advantage (Owen, 2007). This extension allows for consideration of the resulting impact on their racial identity formation, whether increasing associational embracement efforts (Kaufman, 2003) or furthering disassociating from whiteness. An extended theory should also include the types of interactions that drive a student from this point of rejection toward either option, such as attempts to decrease family tension and closeness with peers of color. Accounting for social class dynamics within whiteness expands the applicability and utility of white identity formation theories. Such a white identity formation theory that considers other identities is aligned with other student identity work that focuses on the existence of and interaction between multiple identities, like the Reconceptualized Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity (Jones & Abes, 2013). Gender and Antiracist White Identity Formation All participants in this study identified as cisgender women, making this study not only about the impact of a lower-classed identity, but also an oppressed gender identity, on the formation of an antiracist white identity. This study confirms and extends previous research on the racial identity development of white women (Frankenberg, 1993b; Linder, 2015; Robbins,
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2016). I focus primarily on Linder’s (2015) work, which proposed a model of antiracist white feminist activism. This model uses “a metaphor of a machine with cogs working together to maintain oppression through potential allies’ inaction based on feelings of guilt, shame, and fear” (p. 542). After working through resistance and anger and acknowledging their racial privilege, Linder found that women in her study cycled between engaging in antiracist activism and inaction because of a) guilt and shame arising from their whiteness, b) fear of appearing racist, and c) distancing themselves from whiteness. Linder does not incorporate social class identity in her model and participants held a range of class identities. Multiple participants in the current study identified as feminists and were fully or partially introduced to racism through their work resisting sexism. Aligning with Linder’s model, participants worked through resistance and anger as they wrestled with their new view of a society in which they experience both racial privilege and gender oppression. There were also multiple instances where participants deviated from Linder’s model, which potentially results from the impact of their lower-classed identity. Guilt and shame. Once participants in this study began to understand the reality of racism, they were forced to confront the reality that much of what they understood as feminism could more accurately be described as white feminism. This understanding of their activism, as well as their general understanding of their white identity, caused significant guilt for their lack of awareness about racism and shame related to past (in)actions that perpetuated racial oppression (Linder, 2015). For Linder’s participants, guilt and shame were connected to a fear of appearing racist. Unlike Linder’s (2015) study, participants in this study did not connect their guilt and shame to a fear of appearing racist. As Haley so aptly put it, “You don't have to apologize for racism. You're not the spokesperson for white people. But you have these things, so you need to be aware of them.” Participants were seemingly able to compartmentalize their guilt and shame and minimize the impact on their actions. Though not discussed at-length, most participants also recalled some sense of guilt and shame related to their class identity. They experienced these emotions and learned to navigate them in their daily life, many feeling secure in their lower-classed identity, if not feeling a sense of pride. Prior experience with overcoming guilt and shame related to their social class may have contributed to their ability to compartmentalize these emotions when they arose related to their whiteness, minimizing the impact on their activism and fear of appearing racist. An important distinction, however, is that
181 guilt and shame from whiteness arises from possessing unearned privilege, whereas guilt and shame related to a lower-classed identity arises from disadvantage. Fear of appearing racist. Many participants displayed a sense of uncertainty about appropriate actions, particularly in interactions with peers of color or in spaces of color. They began to question their beliefs about ways to resist patriarchy, considering how those actions simultaneously oppressed women of color. Inaction was sometimes the result because they were unsure how to act in a way that did not perpetuate whiteness. Linder (2015) termed this inaction the fear of appearing racist, where individuals become unable to act because of their uncertainty and their fear of having actions called out as racist by peers. Two participants’ actions and thought processes deviated from Linder’s model. In her feminist student organization, Pamela intentionally observed white peers who she perceived as resisting whiteness within their feminist identity. She also paid close attention when a person of color called something racist, such as an action, word, or type of clothing. Rather than decide for herself whether or not something is racist, Pamela defaulted to believing the person and automatically stayed away from that specific thing. These methods helped Pamela overcome or at least mitigate her fear of appearing racist and determine courses of action that did not perpetuate whiteness. Penelope overcame her fear of appearing racist by carefully engaging with women of color to inform her actions to resist whiteness. She was surprised when a peer of color pointed out the whiteness of a queer space on campus in which Penelope was actively involved. Thereafter, Penelope felt that taking an active role in that space was a perpetuation of whiteness and was unsure how to address this systemic issue. She sought out peers of color she believed would be open to coaching her and providing her with honest feedback. These peers helped Penelope understand how her own inaction perpetuates whiteness and ways she can work alongside them towards equity. She did not describe instances where her relationships with peers of color felt inauthentic because of a fear of appearing racist and resulting over-analysis of interactions. Her shared class identity with her friends of color may have contributed to the authenticity of these relationships, providing an additional layer of shared experience. Penelope remained sensitive to the fact that not all people of color want white allies nor are willing to bear the burden of educating white people, which I discuss later in the discussion section and in the implications section of this chapter.
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Distancing from whiteness. Participants in this study generally embraced the reality of their whiteness and often recognized when their words or thoughts were attempts to distance themselves from whiteness. When Anne’s international student roommate was discussing her domestic student buddy, Anne distanced herself from whiteness through implying that she was not the same as these stereotypical white people. However, her roommate’s resulting confusion pushed Anne to question whether or not this distancing is problematic. As discussed in Chapter Four, Jane was adamant about the primacy of her gender identity, even after she understood and acknowledged her privileged racial identity. Her self- described “radical anti-male” identity and experiences in her Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies classes are how Jane came to understand structural racism and white supremacy. However, she continued to distance herself from complicity to whiteness by discussing the #MeToo national conversation around sexual and interpersonal violence. These thoughts and statements served to relieve participants from some of the lingering shame and guilt of whiteness, though they did not seem to impede action. Conclusion. Linder’s (2015) model of antiracist white feminist activism accurately captured much of participants’ own processes related to their antiracist white identity formation. Participants got caught in the model’s cogs of Guilt & Shame, Fear of Appearing Racist, and Distancing from Whiteness. However, participants in this study experienced different interaction between the cogs than Linder’s participants, particularly between Guilt & Shame and Fear of Appearing Racist. Their lower-classed identity seemed to be related to these differences, providing previous experience dealing with guilt and shame. Additionally, participants exhibited different strategies for getting out of the cogs, some of which may have also been a result of their lower-classed identity. The shared class identity with some peers of color, in addition to a shared gender identity and shared sexuality for some, may have provided an additional layer of comfort that participants could not find elsewhere on a predominantly wealthy campus. This may have led to increased authenticity with peers of color, even if participants were unable to recognize it. The experience of participants in this study extends Linder’s (2015) model to include the experiences of lower-classed antiracist white women, though the subconscious nature of these strategies makes them difficult to reproduce through intentional practices.
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Sexuality and Antiracist White Identity Formation Four participants in this study identified as queer, LGBTQ, or bisexual. Three of these participants—Penelope, Charlotte, and Jane—partially or fully credit their queer identity as the impetus for the formation of their antiracist white identity. This identity was a source of empathy that allowed them to understand marginalization (Eichstedt, 2001). The fourth participant’s queer identity neither served as an impetus nor a barrier to the formation of her antiracist white identity. This is contrasted with the impact of a lower-classed identity, which served as an impetus for some participants, but a barrier for other participants. Such a dichotomy complicates literature about the positive impact of a marginalized identity on the understanding of a dominant identity (Bush, 2011; Cabrera, 2012; Eichstedt, 2001; Reason, 2007). What makes the intersection of queer and white different than the intersection of lower-classed and white? Importance of power relations. Bush (2011) stated that if experiences with a marginalized identity “are not theorized in the context of power relations, they can sometimes have the opposite effect” and reinforce whiteness and white supremacy (p. 212). Similarly, Eichstedt’s (2001) study of antiracist white activists found that “it’s not just having the approximating experience [of oppression] that’s important, rather it’s the development of an analysis that names and critiques the links of oppression in a ‘white, patriarchal, economically unjust system’” (p. 464). Participants with queer identities understood the systemic nature of heterosexism and situated it alongside systemic racism. However, some participants’ understanding of class marginalization were solely focused on individualist notions of disparity. The more narrow, individualistic understanding of social class disparity without the context of systemic power relations may contribute the differential impacts of marginalized identities on the formation of an antiracist white identity. Power relations and social class. All participants faced daily experiences of marginalization based on their class identity. However, the experiences participants spoke about were almost solely individual interactions with peers who displayed more wealth, such as different clothes, not needing a job, and money to spend on alcohol or eating off campus. Rarely did participants speak about systemic or structural barriers related to class. In fact, those for whom social class was a barrier were socialized with values of hard work and accomplishing any goal with sufficient determination. For Charlotte and Jane, this was specifically related to overcoming social class—primarily income—disparity by working hard enough to get a good
184 education and, therefore, a well-paying job. Jane’s family explicitly communicated that they earned everything they had through their hard work. For these two participants, social class was a barrier and their queer identity was their direct path for empathizing with racial oppression. On the other hand, when participants could name the role of power relations and structural class disparity, social class served as a source of empathy for racial oppression. Pamela recognized that her family continued to work hard, but that aspects of the system, namely inadequate supports for a permanently disabled parent, left her family perpetually marginalized. She was able to recognize the systemic nature of this disparity and that her family was powerless to address it (Bush, 2011). Power relations and sexuality. Participants with a queer identity also experienced daily marginalization in their lives. In contrast with understandings of social class, participants learned early on that their sexuality was outside the socially accepted norm. They saw patterns of disparity that could not be attributed to individual action or effort. Unlike messages about social class, participants were not subjected to the message that changing their sexuality meant an end to marginalization. Their sexuality disadvantages them in our heterosexist society and nothing they do will change their outsider standing and the power imbalance. This is similar to the experience of a person of color, and the opposite of their class identity, which can be molded and changed over time to gain power and privilege. Conclusion. Power relations bring notions of disparity beyond individual actions and beliefs to a systemic understanding of oppression and privilege. Participants with queer identities understood the impact of systemic power imbalances in a heteronormative society. This knowledge may be the reason a marginalized sexuality did not serve as a barrier to understanding their role in perpetuating racial injustice. Social class identity, on the other hand, is more often paired with individual effort and can be changed through hard work. This masks capitalism’s role in systemic class disparity (Guinier, 2015). Therefore some participants’ marginalized social class identity further perpetuated white supremacy, rather than serving as a source of empathy for racial oppression. Conclusion Marginalized identities complicate current notions of white identity development. Experiences with marginalization can serve as sources of empathy that encourage the formation of an antiracist white identity. However, the influence is not universal across identities or across
185 individuals who share a marginalized identity, reinforcing the complicated nature of human beings. Understanding the systemic nature of marginalization is the key to developing the empathy that fosters the formation of an antiracist white identity. Even when white people with marginalized identities understand structural oppression, they must still navigate the privilege of inaction, which perpetuates racial injustice. The experiences of participants in this study offer several implications for overcoming inaction and generally fostering antiracist white identities among lower-classed college students. College Experiences that Foster an Antiracist Identity for Lower-Classed White Students All participants described experiences in college that influenced the formation of their antiracist white identity. Many aligned with previous research related to increased racial awareness (Cabrera, 2012) and racial ally development (Bush, 2011; Reason, 2007; Robbins, 2016). Participants’ experiences also extend research related to cross-racial interactions and multicultural education, particularly related to their lower-classed identity. Cross-Racial Interactions White people increase their awareness “of the realities of people of color” and their own whiteness (Cabrera, 2012, p. 385) through formal and informal interactions with peers of color. All participants named at least one peer of color as instrumental in their understanding of racism, whether a roommate placed by the institution, a friend, or a member of the same organization who later became a close friend. Similar to Cabrera’s (2012) study, the peer of color became a teacher in participants’ relationships, regardless of the way they originally met. However, the peer’s social class identity sometimes impeded participants’ willingness to hear and believe experiences of racism, a finding not explored in current literature. Cross-racial interactions placed the burden of education on these peers of color (Cabrera, 2012; Cabrera et al, 2016) and may have increased harm as participants worked through their resistance and came to understand whiteness (Cabrera et al., 2017; Leonardo & Porter, 2010). Similar to previous research (Bush, 2011; Robbins, 2016), learning from and exploring racism with white peers was impactful for participants. Additional alternatives are also discussed below. Social class and cross-racial interactions. Two participants, Charlotte and Beth, learned from peers of color with whom they did not share a social class identity. Both resisted listening to and believing the peer’s lived experiences of racism because of the peer’s social class
186 identity. Conversations about spending hundreds of dollars shopping or about getting out of college without debt showed that these peers’ experiences were vastly different in the part of life Beth and Charlotte thought about the most. Because they could not “wrap [their] heads around” this financial freedom, participants were both more dismissive when these same peers discussed the part of their own identity they think about the most: dealing with racism on a daily basis. Invalidation of Beth’s and Charlotte’s social class identities reinforced their focus on that identity and prevented them from focusing on uncovering their racial privilege, further reinforcing white solidarity across classes (Roediger, 2007) Conversely, both Beth and Charlotte also had peers of color during their first year of college with whom they more closely shared a social class. Neither participant discussed the feelings of alienation from these peers that they experienced with their wealthy peers of color. Their class identity was a shared experience that drew them closer and may have made them more receptive when the peer discussed experiences of racism. Both participants eventually understood that their wealthier peers of color experience racism despite a privileged social class, but the difference in social class identity was another barrier behind which they could defend their whiteness. Relieving the burden of cross-racial interactions. A major critique of cross-racial interactions is that the burden of education falls on students of color and, in many formalized interactions, expectations of calm dialogue prevents a student of color from responding to racist statements made by white students (Cabrera, 2012). Multiple studies (Bush, 2011; Robbins, 2016) recommend discussion groups of white students, providing a forum explicitly focused on race, while minimizing burden on and harm to students of color. While no participants discussed all-white discussion groups, multiple participants did reference individual white peers with whom they explored these topics. This finding reinforces the research related to learning from white peers, while extending the specifics to include individual peers. White peers were a safe place to express doubts and ask questions about racism. After interacting with peers of color or learning about racism in class, Charlotte often asked two white peers “Hey what do you think about this?” Though one peer focused more on ableism, she helped Charlotte by explaining systemic oppression and gave her resources to read for further understanding. Pamela learned about racism and whiteness by watching white peers in a student organization, especially when racism was being discussed. She saw them as role models of how
187 a white person can resist whiteness. The peers in Charlotte’s case did not share her social class identity and the class identity of Pamela’s peers are unknown. These participants’ examples occurred after they initially acknowledged their possession of white privilege. The interactions may not have been as impactful if they occurred when Charlotte still used her class identity as proof she did not possess racial privilege. The timing of these interactions and relationships may matter. While these interactions with white peers helped participants understand racism, their informal nature left much to chance and did not necessarily translate to actions participants could take to resist white supremacy. Their white peers likely intentionally or unintentionally missed opportunities to push back on participants’ problematic statements. Additionally, as Jane asked, “who has the authority to educate?” White people who educate their white peers have to learn from somewhere and somehow understand the lived experiences of people of color. Options for multicultural education that do not rely on individual people of color are explored in the next section. Even with such unanswered questions, interactions with white peers did relieve some measure of burden from peers of color and allow white students to work through understanding their role in perpetuating white supremacy in a way that did not directly harm their peers of color. This is aligned with the goals of previous research that found utility in all-white discussion groups (Bush, 2011; Robbins, 2016). Multicultural Education More formalized education efforts to teach white students about race, racism, and white supremacy (Bush, 2011; Cabrera, 2012; Robbins, 2016) are also effective for those with a lower- classed identity. Participants frequently cited specific courses focused on inequality when discussing college experiences that led to their antiracist white identity. The discussions in these classes were almost always a broad discussion about the existence of systemic oppression and privilege, including race, gender, class, ability, and/or sexuality. Importantly, however, when the class discussion ignored identities beyond race, participants responded with anger and defensiveness, making the effort ineffective. Discussions of race created racial dissonance (Robbins, 2016), but when participants did not feel that their lower-classed identity (or other marginalized identities) was acknowledged, they resisted acknowledging their racial privilege. Formalized efforts in classes did relieve some of the burden of education from peers of color. However, participants still found more meaning through individual relationships and
188 conversations with peers of color that served to humanize people of color (Cabrera, 2012). Two participants in this study were able to humanize people of color and experiences of racism through available resources without additional burden on peers of color. Haley learned through watching historical documentaries with her dad and by using Tumblr to read various experiences and research about systemic racism. Tumblr was also an effective tool for Becky to read firsthand accounts of racial oppression. Both of these participants started researching issues related to social class disparity and eventually found themselves reading about racial oppression. Tumblr automatically directs the user to another website with similar content or similar authors, literally making the connection between class marginalization and racial oppression. These resources relieved some measure of burden from peers of color by providing a base level of knowledge about individual instances of racism and general lived experiences of people of color. Their peers in real life were thus not forced to serve in this role. Conclusion This study extends Kordesh et al.’s (2013) finding that antiracist white students combined coursework and interactions with diverse peers to increase racial cognizance. However, for such efforts to be effective for lower-classed white students, they must feel validated in their experiences of class marginalization. Additionally, the burden of education on peers of color can be partially mitigated by using existing media and digital resources to help humanize people of color. But these resources must be mandatory because, as Haley put it, “no racist is going to show up to Racial Consciousness 101.” A combination of opportunities to learn about first-hand experiences of racism and theoretical concepts of systemic oppression were effective for fostering an antiracist white identity in lower-classed students, particularly when those opportunities used their experiences of class marginalization to make connections to racial injustice. I now turn to implications for practice and research, where I suggest strategies for incorporating this discussion into the work of higher education practitioners and scholars. Implications for Higher Education Practitioners Participants’ stories make abundantly clear that higher education can benefit by considering how a lower-classed identity impacts the formation of an antiracist white identity. In this section, I present implications for practice that stemmed from their stories. I intentionally use the term higher education and higher education practitioners, as opposed to student affairs practitioners. This work must not be limited to those in student affairs divisions or staff in
189 student services roles in other parts of the institution, or the impact will be limited and white supremacy will continue to shape the fabric of higher education. In Chapter One, I noted that this research adds nuance to understandings of whiteness and the experiences, instances, programs, and processes that aid the formation of an antiracist white identity for lower-classed students. I also posited that this research may uncover ways that these explorations of whiteness actually perpetuate racial injustice and further burden or harm students of color. Participants’ stories were rich with examples of promising practices, as well as pitfalls that contribute to the perpetuation of whiteness. I first discuss implications for non-instructional staff members, then for faculty and instructional staff members, and conclude with a note about the burden of education on students, faculty, and staff of color. As a whole, heeding these implications has the potential to make progress in disrupting white supremacy’s primary role in structuring higher education, especially for students with a lower-classed identity. Implications for Non-Instructional Staff College students spend a majority of their time outside the classroom, reinforcing the importance of structures, activities, and environments beyond academic courses. Participants’ stories further emphasize the salience of these experiences in the formation of their antiracist white identities. The staff members on campus who coordinate and interact with students through these programs have the opportunity to support this formation process. Intentionally structured support programs. Lower-classed white students are partial outsiders to higher education. They are not fully accepted into whiteness because of their class and cannot fully understand the experience of peers of color who share their social class because of their race. Thus, institutions and staff must create opportunities for them to both only learn the processes and language of higher education, and to find a sense of belonging with similarly- situated peers at the institution. As Anne stated when discussing her experience in a cohort program for first generation and lower-classed students, she “definitely feel[s] more comfortable with that group because they're able to sit and talk about” their experiences with peers who understand. These programs may involve an academic component, a living component, or both, but they need to provide opportunities for structured support from staff to help them navigate the institution and for students to see, as Pamela said, that “there’s actually other people on campus” who understand their experience.
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When lower-classed students have a sense of belonging and readily available support system of staff and peers, these programs can then explore topics of power, privilege, and oppression. Students and staff can readily draw connections between marginalized identities to illustrate racism or other types of oppression. Lower-classed white students do not need to fear disclosure of their class identity and are likely more open to learning about their racial privilege through parallels with their class identity. These conversations must include discussions of power relations and the systemic nature of inequality, or lower-classed white students may remain focused on the individualistic nature of their class identity. In programs where students formally discuss oppression and marginalization, informal exploration of the topics will naturally continue. Penelope spoke of her living-learning community as “a little percolator of people of new and different perspectives” who consistently opened her eyes to everyday instances of racism and other forms of oppression. These informal conversations gave substance and depth to her knowledge of the concepts of racism and white supremacy. Hard conversations. Within and outside structured support programs, staff cannot shy away from difficult conversations about racism. White staff members must first be in the process of forming their own antiracist white identity and openly discuss that process with students when appropriate. Every white staff member has the responsibility to point out and interrogate racism when working with college students, rather than brushing aside a racist comment or ignoring the impact of racism on the topic at-hand. This especially includes pointing out instances of implicit racism in discussions about norms and expectations, such as when a student organization is discussing expectations for their president role or how to act “professional” in a work setting. Lower-classed white students need role models to overcome the pervasive socialization of whiteness and to see examples of an antiracist white identity. White staff members must take the lead in this effort. Multiple opportunities. One universal theme from participants’ stories is that an antiracist white identity is not formed through one interaction, training, or class, but the confluence of all of these opportunities. This is why all staff members at an institution are important to the goal of dismantling white supremacy. Participants needed multiple opportunities to overcome their socialization into whiteness, particularly those for whom their class identity served as a barrier to the formation of their antiracist white identity. For Penelope
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“it’s been a series of puddle hops. . . realizing how broad the problem [of racism] is.” One-time interventions—trainings, classes, events—are important, but are too easily ignored in the face of a lifetime of socialization and class marginalization. Students need multiple opportunities to hear new information, reflect on it, discuss with peers and staff members, then repeat the process. Staff must encourage, and often facilitate, these conversations across all possible situations, including residence halls, student organizations, and campus jobs. A small conversation or recognition that not all white students share the same class identity is impactful when it is not the only instance, but one of a pattern of instances in the life of a lower-classed white student. When discussing race and white privilege, such recognition should be explicit, stating that the individual recognizes that not all experiences of whiteness are the same and that other identities influence the experience of whiteness. Additionally, recognition can occur outside of discussions of race and be an explicit incorporation of common experiences of lower-classed students. One example is a career center communicating the value of skills learned through an off-campus job, rather than focusing only those gained through on- campus involvement. When the career center shifts to navigating racism and racial disparities in the work place, the lower-classed white student may then be more open to hearing this information. The combination of validating their marginalization and challenging their racial privilege can facilitate incremental steps in the formation of an antiracist white identity. For Charlotte, it was the “constant immersion” of her classes, roommates, and friends that pushed her to examine her racialization and stop using her class identity as evidence she did not possess racial privilege. Support. Staff must be ready to support lower-classed white students navigating the formation of their antiracist white identity. In addition to the emotions of anger, guilt, and shame white students generally experience in this process, lower-classed white students are also likely to encounter tension with their family as their fundamental understanding of their class and racial identities shift. Staff can make students aware of this tension and develop strategies to address it, whether the tension is psychological (inside their mind, unspoken) or explicit. This may include finding ways to explain racial privilege to family members, like Becky and her father, or ways to manage problematic statements during time with family. Though implied, I find it important to note that this support does not include focusing on the student’s emotions and thus recentering
192 whiteness, but rather focusing on acknowledgement of the emotions and strategies to move toward action. Implications for Faculty Interactions with faculty members are one of the few universal experiences of college students. College students take courses and have repeated interactions with individual faculty members over at least a single academic term, if not multiple terms. All participants discussed experiences in classes, whether negative or positive, related to their class identity and topics of systemic oppression. Instructors and professors also provide “academic” knowledge on subjects, which are often valued over other types of knowledge, particularly by white people (Gusa, 2010). Faculty have an important role in the formation of a lower-classed student’s antiracist white identity. (In)Validation of students’ class identity. Faculty members dedicated to social justice can contribute to antiracist white identity formation by validating lower-classed students’ experiences of marginalization. This takes the form of confronting comments by students that perpetuate an individualistic view of social class and incorporating rather than ignoring the role of structural marginalization in maintaining class inequality. For example, peers in one of Pamela’s behavioral science classes frequently discussed that “in capitalism, if you don’t have money, obviously you’re not trying hard enough,” to which the professor had no response. Pamela’s focus thus remained on her experiences of marginalization and reinforced her understanding of class identity as the result of individual actions, not systemic inequality. One of Anne’s professors, on the other extreme, did not push back on students who expressed thinly veiled racist views “because he's very concerned that they continue to participate and feel like their opinions are validated.” This faculty member was also focused on validating students’ but to the extent that he actually perpetuated racism, missing the opportunity to educate these students. Instructors must call out both racist and classist comments, in addition to other problematic statements, or lower-classed students may feel further othered and move further from acknowledging their racial privilege. Confronting both types of comments (and heterosexist, ableist, etc. comments) affirms a lower-classed white student’s identity, while also pushing them to see and consider everyday examples of racism as the norm in higher education and society.
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One of Beth’s faculty members showed a video on privilege, then discussed her own various identities, noting where she has privilege and where she experiences marginalization. This allowed Beth to feel understood, but also know that her experiences of social class marginalization are different than those who experience racism. She realized that Yes, there are some areas where I am disadvantaged because I am lower class, because I am a girl, or because I have mental illness, but I still have so much more privilege than people of different races. I think that's when I really took that idea of whiteness as… It kind of shifted from the color of my skin to the amount of privilege that I have. Explicitly discussing identities in relationship with each other validates marginalization and contextualizes that marginalization in a larger picture of systemic inequality. Validating students’ lower-classed identity thus provides an opening to then discuss a privileged racial identity. Sustained relationships. Instructors and professors meet with the same students multiple times per week over the span of a few months. Faculty are ideally situated to role model an antiracist identity because of this regular and sustained engagement, particularly those who are white and from lower-classed backgrounds. Explicitly disclosing their lower-classed identity and parallels to their antiracist white identity draws the connections for similarly situated students by uncovering the shared notion of power relations in both systems. All white faculty, regardless of class identity, must also role model the actions of an antiracist white identity in the classroom. Faculty are also naturally positioned to share “academic” knowledge about systemic oppression and privilege. All participants discussed faculty who helped them connect individual stories of racism with theories and terminology about systemic racial oppression. Haley’s faculty member, who she described as a “liberal goddess,” helped her understand that I was poor growing up, but I wasn't a racial minority and I still didn't face any sorts of oppression due to how I just looked up front. And being able to see that. . . I think it was eye-opening because it was something I probably innately thought of, but something she never explicitly explored until a professor provided some theoretical background in a formal classroom setting. Using the “formal” classroom setting and “academic” knowledge exploits the credit white people generally give to empirical studies and institutional authority of higher education (Gusa, 2010). Faculty therefore have an important measure of
194 automatic credibility that must be used to foster the formation of an antiracist white identity in lower-classed students. The Burden of Education on People of Color All participants in this study discussed the impact of interactions with peers of color who discussed their experiences with racism. These peers were willing to relive and recount various experiences to help their white peers understand the pervasive and constant presence of racism in everyday life. Most participants did not mention understanding the burden this places on their peers. Though participants did not specifically mention faculty or staff of color who served in similar roles, the same burden holds true. Lowering this burden is of vital importance and there are existing resources available toward this end. Multiple participants spoke about gaining some awareness of the systemic nature of racism through research online or watching documentaries that connected past events/societal norms to today. Others spoke about the website Tumblr, which suggests new content similar to the content a user is currently viewing, making connections from their class marginalization to other types of marginalization. Such technology may lower the overall burden on people of color by explaining basic concepts of racism and structural oppression. However, participants did not gain fuller awareness until they listened to the experiences of a close peer of color. For instance, Charlotte’s roommate who was a person of color from a wealthy background and helped Charlotte see the persistence of racism regardless of social class. Such interactions helped lower-classed white students to understand the difference between their class marginalization and racism. Higher education practitioners cannot duplicate these interactions, but they can provide lower-classed white students with similar online resources that chronicle daily experiences of racism by a person of color. Additionally, and potentially more importantly, practitioners can accompany those resources with others aimed directly at helping white people work towards understanding and acknowledging systemic racial injustice. Simple web searches return several such resources written for white people. Technology makes it possible to shift the expectation away from learning primarily rooted in stories told by individuals that are supplemented by “academic” or “formal” information to learning based in academic information and supplemented with existing stories of experiencing racism.
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Implications for Research The findings of this study generate several possibilities for future research related to the formation of an antiracist white identity. First, while I shared multiple identities with participants (e.g. race, ability, religion, sexuality for some), I did not share a social class or gender identity with them. The impact of the researcher in qualitative research means that my own socialization—as an upper-classed individual into capitalism and as a male into patriarchy—limited my ability to understand aspects of participants’ stories. A researcher who shares one or both of these identities would likely see and interpret participants’ stories differently than I am able to do. A researcher who shares a social class and gender identity with these participants is also likely to ask different questions and may elicit more candid responses from participants. Similarly, a researcher of color who experiences racism on a daily basis would also see participants’ responses differently. A peer debriefer of color was important, but does not have the depth of engagement with the data, nor the opportunity to directly interact with participants. However, a researcher of color would almost certainly change the way participants engaged with the study. Related to participants, studying this topic with lower-classed white men may yield different results and insights into the formation of an antiracist white identity. A dominant gender identity in a patriarchal society means they experience their social class and whiteness differently that the participants of this study. Studying lower-classed white men with an antiracist white identity may not only contribute to the disruption of white supremacy, but also to the disruption of patriarchy. The role of a queer identity in the formation of an antiracist white identity was unexpected in this study, particularly in comparison to the role of a lower-classed identity. Additional research is warranted into why a queer identity seemed to always facilitate the formation of an antiracist white identity, but a lower-classed identity sometimes served as a barrier. I hypothesized that society frequently characterizes a queer identity in terms of systemic power relations, but a class identity more often in terms of individual actions. Intentionally exploring the differential impact of these two marginalized identities may yield important insight into antiracist white identity formation. Starting with the incoming class for fall 2019, all new students at Miami will be required to complete online training related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This training is designed
196 to give students a baseline of knowledge and prompt them to consider their own biases. The results of this study clearly show the importance of continual conversations and engagement in the formation of an antiracist white identity. However, studying this same population in four years, when virtually all current students have completed this training, may yield different results. This training will hopefully foster the formation of participants’ antiracist white identity, particularly given its semi-academic nature. Additionally, the campus culture may see positive shifts when the student population has been exposed to concepts of diversity, bias, privilege, and oppression. This altered context may also impact the formation of lower-class student’s white identity in ways that warrant additional research. Final Thoughts This study reinforces the importance of not overlooking the impact of other identities on the experience of whiteness. Whiteness is not a monolithic experience, though whiteness pervades the experience of all other identities in a way that makes it unique. As Lipsitz (1995) argued, “all whites do not benefit from the possessive investment in whiteness in precisely the same way, ...but the possessive investment in whiteness always affects individual and group life chances and opportunities” (p. 383). Participants’ stories showed that a lower-classed identity itself is multifaceted and impacts the experience of whiteness in different ways. Through their varied experiences and identities, one common understanding emerged, captured by Owen (2009) and expressed in some form by each participant: “since whites cannot simply give up white privileges, we have a responsibility to use it in the service of greater racial justice” (p. 202). I initially decided to pursue a PhD as a means to an end: my career goal of serving as a vice president for student affairs. However, the experience I’ve had over the past nine years was unexpected and transformational. As often happens, it’s the journey, not the destination, that is truly the meaningful part of an experience. I now have a better understanding of the structures that shape our world and my complicity in them. Much of this understanding is because I have heard the stories of eight women who have chosen to push back against white supremacy, instead of following, as Charlotte said, “the path of least resistance.” Their understanding is imperfect, but so is mine. Their actions sometimes perpetuate the system, but so do mine. These students are dedicated to uncovering those imperfections and continuously doing better. My career goals are no longer as certain, but my dedication to a racially just society is now crystal clear. I leave
197 this study simultaneously more dispirited about our society, but also more optimistic about the possibilities of change when white people are willing to stand up to each other and disrupt the system to which we all contribute. I hope this dissertation serves that educational purpose for white readers. To those readers, I quote probably the funniest participant, Haley: “Here it is and I wrote it, so you’re welcome.”
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Appendix A: Faculty/Staff Call for Participants Letter (Email) Hello, [name];
My name is Mark Pontious and I am a doctoral student at Miami University, where I also work full time as the Director of Parent & Family Programs. I am writing to you in hopes that you are able to assist me in identifying potential student participants for my dissertation study. My study will focus on the ways in which college students who identify as white and low-income/working class form a white identity that acknowledges and resists white supremacy and racism. Students will be asked to participate in three interviews with me, each of which will last approximately 60 minutes.
For this study, I am seeking students who have engaged in some measure of critical reflection on their social class and racial identities and have some knowledge or acknowledgement of systemic racism and oppression. Students nominated should be current undergraduate students or recent graduates (within one year) of Miami University’s Oxford campus, should identify as white, and identify as working class/low-income/lower class/poor/low socioeconomic status.
I believe that deep reflection of our various identities, particularly by those who hold dominant identities, is of vital importance to better understanding the ways that these identities shape our experiences and the experiences of others in our community. Currently, there is little research on this topic, especially for white students who also identify as low-income/working class. This study has the potential to assist other individuals into and through this process of reflection, ultimately leading to an antiracist identity dedicated to ending racial injustice.
If you have students you think might be interested, please personalize and use this letter [hyperlinked in email] to invite the student to contact me to learn more about participation and the study. If you have questions, please reply to this email or call me at 801-707-9269. You may also contact my advisor, Dr. Elisa Abes, with any questions: [email protected], 513-529- 0164.
Mark W. Pontious Doctoral Candidate, Student Affairs in Higher Education Program Director, Office of Parent & Family Programs Miami University
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Appendix B: Participant Invitation (Email) Hello, [name];
I recently received a message from a researcher on campus who is conducting a study and looking for participants. The study will investigate the ways white students who are from low income/low SES/working class backgrounds engage in critical reflections on their racial identity/consciousness. I immediately thought of you and encourage you to participate in this study. Please see the message below for more information and reach out to Mark if you are interested.
[Closing], [Your Name]
My name is Mark Pontious and I am a doctoral student at Miami University. I am writing to invite you to participate in a dissertation research study focused on the ways in which college students who identify as white and low-income/working class form an antiracist white identity and/or antiracist white consciousness that acknowledges and resists white supremacy and racism. Findings from this study will be used to further explore strategies that may be effective in encouraging similar antiracist white identity formation in other college students who share similar identities.
I believe that deep reflection of our various identities, particularly by those who hold dominant identities, is of vital importance to better understanding the ways that these identities shape our experiences and the experiences of others in our community. Currently, there is little research on this topic, especially for white students who also identify as low-income/working class. This study has the potential to assist other individuals into and through this process of reflection, ultimately leading to an antiracist identity dedicated to ending racial injustice.
Participation will consist of three face-to-face individual interviews with me, the primary researcher. Each interview will last approximately 60 minutes in length. The first two interviews will occur during a 2-3 week span in spring 2018 and the third will occur later that semester or during summer 2018. Some analysis from the first two interviews will be provided prior to the third interview. As a potential participant, you will have the opportunity to see the questions and topics of discussion prior to agreeing to participate in the study. Interviews will be scheduled at a time based on your availability and at a place you choose.
To participate in this study, you need to meet the following criteria: ● Be at least 18 years old ● Be a current undergraduate student on or recent graduate (within one year) of Miami University-Oxford campus
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● Identify as white ● Identify as working class/low-income/poor/low socioeconomic status ● Identify as someone who critically reflects on their white identity and acknowledges/resists white supremacy and racism (regardless of whether or not you specifically use the language of ‘antiracist white identity/consciousness’)
If you choose to discontinue participation, you may withdraw from the study at any time and there is no penalty to you for choosing not to participate. I will work hard to protect the confidentiality of all information provided in this study, including not using your name when discussing this study and changing other names (hometown, organizations) to describe you in a way that others cannot recognize you. You will have the opportunity to see these materials before they are published.
If you are interested in participating in this study or learning more about participation, please email or call me: [email protected], 801-707-9269. You may also contact my advisor, Dr. Elisa Abes, with any questions: [email protected], 513-529-0164.
Mark W. Pontious Doctoral Candidate, Student Affairs in Higher Education Program Miami University
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Appendix C: Demographic Survey Email
Hi NAME,
Thank you so much for reaching out with your interest in my research study! To help me further understand a bit about your background and how you meet the criteria for participation, answer the following questions: Hometown Gender Year in school Major 2-3 sentences about your understanding of your/your family’s social class and what makes it working class/lower class/poor 2-3 sentences about what it means to be white and how you currently understand/conceptualize your white identity I look forward to your response and, again, appreciate your interest in this study. I'm planning to start interviews at the end of this month or beginning of March.
Have a great day, Mark
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Appendix D: Research Consent Information Dear [participant] My name is Mark Pontious and I am a doctoral student at Miami University in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program. I am working on my dissertation study, titled “Race through Class: Antiracist Identity Formation of Lower-Classed White Students at a Historically White Institution with a Wealthy Student Population.” This is a voluntary study and declining to participate with have no negative effects for you.
You are invited to participate in this study on the ways in which college students who identify as white and low-income/working class critically reflect on the intersection of their racial and social class identities. The goal of this study is to explore the experiences, incidents, and processes that foster deeper understanding of one’s white racial identity, and the ways that an oppressed social class identity impacts such reflection. Results from this study will assist colleges in creating similar environments for white students, with the ultimate goal of dismantling white supremacy.
Participation in this research is restricted to persons 18 years old or older and will involve three interviews with me, the principal investigator. Each interview should take approximately 60 minutes. Your participation is voluntary, you may skip questions you do not want to answer, you may stop the interview at any time, and you may end your participation in the study at any time. With your permission, I will digitally record this interview and I will take notes during the interview. Transcriptions of your interview and written findings of this study will include a pseudonym that you choose. I will mask your identity in the written findings by not including information that easily identifies you. You will have a chance to review written findings to ensure your comfort with how I describe you and the stories I write about you. Only myself and my advisor will have access to your interview recording, transcription, and notes.
Risks associated with participation in this study are minimal. Even with the steps taken to ensure your anonymity, I cannot completely guarantee that there will not be someone who reads the study and knows you well enough to figure out your identity as a participant. Taking part in the interviews provides the opportunity to continue reflecting on your identities (focusing on racial and social class), but also has the potential to bring up difficult topics, memories, or experiences. You can end your participation in this study at any time during the process. If choose to end your participation, all notes and audio-recordings will be deleted.
If you have questions about this research or you need more information to determine whether you would like to volunteer, you can contact me ([email protected], 801-707-9269) or my faculty advisor, Elisa Abes (513-529-0164, [email protected]). If you have questions or concerns about the rights of research subjects, you may contact our reviewing body: Miami University Research Ethics & Integrity Office (513-529-3600, [email protected]). This study is approved by Miami University IRB (Protocol ID# 0519r).
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Please keep a copy of this information for future reference. Please sign below if you are willing to participate in this study: ______Participant’s Name (Please print.) ______Participant’s Signature Date
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Appendix E: Interview Protocol First and Second Interviews The first interview will focus on building rapport with the participant and to start to understand their pre-college experiences. Depending on the flow of the conversation and the individual participant, discussion may move into when they were introduced to concepts of racism and classism and began exploring their identities in relation to those concepts. The second interview will (continue to) focus on this exploration and will include experiences at the institution related to this exploration. The list of topics below will serve as a guide for both interviews, with probing and follow-up questions as appropriate. ● Please start by telling me about yourself and your experiences growing up. Paint me a picture of your childhood. ● Tell me about the makeup of your neighborhood - what types of jobs did people hold, what was the racial makeup? How about the social class makeup? ● What about the racial and social class makeup of the various groups you belonged to (high school clubs, sports teams, church/synagogue)? ● When did you first get introduced to the concept of social class and/or classism? When did you first notice class-based differences or remember class being discussed? ● How was class discussed and what were your initial thoughts about class? Classism? ● When did you first get introduced to the concept of race and/or racism? When did you first notice race or remember race being discussed? ○ How was race discussed in that moment and what were your initial thoughts about race? Racism? ● How were these two concepts discussed together (race/racism and class/classism)? ● When was the first time you explicitly thought of yourself as a white person and what was this experience like for you? ● When were you introduced to concepts of whiteness, white privilege, and/or white supremacy? ● When did you begin to explore your white identity more deeply? ○ What types of experiences or people assisted you in the exploration of your white identity? What were/are the races of those people? ○ Describe the process as much as you can remember. What were the emotions experienced or experience during this process? Was there a specific incident that was a turning point? ○ How do you currently make sense of your Whiteness? ● Talk to me about your college search process - (If identity exploration took place before college: How did your reflections on your identity factor into your college search?) ● Why did you ultimately choose Miami? ○ What were your opinions of Miami before getting here, specifically related to race and social class? Have those opinions changed since getting here?
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● What are the racial and social class compositions of groups you belong to here (student groups, classes, your house/apartment/residence hall)? ● What types of opportunities have you had to continue reflecting on your racial and social class identities while at Miami (in class, in a student organization, in a living situation)? ○ What were the makeups of people associated with these opportunities? ○ Did you seek out these opportunities out or were they presented to you? ○ How have the opportunities helped continue this critical exploration? ○ If not, are you aware of such opportunities on campus? ● How would you compare your experiences in comparison to other Miami students coming from more affluent backgrounds? Different racial/ethnic backgrounds? ● Talk to me about a time or time when your racial identity was more important than your social class identity. What about when your social class identity was more important than your racial identity. ● Tell me about times when both your race and your social class were both important. ● Which identity do you find more important more often? Has this changed over time? ● In what ways to do you see whiteness/white supremacy playing out on campus? ● How could Miami help white students begin to or continue reflecting on their whiteness and their role in perpetuating racial injustice? ● What do you think it means to be white? How did you come to this definition? ● I’ve asked a lot of questions specifically about race and social class. However, I know we experience all of our identities—gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, spirituality— together and inseparably. How do you see your other identities as having combined with race to influence your experience?
Third Interview The third interview will primarily serve as an opportunity for each participant to expand on any points made in earlier interviews, add any new points, and to review the initial summary and analysis of their first two interviews. I will provide this summary to the participant in advance of the third interview and ask for corrections and feedback.
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Appendix F: Sample Member Checking Document Anne,
Thank you so much for sharing your story with me. I appreciate your openness in our discussions.
In preparation for our third and final meeting, I have reviewed the transcripts of our first two meetings and reflecting on your story. I have listed below the things that stand out to me from your story, as well as the lessons I learned from you about lower-classed white students with an anti-racist white identity. The third section below is a summary of what I’m learning from all participants so far in the study. These thoughts and themes – and the meaning I am making of them – will make up the bulk of what I write about in my dissertation. Please read the entire document, make notes as needed, and come prepared to chat about any/all of it. I want to 1) make sure how I record your story is accurate to your understandings and 2) the degree to which the themes from all participants resonate with you. This stage of the process is vital to a successful telling of the story – it ensures I am not thinking in isolation and misinterpreting what participants have told me.
What stands out to me from your story: 1. You have always noticed disparities related to race and class a. When students were handpicked for honors in elementary, you think “subconsciously they just picked an all white class” and “didn't think it was possible that white people were just smarter.” b. You were nervous about befriending with wealthier peers because you “didn’t want to make my parents uncomfortable” by asking them “for money to do something” they couldn’t afford. c. Your friends were in your city’s community service organization, composed of mostly working class folks and people of color, versus student council, composed of wealthier white students. d. You had a vision of college as full of “wealthy white people” who all “have the funds to go to college” and look “like a carbon copy of each other.” 2. School has always been held in high regard by you and your family a. Your grandma grew up poor in the foster system and always said that “education is the key” changing your circumstances and a better life. b. You call yourself the “odd person out” who is “horrendous in social situations,” but excels “in academic social situations.” c. Unlike your siblings, you couldn’t have a job because you were “taking a lot of AP classes” and your mom “really wanted you to go to college.” You are the first to go more than one semester. 3. School has also been central in learning about racism and oppression
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a. Discussions of Invisible Man in your sophomore literature class, where you “remember feeling so ridiculous” as a “bunch of white teenage girls with their white teacher” who were “talking about the plight of the black man in America.” b. This teacher told you to move beyond guilt about whiteness and your “I believe” essay in that class solidified that you want to “work against discrimination and oppression” in your life. c. Reading The Great Gatsby senior year, you were frustrated by peers “super into the class struggle” of white characters, but blind to the systemic oppression in Invisible Man. d. Because you “put everything in the school,” your classmates “respected you enough” not to call you out for talking about oppression/privilege or say “‘That's ridiculous,’ but they laughed.” e. Even though Hillbilly Elegy didn’t draw parallels to the African American experience, the book helped you see nuances of whiteness “as an identity” in itself. f. A Black World Studies class was the formal introduction. It wasn’t a “class full of only white people who didn’t understand and couldn’t fathom how their experiences could be different.” 4. You have often been left wanting more discussions about oppression and privilege: a. Your parents told you about your shared birthday with Martin Luther King, Jr., and that he was a “great man,” but “nothing about like civil disobedience or protesting” racial oppression. b. Your parents fought about money, but redirected any conversations you tried to have about social class, including when you asked how people without money gain access to AP classes/materials. c. When you learned about white explorers and wondered if white people are “the villains of the world,” your mom told you it has “nothing to do with you” because it was a long time ago and your best friend said “it’s ridiculous to feel guilty about 1600s explorers.” d. Even though your sophomore literature class said many things about Invisible Man “that could only come from a place of extreme privilege” and the student- teacher gave up on class discussions, the teacher worked with you one-on-one to explore these topics through essays. e. Your professor allows white students to perpetuate white supremacy by obscuring the role of race through statements that are “not their opinion, but they’re wrong facts.” 5. Much of your identity exploration has been self-driven, with encouragement from teachers and peers.
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a. A teacher named you “bomb thrower” because you “throw things out to see people's reactions” and encouraged you to read specific books, but didn’t have deeper conversations about them. b. Your roommate, an international student, modeled a sense of genuine curiosity and forced you to reflect on whiteness when you sarcastically said “white people” about the name ‘Britt.’ c. You choose topics for course projects, such as the AIDS epidemic, and seek out documentaries so you can expand your understanding of the depth of structural racism and oppression. d. Your UNV class discussion of identities and your Black World Studies course still make you think about what you hold important and how that is impacted by race. e. You have picked classes in your Global & Intercultural Studies major to explore diversity and identities in the U.S. (Latin American Studies, Globalization, etc.). 6. Your class identity served as an entry way into understanding racism and oppression a. When reading Invisible Man, you “knew what it felt like to always come at a situation from a disadvantage that you had no part in” and was present “regardless of your individual actions.” b. You know “even wealthier African Americans are always aware of discrimination,” and “that advantages that were given [in Hillbilly Elegy] would not have been given” to a person of color. 7. You recognize the power of your racial privilege and know it often overshadows class marginalization. a. You are “here all on scholarships,” but it’s harder to “connect to and be seen as a part of this subgroup” of working class peers of all races because it’s not easily identifiable. b. Identity exploration “always in the context of that white privilege.” You “don't want to be blind to it,” but it can also prevent you from interacting with people based on your other identities. c. Your racial identity is “always at the forefront” and your other identities “definitely take a backseat to what people see” when you walk into a space. d. Although you distance yourself from wealthy white peers “who have no care in the world,” you don’t think your “experiences as college students are necessarily that different” because of race. e. You aren’t sure if the college experience is that different for you than for lower- classed peers of color, since they “have to deal with discrimination more” before college and in society. 8. You see specific roles for the institution and for individuals in resisting white supremacy. a. It is important to you to listen to others describe experiences of discrimination because “it’s not your place to say” whether it’s true since you don’t experience it
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b. You encourage white students to ask questions to learn “how their experiences are different” and not to worry about “what someone thinks of you because you ask them those questions.” c. It is important to acknowledge that “there’s a lack of diversity” in places, but also danger in only “perpetuating the negative views and negative actions, and not looking at how to make it better.” d. You think “it would have more of an effect” if white students told other “white students who are being discriminatory” that “this is wrong, and this is why” e. The institution should better structure Miami Plan classes to explore different viewpoints. These are the classes where you saw the most racial diversity.
Lessons I learned from your story: 1. A marginalized social class identity can play a positive role in the formation of an antiracist white identity. Your experiences of class marginalization that is unrelated to your individual actions/efforts gave you some level of understanding of the experiences of people of color with racism. In the end, however, you believe that the privilege of your whiteness overshadows the marginalization of your social class. Because society uses your skin color to more readily identify and treat you as middle-/upper-class, your college experience is more similar to that of your wealthier white peers than that of your lower- classed peers of color. 2. At the same time, whiteness also obscures its role in making the experience of a white lower-classed identity fundamentally different than that of lower-classed peers of color. Though you say that your experience is likely more similar to your wealthier white peers, you may also underestimate the role of your white peer’s racism in the college experience of students of color. Additionally, whiteness’ power makes it difficult for you to acknowledge or name it’s influence when you are asked to pick the identity that has the most impact on your life. 3. Talking to people of color and others with different identities is important for the formation of an antiracist white identity, but must also be done with care. You are intentional with your roommate and classmates to determine your level of direct participation/questions depending on whether or not the individual wants to talk about their experiences and how well you know the individual. Otherwise, assuming that a person wants to speak to a white person about racial oppression can itself reinforce white supremacy. You find spaces where you are welcome as a listener, rather than a contributor, which increase your understanding of oppression and privilege. 4. Much of the work of antiracist white identity formation can occur at the individual level. Although you’ve had many people and experiences that directly address racism and oppression, much of it has been surface-level in nature. You have conducted much of the work on your own through observation and reflection. You have found many white people unwilling to engage in conversations about systems of privilege and oppression
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and have intentionally sought out experiences and information to further your own understandings.
Themes I have found across all participants: 1. There are multiple ways that a marginalized social class identity influenced or did not influence the understanding whiteness/structural racism. a. More often than not, social class identity was neither an entry point nor a barrier for understanding whiteness/structural racism; social class seemed to be mostly unrelated. i. Other marginalized identities (particularly sexual orientation) and experiences related to those identities (classes and student organizations) were most often the entry point and/or a primary source of context for understanding whiteness. b. For some, a marginalized class identity served as a barrier and deflection strategy related to racial privilege and actually obscured the universal presence of racism in the experience of peers of color across all social class identities. c. For the few where social class identity was the entry point, when students were in conversations regarding racism, students reflected on their own experiences or marginalization and discrimination at both the individual and systemic level. These reflections made it easier to understand structural racism. d. Regardless of the relationship of social class to the understanding of whiteness/racism, the importance of their social class identity decreased (intentionally or not) or was matched by the importance of their whiteness through the recognition of their racial privilege. 2. Lower-class white students often relied on individuals of color (peers, faculty) for much of their education and exploration of structural racism/whiteness. a. Some students relied on peers of color because white peers did not discuss these topics and actively dissuaded them from discussing these topics. b. White family members, with very few exceptions, raised them in colorblind whiteness and scolded them for attempts to discuss whiteness/structural racism. c. Some students were aware of the burden placed on their peers of color to educate white individuals and were intentional when engaging on these topics, thinking about the depth of relationship with the individual and when (not) to discuss these topics. d. While many lower-classed white students relied heavily on conversations and relationships with individuals of color, some experienced a majority of their anti- racist white identity formation through observation and individual reflection. 3. Students actively sought out opportunities for conversations about racism/whiteness and other systems of power and oppression, including through non-required high school and college courses, social justice-focused student organizations, and peer groups.
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a. Outside of these intentional spaces, students did not experience many conversations about racism/whiteness on campus. Most spaces (and the white individuals – peers and faculty – in those spaces) actually dissuaded the conversations from occurring, including some social justice spaces that were focused on different marginalized identities (such as sexual orientation and gender). b. Claiming a marginalized class identity (or any other marginalized identity) is complicated for some, who feel that their privileged racial identity overshadows any marginalized identity. Their race causes a first impression that must be overcome or accounted for when entering any type of social justice space. This awareness causes some to hesitate or not get involved in those spaces. c. While students could readily name instances of overt racism on campus, they were not as quick to name examples of structural racism/whiteness, beyond active resistance to discussing the topic in most campus spaces (classes, university communication). i. The example most cited is the lack of faculty/upper administration of color and low percentage of students of color. ii. Students also pointed to the (lack of) reaction by upper administration to instances of overt racism, including no action, slow action, and/or vague veiled reactions that seem designed to “save face” for the institution. 4. Students vary in their ability to name concrete actions they take to resist whiteness and what the institution can do address it. a. Many see the role of white people with an antiracist white identity to confront/ educate other white people and recognize the potential of increased credibility through their privilege. b. Most cited the need to not take an active or defensive stance in spaces of color and conversations regarding the experiences of being a student of color. They attempt to follow the lead of what students of color want them to do and work to actively listen when peers of color are discussing experiences of racism. c. Some take action to make mostly-white spaces less threatening for peers of color. d. Being active in primarily social-justice oriented spaces on campus can make it easier to fall into the perception that there aren’t many opportunities to actively confront instances of racism/whiteness on campus. e. In addition to direct statements or reactions to instances of racism on campus and increasing students and faculty of color, students universally recommended weaving discussions and awareness of the role of structural racism/whiteness throughout the curriculum. This includes direct ways that provide a baseline of knowledge, and throughout all courses across campus. 5. For most students, the formation of an anti-racist white identity is an ongoing process. Lower-classed white students sometimes catch themselves having problematic thoughts
229 or making problematic statements that are rooted in their colorblind white racialization. Many characterized it as a never-ending process and that calls for constant awareness.
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