GLOSSARY – Critical Whiteness
“white” does not refer to a homogenous group based on biological facts, as the categories of “race” and ethnicity are socially constructed. Despite this, all attributions resulting from racialization have real consequences and impacts on our lives in the form of discrimination or privilege.
Peggy McIntosh writes, that to be white, means to live your life with an invisible knapsack of societal privileges. These privileges are not earned, but rather ensured through violent structures of dominance. Among others, this “knapsack” holds the privilege of not having to think about racism and usually, not wanting to.
The feminist theologist Eske Wollrad explains that whiteness builds “the heart of racist hegemony”. It is a specific and alterable identity that can be fought for, given and lost. To create and retain this identity, white people constantly bring forth “the others”. This process occurs through multilayered demarcations and attributions with negative connotations. The goal of the creation and sustenance of these categories is the (re)production of white dominance within racialized power structures. In this way, white privilege and violence is legitimized. Through the constant labeling and marking of “the other”, whiteness, as the underlying norm and motor of this process, stays invisible and unmarked. White people appear to be without race and neutral.
Wow. Well put. Das stimmt. I would go as far to say that this logic on hegemony extends beyond “whiteness” as suggested but to heterosexuality, masculinity, etc.