The Knowledge About Race and The Whiteness Theory

1169 Words3 Pages

One day while watching the history channel I noticed that the main focus of the history was either on the evolved development of science or the Caucasian race. In that moment I asked myself, what did I know about my own history besides slavery and all the historic events after that? I became upset with the fact that I came up with nothing on the history on African Americans before slavery. In my 21 years of life I have took a total of 12 history classes and none them talked about African American history before slavery. Once I did research on African American history from articles, to books, and to documentaries I wondered why none of this was taught to students or shared with the world. I would to explain and describe a theory called “political whiteness” and gave details on why I believe that it is a big part of why African Americans don’t know their own history.
Whiteness theory describes what it means to be of the Caucasian race in the United States (Rodriguez 1999:20). The details of what it means to be “white” in American society raises awareness to social construction of whiteness. Political whiteness attempts to displace the normativity of the white position by seeing it as a strategy of authority rather than an authentic or essential ‘identity’ “(Bhabha 1998:21).
Audrey Thompson at the University of Utah has a web page where her and her students submit summaries and research regarding different topics. Political whiteness is intended to make white cultural, political assumptions and privileges visible so that whites do not assume that their own position is neutral or normal. The Whiteness theory addresses the functions in political and social life as well as how its identity manifests every day. White cultural norms are...

... middle of paper ...

...gle other president has been Caucasian. When Barack Obama became president it cause such confusion, and rage because the United States of America have been shaped into believing that having someone who is not of the Caucasian race was out of the norm. Even people of color were shock and in dis-belief because they also felt like it was out of the norm for someone of color to be the president of the United States. Why was it a shock that Obama Barack won president, because from the time people and the ability to learn; they were taught that whites were superior to everyone else in non-noticeable way.
By forcing whiteness upon every race, results in racial issues and people not knowing where or how to grow in the world, with the constant reminder that for every one step a person of color fights for 5 steps were just giving freely to a person that is Caucasian.

Open Document