Whitewashing Research Paper

This paper will explore whitewashing and how it has aided Europeans in continuing to hold on to the most favored position. For the purpose of this paper the term whitewashed will be used to describe a society that has been designed to have a preference to white people. Despite the fact that slavery and colonization had ended, we still live in a world where fewer white people are discriminated against than blacks. Many might ask the question how blacks are being discriminated against. Blacks have jobs and yes the president of the United States is even black. That may be true but from a cultural stand point, people of non-European origin are being belittled and being painted as inferior. This phenomenon is because of the Eurocentric world in

which we live. Whites may not have literal control over the world like they use to but they still have a lot of power. Caucasians have, for years, manipulated how things are presented and how things work in the world .They have done so by whitewashing different aspects of our society including but not limited to religion, education, media, music etc. In my wide-ranging discussion on whitewashing especially in education, religion, media and music I shall argue that all have been whitewash by the colonizer.

Methodology
The subject of Eurocentrism has been a well debated topic throughout the years and still is today in the 21st century. With the increase in the use of technology we can find information on any and every topic imaginable. In an attempt to understand whitewash, many scholars have studied the topic and came up with their own hypothesis. The information for this paper was gathered using educational databases like Ebsco, Jstor, and credo references. These resources allowed me to find peer reviewed journals, such as “Whitewashing Race the Myth of a Color-blind Society, and articles in a peer review journal and films made on my topic. There is a combination of both primary and secondary sources that will help in giving the reader a full understanding of different perspectives of my topic. Upon completion of this paper the reader will have a full insight of some of the areas in our society that are believed to be whitewashed and the reader will have a greater knowledge of what is whitewash and that the more we enlighten ourselves the less we can be oppressed as the saying goes “knowledge is power”.

Historical Context
In this section I will be looking at the history of whitewashing where it started and how it came to be and I will also be discussing its influence on us as a people.

Throughout the 1500s the European powers set in motion a means of conquest and colonization. For example, the Spanish went into South and Central America. The Portuguese went into the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and Brazil. The French went into North America and parts of Africa. The Dutch took over in Indonesia. The Belgians occupied the Congo. And of course, the sun never set on the British Empire this meant that there were parts of the Empire in all parts of the world, so there was never a time of day when the sun wasn’t shining on some part of the empire. By the time the sun set on one colony, it had risen on another. They had colonized a very large portion of the world and during the time of colonization they spread their Eurocentric way of thinking whether it be religion, politics, education, beauty

etc.
Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and the belief the European culture is superior to other cultures. Combinations of colonialism, globalization and eurocentrism have caused what is referred to as whitewashing. Whitewashing is when things are manipulated to please white people. Early Eurocentrism can be tracked to the Renaissance, during which the revitalization of learning based on classical sources was focused on the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, because they were a major source of modern European civilization.
Since the colonial period Europeans have perceived most of the world as a place available for conquest, control and domination. The population of the Third World was seen or sensed to be weak or vicious, and was in need of being "saved". The effects of the reality of European dominance increased during the period of European imperialism, which started gradually in the 15th century, speeded up by the Scientific Revolution, the Commercial Revolution, and the rise of colonial empires in the "Great Divergence" of the Early Modern period, had reached its peak in the 18th to 19th century with the Industrial Revolution, and a Second European colonization wave. The increasingly mechanized nature of European culture was compared with traditional hunting, farming, and herding societies in many of the areas of the world being newly conquered and colonized by Europeans, such as the Americas, Asia, Africa, and later the Pacific and Australasia. Other cultures were branded as now having reached a stage through which Europe itself had already passed. Only Europe was considered to have reached the last stage.
After slavery had ended when former slaves were looking for jobs the ones who had the easiest times getting work were the light skinned black folks. Many jobs specified that only light skinned black people could apply. Service jobs like waitressing, cooks and chauffeurs were often only given to light skinned people. Some people, whose skin was really light would just completely break away from the race and fully assimilate into white culture because it was just easier that way. Lighter skin meant more opportunities and they weren’t as discriminated against as darker skinned people.
Because of the belief that white people occupy the dominant position, many aspects of American culture have been whitewashed. The term whitewashed is a metaphor used to describe a society that has been designed to cater to white people. Everything from the media to the American educational system has been manipulated in order to cater to white wants and needs.
My work will add to this discussion by adding a few things we can do to combat racial injustices and challenge the favored position by reeducating ourselves about our history and also by eliminating the clear skin versus dark skin mentality.

Literature Review

The British Empire was one of the leading empires in history and was so for a time as it was one of the leading global powers during the 15th- 18th centuries. It was a product of the European age of exploitations, which began with the sea explorations of the 15th century that inspired the era of the European colonial empires. As an end result, its legacy is extensive, in legal and governmental systems, economic practice, militarily, educational systems, sports, and in the overall spread of the English language.
By whitewash I’m referring to the dominance of the white perspective in terms of education, religion, politics, etc.

This paper will use various books, journals, and videos to highlight its effect on society. In his book Death of a Negro, Delridge Hunter a professor at Medgar Evers College from 1977-present ,and past director of COSEP Cornell University 1970-1977, gives a view point of the African American that few people have explored. His book covers everything from music to movements. This book is relevant to my topic in that according to him Europe was the place that was chosen to “make the distinction between equals.” Whereby, they occupy the dominant, most favored position, or as in chess, the White position in which it explains how the dominant group that dominates the most valued position has controlled and manipulated various aspects of our society. Moving forward to Michelle’s Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow Laws, Michelle Alexander A longtime civil rights advocate and litigator, who now holds a joint appointment at the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, Alexander's main hypothesis, from which the book gets its name, is that "mass incarceration is, symbolically, the New Jim Crow." . This is relevant to my topic in that even though we minorities have made tremendous contributions to this world we are still looked down upon and still considered to be inferior. In Michelle Alexander’s book

“The New Jim Crow”, is relevant in that she shows how America’s “War on Drugs “has become a tool of racial segregation and how the unrestricted enforcement of drug laws have resulted in a tremendous negative effect on its black population. In which these two books ties in with each other in that the authors shows how the Europeans have dominated the world with their Eurocentric attitudes from education, religion, beauty, music, and racism etc. We see all of this still happening in society today even though slavery and the Jim Crow Laws have been abolished for many years but now here in the 21st century has come alight in a new form, by using these two books I intend to show how whitewash has impacted our society.