It is precisely the views of the majority who do not see themselves as having benefited from White supremacy that must change if the political will to achieve racial justice is to be developed.
–Juliet Hooker, Race and the Politics of Solidarity (Reference Hooker2009, p. 114)
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the heightened visibility of the brutal treatment of Black Americans by vigilantes and police officersFootnote 1 and the lack of accountability for the ending of Black livesFootnote 2 have propelled many Americans into the street to protest racial injustice in the criminal justice system and beyond.Footnote 3 Some of these protestors are White. Interviewed by The Washington Post for a story entitled “Protesting Racial Injustice while White,” protestor Jason Wallach explained that “he and other white protesters wanted to ‘distribute the discomfort’ felt by African Americans across the country” (Phillip Reference Phillip2014).
Wallach and Whites like him, however, are the exception to the rule. Even with these stark and affecting examples dominating the headlines, most White Americans have confidence that local police treat Black Americans fairly. In fact, recent surveys suggest that White Americans are more confident of racial equity in policing today than they have been in the past (Clement 2014). So, many Whites don’t see a problem. Quite the contrary—for many Whites it is the (predominantly Black) protestors who are the problem. They object that White lives are being ignored or devalued by the rallying cry and principle that has come to define the wave of protests: “Black Lives Matter” (Meyerson Reference Myerson2015).
Brutality and lack of accountability in policing are, of course, but two issues of the many that make up the constellation comprising racial injustice. Poverty, substandard education, disenfranchisement, the depreciation of or active assault on Black culture, food insecurity in Black communities, the polluting of Black neighborhoods: all of these require attention and dedicated effort if racial equity is to be achieved. Success in these substantial undertakings will require “reaching across racial divides” (Dawson Reference Dawson2011, cover). The development of cross-racial solidarity, defined as a sense of obligation across racial groups that moves an “us” toward action, is an essential part of this process.
Unfortunately, as political theorist Juliet Hooker has recently highlighted, those seeking racial justice face a paradoxical problem. Solidarity is necessary to address racial injustice, but racial injustice prevents the development of solidarity between Black and White Americans (Hooker Reference Hooker2009). As White reactions to recent events show, this sense of obligation largely fails to materialize even in moments when racial injustices are highlighted in a dramatic and emotionally affecting way, and even among Whites who consider themselves racially progressive.Footnote 4
How can a cross-racial solidarity that is oriented toward a substantive racial justice be built? This article focuses particularly on how White Americans can be moved to develop a commitment to take or support action toward substantive racial justice.Footnote 5 White Americans are still the largest racial group in their democratic polity and the one that holds the greatest power in group terms, power beyond their numerical strength. The resistance of the majority of White Americans to addressing racial injustice arguably poses a significant obstacle to the realization of more just relations between races. A sense of individual responsibility for and investment in racial justice is required for Whites to change their own practices as well as support larger collective changes. Both are essential to disrupting the systematic and systemic reproduction of racial injustice.
Scholars of solidarity agree that the provision of information alone cannot prompt solidarity; individuals must be transformed on both a cognitive and affective level (Rogers Reference Rogers2012). But there are a variety of ways to do this. Some argue that the boundaries of solidarity can be widened by de-emphasizing racial particularity, either through the creation or affirmation of an enveloping identity shared by divided subgroups or by bringing similarities between “them” and “us” into relief. Others argue that changing our conception of the past—the public understanding of the history shared by groups bound to one another—is both necessary and sufficient to facilitating solidarity.
These approaches are, I argue, either ineffective in this particular case or insufficient to the task of constructing solidarity between Black and White Americans in the present. In a time when most Whites assume that racial equality has been realized and are committed to colorblindness, “awakening [Whites] to race” (Turner Reference Turner2012), or transforming the White lifeworld,Footnote 6 is a prerequisite for the development of a deep and meaningful cross-racial solidarity that can effectively tackle the race problems of the United States. Such an awakening, I maintain, requires a direct critical engagement with Whiteness. Also, while not dismissing the past as unimportant, I contend that such an engagement has to draw the link between contemporary Whiteness and racial injustice. In other words, the average White American must understand how she is directly implicated in racial injustice by virtue of being White in the present.
Scholars have recognized that solidarity can be fostered in arenas outside of those conventionally thought of as political, arguing that great literature, for example, can contribute to the forging of new solidarities (Rorty Reference Rorty1989). Such theorists have tended to overlook or dismiss the realm of popular culture, though.Footnote 7 There are good reasons for being skeptical of pop culture’s ability to contribute to transformative movements. Pop artists are hamstrung by the need to secure and sustain funding and (relatedly) to play to the kind of mainstream sensibilities that attract large crowds. Mainstream media tend to be controlled by those interested in perpetuating the status quo. Cultural interventions are always subject to multiple interpretations and audiences are motivated to read them in light of their own interests. Some also argue that pop culture is not serious and/or is not taken to be so. And so on.
But there are equally good reasons for considering the role popular cultural interventions might play. They (by definition) reach a lot of people; work on the non-rational wavelength that scholars argue is integral to personal transformation;Footnote 8 reach an audience that is arguably more open to transformation than one involved in a political debate characterized by long-entrenched positions;Footnote 9 and they are particularly important in shaping perceptions of racial groups (one’s own group included) in a time of significant de facto segregation (Anderson Reference Anderson2010; Perry Reference Perry2002).Footnote 10 Further, though pop culture artists are not unconstrained, artists have room to experiment in a way that many involved in the realm conventionally thought of as political do not (Iton Reference Iton2008).
This essay identifies, theorizes, and assesses a particular strategy for preparing the ground for cross-racial solidarity that I call “marking Whiteness.” I look at three different pop culture interventions that each directly engage with Whiteness in more or less radical ways—the blog-turned-book Stuff White People Like, a satiric essay entitled “I Am a Martyr (And So Can You!): A Guide to White Male Victimhood” published in Esquire magazine, and the sketch-comedy series Chappelle’s Show. These interventions, I argue, make Whiteness hyper-visible—as is characteristic of “marked” groups—and portray average White behavior and ideas as integral to the systemic reproduction of racial injustice. By making the racial polity visible, and by making contemporary Whiteness’s place in the racial polity undeniable, marking Whiteness may shift the White lifeworld—including understandings of self and community—in ways that enable cross-racial solidarity.
The article proceeds as follows: In the first section, I draw the contours of the “average” White lifeworld. In the second section, I outline major perspectives on solidarity construction. I argue that these approaches cannot adequately redirect the self- and world-understandings of average American Whites as is necessary if a substantive cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice is to develop. In the third section, I analyze three works that can be thought of as disrupting the average White lifeworld. In the fourth and final substantive section, I abstract from these examples to identify and assess a general strategy for prefiguring cross-racial solidarity: “marking Whiteness.” While acknowledging that “marking Whiteness” is always a fraught exercise, I suggest some ways in which the strategy might be made less risky or taken in more productive directions. I conclude with some reflections on who can engage in this strategy, whether marking Whiteness can “work” outside of the realm of humor, and I provide some suggestions for future research.
Identifying, theorizing, and assessing “marking Whiteness” as a strategy for prefiguring cross-racial solidarity allows me to contribute to a number of important discussions. I deepen our understanding of solidarity by establishing “lifeworld alignment”—the convergence of perspectives on the world and its problems—to be a prerequisite for solidarity building. I leverage previous analyses conducted by scholars of critical race humor to develop ideas about the potential of particular popular cultural texts. But I go beyond these analyses by drawing the connection between different interventions, placing them in conversation with theories on solidarity construction, and assessing the potential of the general strategy I abstract from these examples rather than focusing only on the specific incarnations. Finally, I push the boundaries of the literature on Whiteness by exploring how a pragmatic reconstruction of Whiteness might be facilitated outside of the university, where many Whiteness scholars have placed their hopes (Alcoff Reference Alcoff2006; MacMullen Reference MacMullan2005).
THE AVERAGE WHITE AMERICAN LIFEWORLD TODAY
The term “lifeworld” refers to the “storehouse of unquestioned cultural givens” or the “unshakeable rock of background assumptions” on which communication within a society is built (Dawson Reference Dawson2012, p. 670). If a substantive cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice is to be achieved, I maintain, scholars/activists must pay attention to the specifics of the lifeworlds of different races. Given that my interest in this article is how the average White person might be oriented towards a substantive racial justice, this section lays out the specifics of the average White lifeworld based on survey data. I say “average” because the lifeworld here outlined does not describe the lifeworld of all Whites. Unlike the Whites I describe in this section, many Whites are consciously White and staunchly against the principle of racial equality. On the other hand, many Whites are consciously White and committed racial justice advocates. But research indicates that the lifeworld I describe below predominates amongst White Americans.
The average White lifeworld is characterized by a particular understanding of present race relations, particular values expressed in a particular way, and a particular (non)relationship to White identity. According to recent surveys, the average White American believes present race relations to be equitable or nearly equitable. For instance, in a national poll conducted by Newsweek/The Daily Beast in 2012, 65% of White respondents say racial equality has been achieved or will soon be achieved (as compared with 41% of Black respondents). This proportion is comparable to the numbers cited by Dawson in an earlier study of White public opinion (Reference Dawson2006, p. 240). In a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center (2013), White respondents were about half as likely as Black respondents to say that the United States had a long way to go before reaching racial equality.
The average White American sees the defeat of racism and racial discrimination as a positive thing—most support the principle of racial equality (Mendelberg Reference Mendelberg2001). As past racial inequality was a function of heightened attention to race, contemporary Whites believe that this principle is realized through colorblindness, or turning a blind eye to racial difference. In fact, colorblindness has become so entwined with the principle of racial equality that Whites see any race-consciousness as a sign of racism. During a field test for a study of Whiteness, psychologist Derald Wing Sue found that when he asked White people on the streets in San Francisco what being White means to them, some became irritated, angry, and defensive. He states:
They seemed to believe I was accusing them of being racist or bigoted, and they found the question offensive. . . . Those who were most uncomfortable with the question generally ended the conversation with statements like “people are people” . . . or “we are all the same under the skin.” It was clear that their discomfort led them to desire eliminating racial differences from the conversation or diluting them (Sue Reference Sue2004, p. 764).
In the average White’s mind, talking about race at all amounts to bigotry.
This reaction not only highlights Whites’ attachment to the ideology of colorblindness; it also demonstrates their relationship to their own racial identity. For the average White American, race is either invisible or considered a relatively unimportant aspect of her identity. One could say that while Whites aim to be colorblind in their interactions with racial others, they are colorblind in relation to themselves. Whiteness tends to be invisible in all-White or predominantly-White environments, and the average White person usually finds himself in predominantly-White environments, as I will discuss later. As Pamela Perry (Reference Perry2002) found in her study of adolescents’ understanding of White identity, students at a largely White high school did not perceive their Whiteness as a racial identity; rather, it was seen as “race neutral” (Gallagher Reference Gallagher2003, p. 1519). Even when pushed to speak about their Whiteness, most Whites see this fact about themselves as relatively unimportant. In the abovementioned field test of Whiteness, many respondents said they had never thought about what being White means to them. When asked “why,” the most prevalent response was, “it doesn’t affect my life” (Sue Reference Sue2004, p. 764).
The idea that Whiteness “doesn’t affect my life” in part speaks to the perceived contentless-ness of Whiteness. As Matthew Hughey (Reference Hughey2012) has argued, many Whites who do reflect on Whiteness consider it to be bland and empty. But this sentiment also reflects the fact that the average White person does not see himself as benefitting from his Whiteness. While Whiteness may have conferred “wages” in the past, most Whites believe that this is no longer the case.
As scholars of race have demonstrated, the average White lifeworld diverges from the average Black lifeworld in significant ways: Whereas the average White American is colorblind and thinks race to be unimportant, the average Black American is race-conscious and sees race as structuring the world and affecting her own life in significant ways (Dawson Reference Dawson2006). This is not just a matter of relative difference; the White lifeworld is not consistent with the social-scientific consensus on the facts of American society. Hence Charles Mills writes, “[P]art of what it means to be constructed as ‘White’ [. . .] is a cognitive model that precludes self-transparency and genuine understanding of social realities” (Pierce Reference Pierce2012, p. 46, alteration in original). There is ample evidence to show that racial equality—even as measured in terms of the lower bar of equality of opportunity—is far from being achieved (Anderson Reference Anderson2010; Massey and Denton, Reference Massey and Denton1998). Hence, the average White lifeworld is built on flawed foundations.
The question, then, is whether this lifeworld is borne of ignorance or the desire to maintain power. There are good reasons to presume both. Whites largely live their lives separate from Blacks. The 2010 census showed that “the average White lives in a neighborhood that is 78% White and 7% Black” (Roberts Reference Roberts2012, emphasis added). Sociologist Douglas Massey reports that the disappearance of all-White neighborhoods is more due to the entry of Latinos and Asians than Blacks (Roberts Reference Roberts2012). This distance provides a reason why Whites may not perceive Black-White racial inequalities or may not believe these inequalities to be unjust. But there are also reasons Whites may not perceive racial inequalities even if they live and/or work in integrated communities or institutions. As Russell Robinson describes:
White people typically do not have access to Blacks’ racialized conversations. On the rare occasion when a White person enters an all-Black space, Black people tend to silence the conversation or at least mute it or speak in racial code. Black people seem to know that race-conscious talk violates Whites’ expectation of colorblindness and so they play along in Whites’ presences. They also know that allegations of discrimination are likely to provoke retaliation, even when they have a sound basis in evidence (Reference Robinson2008, p. 1121).
In other words, evidence of racial inequality is often out of sight of Whites and there are many disincentives for Black people to bring this evidence to the fore. So it could be that a naïve ignorance is at the root of the White lifeworld.
On the other hand, however, the changes in White public opinion surrounding the Trayvon Martin case demonstrate that “what Whites ‘know’ about how race shapes everyday experience appears to vary depending on the moment and the context” (Reinhardt Reference Reinhardt2012). Mark Reinhardt found that the gaps between Black and White opinion about the degree to which race played a role in Martin’s death, as well as the gaps within White opinion, “tend[ed] to open or widen as the stakes [in the game of racial politics] rise” (Reference Reinhardt2012). This instability in White public opinion suggests that ignorance of structural and interpersonal racism is to some degree influenced by self-interest. The failure to acknowledge truths about race in America is, on this interpretation, a politically-motivated maneuver to protect White power.
Whether a function of ignorance or self-interest, the average White lifeworld impedes the development of a substantive cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice. Solidarity involves a sense of obligation toward a group that leads to a willingness to act to secure a common fate. A cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice requires Whites to develop a sense of obligation deep enough to incite them to take effective action to battle racial inequalities. The average White lifeworld either prevents this sense of obligation from developing (because it inclines Whites to the conclusion that racial equality has already been achieved) or channels obligation toward actions that are ineffective in confronting racial injustice (that is, the practice of colorblindness).
ON BUILDING SOLIDARITY
If a substantive cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice is to be achieved, the average White lifeworld must be transformed. In this section, I examine what major theories of solidarity construction have to say about how this might be accomplished. I maintain that such theories are not adequately responsive to the problems posed by the average White American lifeworld.
Recognizing the importance of identity to solidarity, several prominent approaches to solidarity reconstruction focus on changing the salient identity in a conflict or blurring the boundaries of identity. Solidarity, many have argued, can be fostered by taking attention away from identities that divide and placing it on a third, superordinate identity shared (or to be shared) by members of both groups. This “superordinate” identity can be larger in size—cosmopolitan Martha Nussbaum (Reference Nussbaum1994) suggests that appeal to common humanity can create solidarity between once divided groups—or smaller—political scientist Cara J. Wong (Reference Wong2010) suggests attachment to local communities creates feelings of closeness across race.
The superordinate identity most often cited as being able to bring different peoples together is nationality. Philosophers David Miller (Reference Miller1995) and Richard Rorty (Reference Rorty1989) have both argued that nationality can provide the basis for identification and a sense of obligation across racial lines in plural societies. Questioning the ability of a “common humanity” to inspire a sense of solidarity with racial others, Rorty says:
Consider . . . the attitude of contemporary American liberals to the unending hopelessness and misery of the lives of the young Blacks in American cities. Do we say that these people must be helped because they are our fellow human beings? We may, but it is much more persuasive, morally as well as politically, to describe them as our fellow Americans—to insist that it is outrageous that an American should live without hope. . . . [O]ur sense of solidarity is strongest when those with whom solidarity is expressed are thought of as “one of us,” where “us” means something smaller and more local than the human race (Reference Rorty1989, p. 191).
Political scientist John Transue has provided empirical support for the ability of nationality to forge a sense of connection across difference. In an experimental manipulation, Transue (Reference Transue2007) found that making “American” identity salient increased White support for a tax increase to improve “minority educational opportunity.” Inclusion within a common social boundary makes individuals see their welfare as linked rather than at odds—as long as individuals are attached to “American” identity.
Emphasizing common nationality may inspire a degree of cross-racial solidarity, but is this a solidarity that can facilitate a substantive racial justice? Juliet Hooker argues no—history has shown that “shared nationality does not routinely trump differences resulting from other kinds of collective identities” (Reference Hooker2009, p. 36). Hooker’s point is that the Black-White divide is particularly stubborn in practice. I also am skeptical about nationality’s ability to draw people together in a way that inspires action for racial justice, though for slightly different reasons. Black Americans become part of an in-group in this picture, but what they are owed by virtue of being “fellow Americans” depends on how one understands American identity. For Whites, ideas about what being an American entails are filtered through the White lifeworld. While most Americans may agree that being American means a commitment to equality of opportunity, for most White Americans, in most situations this means practicing colorblindness. In other words, it is not enough to share an identity if groups have a radically different idea of the meaning, significance, and consequences of that identity. Relatedly (because values are one of the constituent elements of identity), it is not enough to share values if you have a radically different sense of what those values mean in a particular context and what kind of action they entail.
Appeals to common nationality could potentially alter the White lifeworld, but it seems unlikely. The idea that “we are all Americans” readily and easily dovetails with the investment in colorblindness that is currently a primary characteristic of the average White lifeworld. In Sue’s (Reference Sue2004) field study of Whiteness discussed above, in fact, many Whites retreated to a “we are all Americans” position when they became uncomfortable talking about their own racial identity. Because they fail to confront and challenge the average White lifeworld in a significant way, appeals to common nationality seem limited when it comes to constructing a cross-racial solidarity that can actively promote racial justice.
Another (closely-related) strategy for facilitating solidarity between divided peoples involves drawing out similarities between “us” and “them.” In his meditation on the sources of solidarity in a post-metaphysical world, Rorty argues that solidarity can be enlarged through a process of “imaginative identification” (Reference Rorty1989, p. xvi). Imaginative identification is especially well-facilitated by literature that portrays those who have been othered as “fellow sufferers”—literature of the kind written by Richard Wright or W. E. B. Du Bois. As individuals who have experienced suffering and condemn it, the acknowledgement of suffering enables bonds across difference.
While able to forge emotional bonds across difference, imaginative identification also has limitations when it comes to producing a cross-racial solidarity that can effectively challenge racial injustice. The idea that “we can simply (and comfortably) take the position of the other [denies] both the situatedness of one’s own seeing and thinking and that of the other” (Seltzer-Kelly et al., Reference Seltzer-Kelly, Westwood and Peña-Guzman2010, p. 454). Identification obscures differences that matter, making inequities that fall along racial lines more difficult to address. We are all sufferers becomes we all suffer equally. Like the national identity approach, the similarity approach de-emphasizes racial particularity, reinforcing an idea central to the average White lifeworld: race doesn’t really matter in contemporary society.
The above approaches—emphasizing a shared national identity and drawing out similarities between Blacks and Whites—are inadequate because they don’t require a substantial shift in the way the average White views the world. Facilitating a racial justice-oriented cross-racial solidarity requires such a shift, a shift that brings the White and Black lifeworlds into greater alignment. Lifeworld alignment can take place on both the conscious and subconscious level. On the conscious level, it involves the explicit construction of shared narratives. On the subconscious level, it involves changes in implicit cognitive structures—emotional reactions, schemas for interpreting events, etc. Importantly, the alignment of lifeworlds in and of itself is not tantamount to the realization of solidarity;Footnote 11 the lifeworlds of divided groups can be relatively aligned and such groups still may not develop the deep trust and active sense of obligation that are characteristic of solidarity. But deep trust and active obligation can stem from certain commonalities in the way one perceives the world—whether specific problems are seen as problems, agreement about who is responsible for perpetuating these problems, etc. Lifeworld alignment can thus be thought of as prefiguring—or preparing the way for—new solidarities.
So how are lifeworlds reoriented? Through direct engagement with the building blocks of the lifeworld a “we” hopes to reorient. In the case of anti-racist activism, Hooker convincingly argues that the White lifeworld must be directly confronted. As Hooker says, “the collective identities of dominant groups would need to be reshaped in order to move beyond the racialized solidarity produced by the racial polity” (Reference Hooker2009, pp. 114-115). Whites must come to see themselves as “seeing Whitely” (Hooker Reference Hooker2009, pp. 50-51) and the racial polity must be made visible to them. But this raises a number of questions: Which building block(s) should racial justice advocates challenge? In what way(s)? And in which venue(s) should this confrontation take place?
Hooker argues that the confrontation should be carried out in the field of public memory, and is best conducted during political disputes over the meanings of rights. According to Hooker, the dearth of cross-racial solidarity is a function of the development of different and opposing understandings of history (Reference Hooker2009). Whereas Black and (most) White Americans acknowledge that collective wrongs (slavery, Jim Crow, etc.) were perpetuated against Black Americans in the past, the majority of White Americans assume that such collective wrongs were brought to an end by the changes wrought by the Civil Rights Movement. In contrast, a majority of Black Americans believe that those collective wrongs have not been sufficiently addressed and hence continue to have an effect in the present. Public memory largely reflects the record embraced by the dominant group in society; hence, in the United States, public memory largely is a reflection of the White narrative. Hooker argues that changing the understanding of the past that is dominant among White Americans (and thus in the United States generally)—coming to a “more accurate” conception of past collective wrongs (2009, p. 111) and dealing “more honestly and forthrightly with histories of racism” (2009, p. 112)—will foster new relationships of obligation in the present. By changing public memory—an integral force in producing and sustaining the contemporary White lifeworld—White Americans will come to see themselves as part of a racial polity rather than one that offers equal opportunity to people of all races.
In addition to recommending a particular approach to confronting the White lifeworld, Hooker privileges a particular site for this confrontation. She argues that debates about minority group rights are an ideal site for challenging dominant narratives about the past, and thereby confronting the White lifeworld. She counts debates about such rights among the “few sites where the divergent ethical-political perspectives of dominant and subordinated groups are confronted, when official narratives about the character of the political community (which reflect the perspectives of dominant groups) are challenged” (Hooker Reference Hooker2009, p. 115).
I agree that the dominant understanding of the polity’s past is important. But I wonder whether a more accurate understanding of history is enough to effect a sense of personal responsibility in the contemporary project of racial justice. A change in our view of the past does not automatically translate to a particular view of one’s obligations in the present, as Hooker seems to suggest at points. Acknowledging that past collective wrongs have yet to be fully dealt with is not enough; members of the polity—in particular White members of the polity—must see that wrongs continue to be perpetuated in the present via both White action and inaction. Also, while wrongs have certainly been committed by collectives—the country as a whole, Whites—they are also (necessarily) committed and abetted by individuals. Individuals need to see that they (again, by virtue of being White) are an integral part of what is a historical and contemporary problem.
I also have concerns about the site Hooker recommends for the confrontation with the White lifeworld. She offers compelling reasons as to why dominant groups like Whites might engage in a dialogue about rights—concerns about the stability of the political community, international pressure, etc. (Reference Hooker2009)—and thus open themselves to a possible negotiation of public memory. But Hooker’s attention to these reasons shows that she is aware that Whites’ openness to being transformed is a problem. Public debates certainly constitute an opportunity to reshape public memory. But these debates are characterized by entrenched positions and “high stakes.” As Reinhardt demonstrates with his analysis of White public opinion surrounding the Trayvon Martin case, such situations do not necessarily make for open minds and hearts (Reinhardt Reference Reinhardt2012).
All of the approaches outlined in this section—emphasizing a superordinate identity, drawing out similarity, and transforming public memory—offer valuable insight into what makes an “us” willing to develop a sense of identification and relations of trust and obligation with a “them.” But I think that each, in different ways, has weaknesses when we consider the particular case of Black-White relations in the United States. The common identity and similarity approaches, I believe, fail to address the particularities of the average White lifeworld. While not inattentive to the White lifeworld, the “transformed public memory” tack’s emphasis on the collective, the past, and discourse conventionally thought of as political make it a necessary but not sufficient challenge to contemporary Whites’ lifeworld.
POP CULTURE VS. THE WHITE LIFEWORLD
Leveling challenges to public memory during disputes over minority rights is not the only way in which dominant groups can be pushed to “confront the fact that the political community is a racial polity that produces a Herrenvolk ethics that distorts their basic moral operations and ethical orientations” (Hooker Reference Hooker2009, p. 53). In this section, I profile challenges to the White lifeworld that have taken place outside of what is conventionally thought of as the political realm: popular cultural interventions.
Example 1: Stuff White People Like
Self-identified White person Christian Lander started the blog Stuff White People Like (SWPL) on a whim. The blog (which served as the basis for two books) dissects “White People’s elaborate sumptuary codes, their dogged pursuit of their own care and feeding, and their efforts to define themselves and their values through their all-but-uniform taste and accessories” (Schwartz Reference Schwartz2008). In interviews, Lander consistently maintains that the first priority of SWPL is to entertain. Humor above all else, he says. But he also claims that, in part, the blog came out of frustration and anger stoked by striking contradictions and blind spots within the White lifeworld. Contradictions like the presumption on the part of the White people that “they [are] unbelievably unique” (Lander Reference Lander2009) and the reality of their homogeneity and “groupness.” Blind spots like White liberals’ weddedness to the idea of postracialism even in the face of evidence that race continues to be salient in all sorts of ways in U.S. society (Lander Reference Lander2011).
As Patrick R. Grzanka and Justin Maher argue, “the blog lampoons the subjugating gaze of the ethnologist and inverts its lens onto Whiteness, chronicling the arbitrary ways in which these White people possess their own set of stereotypical behaviors and characteristics” (Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 368). The “White people” in SWPL are a specific subset of Whites—upper-middle to upper-class urban White liberals. Lander’s target demographic has been touched upon before,Footnote 12 but none of these texts so “blatantly and forcefully place Whiteness at the center of the argument” (French Reference French2010). “The central humor of the blog,” then, “reduces White people to the same social class and overstates the homogeneity of Whiteness, particularly in terms of social class” (Grzanka and Maher, Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 386). Lander is “returning the favor of interrogation,” as Michael Eric Dyson has put it (Dyson and Chennault, Reference Dyson, Chennault and Eric Dyson2004, p. 11)—that is, looking at White people in the way that White people have looked at every other race. He enacts a kind of strategic (racial) misrecognition (Ben-Ishai Reference Ben-Ishai2010) in which a subset of White people are taken for the whole, treating Whites in a way they are not used to being treated (Lander Reference Lander2009).Footnote 13 In so doing, Lander not only “name[s] that which traditionally goes unnamed by White people” (Grzanka and Maher, Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 373), but also gives Whiteness a definitive substance. This is not, however, misrecognition in the sense of dehumanization, and it is not misrecognition in the sense that his observations about Whites are wrong.
What “substance” does Whiteness have? Most of Whiteness’s definitive “features,” according to Lander, are relatively innocuous preferred products (e.g., coffee, Wes Anderson movies, bicycles), practices (e.g., traveling, hating their parents), and people (e.g., David Sedaris, girls with bangs) (Grzanka and Maher, Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 376). But there are some examples of more critical takes on the nature and meaning of contemporary Whiteness in a racial polity. I focus on these below.
Taken as a whole, Lander’s blog represents a criticism of White pretension. Such pretension is necessarily borne of racial privilege, or “the unfair, unearned privilege systemically afforded to White people as a result of racist power structures and social relations” (Grzanka and Maher Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 373). As Lander has put it in speeches, “We [White people] have enough free time [and money] to care about whether honey is vegan” (Reference Lander2010). This pretension segues into the kind of paternalism that Lander skewers by identifying “knowing what’s best for poor people” (Reference Lander2008a) and “being an expert on your culture” (Reference Lander2008c) as part of the “stuff” that White people like.
Lander mirrors a common critique of Whiteness made by racial scholars: the amassing of “color capital” (Hughey Reference Hughey2012) by Whites in an effort to fill their self-perceived cultural void. In his entry on gentrification, Lander indicates that moving into transitional neighborhoods allows White people to increase their actual capital at the same time as they increase their cultural capital (Grzanka and Maher, Reference Grzanka and Maher2012). Such White people “get credibility and respect from other White people for living in a more ‘authentic’ neighborhood where they are exposed to ‘true culture’ every day” (Lander Reference Lander2008b). Appropriative White behavior is also targeted in Lander’s observation that White people like to prove the postracial thesis and their own non-racist credentials by collecting non-White friends “like Pokemons” (Reference Lander2010).
The passiveness of Whites on the front of social justice is another central critical theme of the blog. Lander notes that his White people tend to conflate what they think to be awareness with action. For instance, “Lander pokes fun at The Wire and its White audience (who presumably have no lived experience as urban poor people) for impotent and earnest conflation of watching a show about racism and doing antiracist work” (Grzanka and Maher Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 378). Even those Whites who “act” on their principles tend only to do so in the most minimal sense: the perception of oneself as “socially conscious” is realized through “the consumption of corporate-produced luxury goods” (Grzanka and Maher Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 378). Lander reflects the superficiality of his Whites’ commitment to social justice back to them.
Postracialism, an ideology that Lander strongly associates with Whiteness and that colludes with the ideology of colorblindness characteristic of the average White lifeworld, is undercut by the blog as a whole. By emphasizing the monolithic character of a subset of Whites who are strongly wedded to the idea that they are postracial, Lander takes “Whites who think they [and the world] are beyond ethnicity or collectively shared tastes, styles or outlook” to task (Rodriguez Reference Rodriguez2008). As Gregory Rodriguez of The Los Angeles Times points out, Lander is “essentially reminding them that they too are members of a group” (Reference Rodriguez2008), or are themselves raced—over and against their own belief that they are beyond race.
Example 2: “I Am a Martyr (And So Can You!): A Guide to White Male Victimhood”
At the beginning of the 2008 presidential primary season, Esquire magazine ran a cover story that posed the question: “Can a White man still be elected president?” In response, comedian Stephen Colbert wrote an essay entitled “I Am a Martyr (And So Can You!): A Guide to White Male Victimhood” (Reference Colbert2008). Colbert wrote the essay from the perspective of the character he played on his popular Comedy Central parody of conservative news programs and pundits, The Colbert Report—a bombastic White conservative.
As in Stuff White People Like, Colbert places Whiteness front and center, making it hyper-visible with a cover-page teaser statement like, “Only one man has the courage to confront the critical issue of our time: The victimization of the white American male” (Reference Colbert2008, emphasis added). Notably, though, Colbert genders his critique as well—his target is not just Whiteness, but also maleness. In addition, the White people Colbert lampoons are slightly different from, though not wholly unlike, the White people Lander satirizes. Whereas Lander focuses on (ostensibly) progressive Whites, Colbert takes aim at more conservative Whites—those who are part of the White backlash against affirmative action.
On the surface, Colbert presents White men as a disempowered “people without a voice” in a political landscape “dominated by Black Men and White Women” (Reference Colbert2008). But he situates his lament within evidence that cuts against this frame. His “revisionist” narrative of American history “exposes White people as principal perpetrators of racial oppression” (Rossing Reference Rossing2012, p. 53). Colbert bemoans that White men had to “work like slaves to oversee their slaves,” that they had to “sit in the front of buses,” and that they “didn’t have any civil rights leaders” (Reference Colbert2008).
In telling this narrative, Colbert links past injustices to present power relations. Colbert refers to the Bush administration as a “brief, shining seven and a half years” in which “we’ve had a president who, to paraphrase Kanye West, ‘cares about White people’” (Colbert Reference Colbert2008). In fact, West actually said “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” in the quote to which Colbert is alluding, uttered during a telethon for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Colbert’s figuration is the corollary, foregrounding that which is typically unspoken: Whiteness. Providing “proof” for his victim position, Colbert cites the “occasional example of White men in power,” noting the “token 389 in Congress. A conciliatory seven or so on the Supreme Court. One in the White House” (Reference Colbert2008; emphasis added). Instead of being the exception (as Colbert explicitly frames it), White male power is the norm. In addition, while Colbert claims to have suffered from debilitating stereotypes and caricatures of White men, the stereotypes that he mentions—White men can’t jump, White men like microbrews—are innocuous, and the caricatures—“Whitesploitation” films like Annie Hall—are anything but. So like Lander, Colbert identifies Whiteness with (political and social) privilege.
Colbert renders the sense of victimization expressed by many reactionary conservative White men today ridiculous. His narrative is exaggerated, certainly, but it reflects the narratives that many White people actually tell themselves—that equality has been achieved, so further efforts to address racial disadvantage are not only unnecessary, they are unfair to Whites. He implies that contemporary White claims about victimization are based on a gross and even willful ignorance. He writes that Barack Obama’s (at that point potential) election presents “an opportunity” for White men to feel powerless, but as Colbert’s own essay demonstrates, this is not a feeling based in fact.
Example 3: Chappelle’s Show
Chapelle’s Show (CS) is a mega-hit sketch comedy television show that ran on Comedy Central from 2003 to 2006. Co-written by and featuring comedian Dave Chappelle, CS models “a comedic social discourse where the unspoken is spoken—and the absurdities and hypocrisies that often inform ‘polite’ conversations about race relations are laid bare” (Haggins Reference Haggins2007, p. 108). CS “shuffles the racial deck,” so to speak, by speaking to and with people of different races, engaging in a kind of “mutually embedded racial reportage” (McAllister Reference McAllister2011, p. 247).
Scholars have explicitly rejected the equation of the kind of humor in which Dave Chappelle engages and the humor of the type Lander offers (Grzanka and Maher, Reference Grzanka and Maher2012). They are right to say Lander (and Colbert for that matter) are not re-appropriating stigmatizing White stereotypes as Chappelle re-appropriates stigmatizing Black stereotypes. Also, whereas Lander and Colbert focus specifically on Whiteness, Chappelle engages stereotypes about multiple racial groups and puts them into what Marvin McAllister calls “productive play” (Reference McAllister2011, p. 203). But it would be wrong to deny that there are some continuities between CS—and the comedic legacy he draws upon—and Lander and Colbert’s work.Footnote 14
In particular, I want to focus on one feature of CS—how Chappelle foregrounds and translates Whiteness. The particularity of Whiteness is highlighted in sketch content by having White people as the minority group. “The Mad Real World” sketch, for instance, was inspired by the idea of flipping the usual casting formula of including one Black cast member in an all-White cast. In this sketch, the all-Black cast is joined by one “token” White person. Inasmuch as the bodies of those in the racial minority stand out as “raced,” this move draws attention to the racedness of White people.
Chappelle gives Whiteness substance in how he performs White characters as well. He has been praised by figures such as James Lipton of Inside the Actor’s Studio and Fresh Air’s Terri Gross for his Whiteface performances. Predominantly, the kind of Whiteness Chappelle performs on the show is “not representative of his own intimate experiences with a diversified Whiteness” (McAllister Reference McAllister2011, p. 244). Instead, Chappelle tends to present Whiteness in a singular fashion involving a monotone voice, robotic body movements, conservative clothing, and often a blond “Ken” style wig. The voice is particularly important to this persona. As performance scholar Marvin McAllister has noted “the White voice Chappelle presents onstage is the stereotypic sound of ‘The Man,’ which many African Americans might hear or imagine in their heads” (Reference McAllister2011, p. 244). While exploiting a comedic recognition among the Black and Brown segment of his interracial public, he is also reflecting to White people a way in which they are perceived by (some) non-White people.
Like Lander and Colbert, Chappelle takes a critical perspective on the Whiteness he presents. White people are continually engaging in racist banter in a way that suggests they are not conscious of it. For instance, Chappelle’s reoccurring news reporter character (“Chuck Taylor”) consistently trades in racist stereotypes about Black criminality, laziness, and wastefulness. Whiteness is also presented as appropriative, and “The Man” has the resources to take what he wants. In one “Ask a Black Dude” sketch, Paul Mooney warns Chappelle that if Black people like a Black entertainer too much, White people will take that entertainer. At the end of the sketch, two executive-looking White men grab Chappelle and lead him from the building as Chappelle yells, “Help! This ain’t no sketch! Help!” The power and privilege of Whiteness is clearly on display.
Skeptical Takes on these Interventions
Many have lauded the works described above as progressive; others, however, have raised significant concerns about these cultural texts and their effects, suggesting that such interventions cannot facilitate cross-racial solidarity. In the last part of this section, I want to canvass some of the criticisms leveled at the work described above.
I highlight the critical aspects of SWPL in the discussion above, but the blog/book spends relatively little time on the dark side of Whiteness. As Grzanka and Maher put it, the “stereotypes” in SWPL revolve in large part around “idiosyncratic and non-stigmatizing consumption choices,” and thus really cannot be considered stereotypes—“the reduction of a social group’s identity to an essentializing trait or characteristic(s) due to stigmatization and/or social inequality” (Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 373). These critics also point out the way in which the bent of SWPL jives with the neo-liberal model of multiculturalism. The problem of White “lack” referenced above (White’s blandness, emptiness) is solved in a non-transformative way—through the blog’s fashioning of Whiteness as “just another” symbolic ethnicity when in fact it is anything but. Ultimately, Grzanka and Maher argue, SWPL renders Whiteness “ridiculous, but ultimately inconsequential” (Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 388)—just as advocates of colorblindness would have it.
Other problems raised have to do with satiric humor in general, and thus touch on all of the examples. Multiple studies of satiric humor (including one on The Colbert Report) across a range of programs have found a gap between author’s intention and audience reception: “Viewers [interpret] the supposed satires in ways that [reinforce] their preexisting racial or political viewpoints” (Perks Reference Perks2010, p. 274). Lander has also spoken to this gap:
It’s really hard to control how people interpret the site. . . . Sometimes I get people who come up to me and sort of see this as a giant pat on the back, like “oh thank you, I finally have a culture.” And I’m like “nooo, god this is not a culture. . . . This is like, this is a shopping list.” . . . And they’re so proud of it and so proud of being White and I’m like “you’re this close to saying ‘White pride.’ Please don’t do it” (Lander Reference Lander2009).
Though CS satirized all racial groups, Chappelle began to feel that the show was reinforcing stereotypes about Black Americans rather than disrupting them—so he walked away from the show and a $50 million contract (Haggins Reference Haggins2007). Satires are multivocal and polysemic texts, open to many different kinds of interpretation, and readers are often motivated to interpret them in ways that do not disturb or challenge their own perspectives.
Even more generally, yet another set of problems has to do with work within the realm of popular culture. In popular culture, the struggle over power is often less obvious than in debates over minority rights (which is not to say that is it not an important site in the exercise of power). One of the benefits of mounting a challenge to White dominance in the arena of popular culture rather than in an arena more conventionally thought of as political is that people may not automatically have their defenses up, and thus these messages may be more readily received. However, the flip side of this is that “this charismatic, comfortable, and nonauthoritative form of persuasion can . . . also [be] easily ignored” (Perks Reference Perks2010, p. 286). As Lander puts it: “At the same time as people can use this material and see it as different and see it as a chance to expose White privilege and see it as a way to get a discussion of White privilege going, there is just as many people who see it as ‘this is a funny coffee table book about White people. That’s it’” (Reference Lander2011).
Despite these criticisms, I believe that investing time in understanding the general approach these examples reflect and exploring its potential is worthwhile. The problems, after all, may be specific to the particular examples, or could potentially be mitigated. Having described the interventions and discussed some of the criticisms of these particular examples in this section, in the following and final substantive section I identify the commonalities between these examples, explain why they form an approach to enabling cross-racial solidarity, and suggest ways in which future efforts along this line might avoid some of the problems that these particular instances have encountered.
MARKING WHITENESS
As indicated in the above section, I fully agree that tackling the problem of racialized solidarity requires “challenging the . . . ethical-political perspectives of dominant groups” (Hooker Reference Hooker2009, p. 51). In particular, it involves enabling Whites to see that they are “seeing Whitely.” Problematizing the version of history accepted by the average White American is part of the solution, but other approaches can contribute to this end, too. The interventions described above are examples of one such approach that I will refer to as “marking Whiteness.”
“Marking” is a social process whereby certain groups are made more visible than others, often in negative ways. As sociologist Wayne Brekhus explains, “we separate the marked . . . through a process . . . figuratively painting an entire marked category so that it is represented by its most . . . stereotypical images” (Reference Brekhus1998, p. 37). The attributes of social “markedness” include exaggeration of the homogeneity and distinctiveness of the marked; heavy articulation of the category; and disproportionate attention on this category. The unmarked, on the other hand, remains in the background—invisible, usual, normal, neutral, contentless.
Brekhus notes, however, that under certain conditions, agents engage in “reverse marking,” “foregrounding the unmarked as though it were unusual” (Reference Brekhus1998, p. 45). Pop culture artists Lander, Colbert, and Chappelle employ reverse marking in the interventions described above, rendering Whiteness visible, giving it content, showing it to be particular, and making it accessible to/available for judgment. In other words, these artists “mark Whiteness.”
Marking Whiteness diverges in important ways from the strategies for prefiguring cross-racial solidarity described above. Instead of redrawing the boundaries of identity in a way that includes both privileged and marginalized as the “superordinate identity” approach does, marking Whiteness maintains these boundaries. Instead of drawing out similarities between groups, marking Whiteness emphasizes the “difference” of Whiteness. Whereas the “transforming public memory” tack takes aim at the dominant narrative of the past, this approach focuses directly on the dominant group’s contemporary sense of identity (which of course is informed by, but not the same as, its understanding of the past). Also, though the public memory-oriented approach indirectly suggests present White complicity in racial injustice, Lander, Colbert, and Chappelle’s interventions challenge Whites to confront their Whiteness by directly reflecting present complicity back to Whites.
Marking Whiteness can contribute to the process of aligning White and Black lifeworlds that was identified above as integral to the production of cross-racial solidarity. As I noted in the section on the contemporary White lifeworld, the average White American is not conscious that Whiteness shapes his worldview—not to mention his life and life prospects—in particular and problematic ways. Indeed, such an idea is out of keeping with a central tenant of the typical White lifeworld: that Whiteness is unimportant. By marking Whiteness, this White lifeworld—the naïve belief that race is no longer salient, the blind faith in colorblindness, the problematic conviction that racial equality has been established—is laid bare for Whites to see and demonstrated to be a particular perspective rather than a universal one. The framework through which the world is interpreted is brought from the realm of the uncontroversial into the contestable.
Marking Whiteness not only involves making the unconsciously held lifeworld an object of consciousness, it also involves criticizing this White lifeworld’s disconnection from reality. The average White lifeworld is not just shown to be particular, but also out of touch. White privilege is highlighted, along with the ways in which the average White lifeworld perpetuates that privilege by obscuring it. In other words, Whiteness is shown to be inextricably linked to the practice of power—and average Whites are shown to be necessarily complicit in racial oppression. Typical Whites thus are encouraged to see themselves not only as raced, but also as oppressors in a hierarchical racial polity that distorts relationships.
If the average White lifeworld is a function of lack of knowledge rather than a failure of acknowledgement, merely making people conscious of their Whiteness may be a step toward lifeworld alignment and cross-racial solidarity. As Linda Alcoff says, “White supremacy may be deeply held because it is not conscious” (Reference Alcoff2006, p. 216, emphasis in original). Bringing Whiteness and all its flaws to the foreground in this case incites “a degree of self-doubt” (Barkawi Reference Barkawi2009, p. 129). The worry that one may actually be complicit in White dominance, contrary to previous belief, can prompt a transformation of one’s outlook. The sense of concern about how one relates to racial others, and whether one’s capacity for a healthy relationality has been distorted or made anemic by racial structures, may also do so.
On the other hand, if the average White lifeworld is strategically maintained—through a lack of acknowledgement rather than a lack of knowledge, as Reinhardt (Reference Reinhardt2012) puts it—then marking Whiteness can make it easier to see that Whites are committing what can easily be defined as cruelty for political gain. In an age when such cruelty is widely condemned, “any vigorous attempt to lay bare the underlying racial logic, and particularly any illustration of the ways in which racial domination and violence are not anomalous but typical or common . . . [is] potentially . . . explosive” (Reinhardt Reference Reinhardt2012). A campaign to mark Whiteness works towards preempting the excuse of ignorance, thus taking away an important cover for Whites who are motivated to perpetuate White privilege. It forces White people to face and own the ugly reality that they are knowingly and unjustifiably acting in ways that hurt others.
In sum, marking Whiteness brings either the inanity of the average White worldview or the cruelty of average Whites into relief. Such Whites are identified as active participants in contemporary injustice. The clash between this picture and self-conception can prompt a reorientation of the White lifeworld. Those Whites who awaken to racial inequality, who come to see central aspects of the White lifeworld as flawed, and who embrace the idea that racial inequality is just as much “our” problem as it is “theirs,” are prepared for a cross-racial solidarity oriented toward realizing racial justice.
I maintain that marking Whiteness can make an important contribution to the struggle for racial justice. But the examples of marking Whiteness that we canvassed were, as noted above, fraught with all sorts of problems. Just because authors intend to catalyze a transformation of the White lifeworld doesn’t mean that it will happen. So the question is: what can we learn from the dangers critics have pointed to about how Whiteness might be “marked” in more productive ways?
Communication scholars have identified several ways to mitigate the problem of polysemy. First, artists can actively frame their work, guiding the meaning the audience takes from it. As Lisa Glebatis Perks says, “[P]erceived authorial intent can also guide readings, so if [an artist] introduces a [work] in a way that promotes minor discourse as a salient feature, those particular meanings may be highlighted” (Reference Perks2010, p. 282). This framing can be achieved in a manner external to a work, or it can be part of the work itself as a form of intratextual layering in which the work is punctuated “with several moments of social commentary” (Perks Reference Perks2010, p. 282). For instance, in the middle of CS’s “Niggar sketch,” which featured a White family with the last name “Niggar,” Chappelle stops laughing along with others, looks to the audience, and says: “this racism is killing me inside.”
Of course, the responsibility does not lie solely on the artist to guide meaning. Our unit of analysis of public discourse is not just the individual communicative event, Alan Gross reminds us. Rather, “it must be what can plausibly count as a single episode, an interlinked chain of such events” (Gross Reference Gross2010, p. 129). Other figures—activists, public intellectuals, academics, etc.—can orient interpretation by offering readings of a particular text. This seems to be what Jonathan P. Rossing suggests when he says, “[P]eople engaged in critical, cultural projects should participate in the struggle over meaning and mobilize popular comic texts in ways that complement their work” (Reference Rossing2012, p. 53).
Polysemy might also be mitigated by making Whiteness the sole racial focus of an intervention. I find Grzanka and Maher’s critique of SWPL’s implicit construction of Whiteness as male and straight, and the consequences of the disavowal of intersectionality, to be compelling. The example of CS, however, suggests reasons why we might prefer Whiteness to be the main or even exclusive racial focus of an intervention that intends to mark Whiteness. In CS, Chappelle played on stereotypes associated with multiple groups, critiquing a wide range of controlling images and the structures/actors associated with them. But Chappelle found that White watchers seemed to receive stereotypes about Blackness in a different way than stereotypes about Whiteness as a result of the super-saturation of the environment with negative representations of Blackness (Haggins Reference Haggins2007). So while the show paints a kind of equality of ridiculousness of stereotypes (though not of the way they function and the inequalities they keep in place), the stereotypes about Blackness are much more readily consumed in a literal way than stereotypes about Whiteness. If Whiteness is to be marked effectively, then, perhaps it must be done absent of satirical commentary about other racial categories.
A range of other questions has to do with what marking Whiteness suggests about Whiteness. For the purpose of orienting people toward contributing to racial justice, it is obvious that painting Whiteness as “just another” ethnicity is problematic. Whiteness needs to be portrayed as influential and integral in racial domination. But should Whiteness be portrayed as a kind of cultural identity, or as a package of habits? Should the embedded critique of Whiteness foreground personality, or structure? Scholars have suggested that racial justice struggles would best be served, in both cases, by the latter option. Terrance MacMullan, for instance, argues for depicting Whiteness in terms of habits: “[T]he problem of Whiteness maintains in terms of habits in that people in this country still resolve situations by appealing to ideas and frameworks that evolved within a context where White values were the norm and non-Whites were denied either full citizenship or their very humanity” (Reference MacMullan2005, p. 286). “Marking Whiteness” should involve “unearthing these telltale habits and thematizing their source” (MacMullan Reference MacMullan2005, p. 286). Grzanka and Maher criticize Lander for failing “to extend the social critique to the level of the systemic, keeping the joke about White people . . . in the realm of personality rather than structure and power,” suggesting that Lander might have, for instance, framed Whites’ overrepresentation in graduate education not as a matter of pretension but of social capital (Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 379, emphasis in original).
Some might believe that the answer to the question of how one effectively marks Whiteness must be related to the end game one prescribes for Whiteness. The debate over Whiteness’ end game—whether it can be transformed or should be abolished—is controversial. Some, like philosopher Andrew J. Pierce, argue that “White racial identity depends upon and only exists within the context of White supremacy” (Reference Pierce2012, p. 45). Therefore, those who advocate for an end to White supremacy must also advocate for an end to Whiteness. Others suggest that Whiteness might be redirected, transformed into something better. The answer to this question likely will ultimately shape how one believes Whiteness is effectively marked.
Either way, however, “anti-racist struggles [first] require Whites’ acknowledgement that they are White; that is, their experience, perceptions and economic position have all been profoundly affected by being constituted as White” (Alcoff Reference Alcoff2006, p. 206). Marking Whiteness facilitates not only this acknowledgement, but also the recognition that Whiteness perpetuates racial oppression in its current form and that it disfigures White people.
CONCLUSION
As racial scholars have recognized, a deep divide in the perception of the world exists between Black and White Americans. This divide impedes basic communicative processes and hinders the development of a cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice (Dawson Reference Dawson2012, p. 670). While aligning lifeworlds does not in and of itself automatically produce solidarity, it is an important step toward both cross-racial solidarity and democratic health.
The process of aligning lifeworlds can’t be achieved solely by way of rational argumentation; as Linda Alcoff puts it, “anti-racist theorists need to acknowledge that the struggle occurs not only in relation to conscious choices and objectively determinable economic interests but in relation to psychic processes of identity formation” (Reference Alcoff2006, p. 221, emphasis added). In this article, I have identified “marking Whiteness” as a strategy and pop culture as a site that can contribute to a reorientation of the White lifeworld, to shape the psychic processes of identity formation in ways that make it possible to build cross-racial solidarity. The discussion of lifeworld alignment, and how marking Whiteness can contribute to it, enables us to think about how pre-deliberative processes (such as mediated pop culture communication and the interpretive discourses that surround it) might facilitate other democratic communicative processes. While a single text is inadequate to catalyzing a large-scale shift in the ways Whites view the world, multiple interventions—carefully constructed and framed by authors and other interlocutors—may impact Whites’ receptivity to Black claims.
Of course, “we must . . . remain conscious of the limits of any mass cultural product to catalyze positive social change” (Grzanka and Maher, Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 389). Popular artists are bound by the need to keep the corporations funding them and their large audiences—both of which are relatively inclined toward the status quo —happy. Chappelle walked away from CS because he believed his satiric efforts were reproducing racial inequity rather than challenging it.Footnote 15 Grzanka and Maher suggest that one of the reasons Lander doesn’t opt for the more radical, structural critique is that “by evading such topics, Lander avoids indicting his audience for participating and investing in racist structures (which would presumably kill the laughter),” not to mention decrease the popularity of the blog and his chances of the book deal he did ultimately get (Reference Grzanka and Maher2012, p. 379-380).
However, ceding the territory of pop culture is not the answer. Pop culture plays an integral role in the non-rational processes of socialization and conditioning which make and remake our lifeworlds. As noted above, there is arguably greater room for freedom of expression in pop culture than in the conventionally political realm (Iton Reference Iton2008). With the advent of the internet and relatively inexpensive production tools, there are more avenues for critical artists into popular culture. Lander’s blog, for instance, was an unexpected hit. Though the blog itself may have become popular because it “marked Whiteness” in relatively non-critical ways, this doesn’t negate the possibility that more critical takes on Whiteness could gain traction. In fact, Lander’s blog may have prepared the way by creating a template on which other efforts can build.
The argument I have made—for the importance of both popular culture and marking Whiteness in the promotion of lifeworld reorientation and cross-racial solidarity—raises a number of important questions for future research. First, theoretically, it would be useful to further specify ideas about lifeworld alignment. What elements of Black and White lifeworlds must be aligned to promote a racial justice-oriented cross-racial solidarity? How can it be facilitated, both on the conscious and subconscious levels? Is alignment best achieved via conscious engagement, or though strategies that target the subconscious?
Second, is “marking Whiteness” best carried out in the genre of humor? Humor has typically been a genre through which actors have been more able to speak truth to power, presumably because the laugh makes the critique go down more smoothly (or it allows for deniability). But humor does (as noted above) have its downsides. Is humor better than, say, “appalling” people to action, as Terrance MacMullan suggests critical reconstructive Whiteness Studies should do? Or perhaps humor should be folded into the effort to “appall,” with the criticism best served with some laughter?
Third, is marking Whiteness a strategy more available to White racial justice activists? Chappelle marks Whiteness, but marks other groups as well to include himself in the joke.Footnote 16 It is his marking of other groups that was arguably more readily consumed by his White audience. Arguably, Whites can get away with more biting criticism because they are targeting themselves. Evidence suggests that lifeworld changes only come in times of serious mobilization by subordinated groups (Reinhardt Reference Reinhardt2012); marking Whiteness, however, may be an important way for Whites to contribute to preparing the public to receive the messages subordinated groups communicate. And given contemporary racial dynamics, such a message may have a greater, and more positive, impact when it comes from Whites.Footnote 17
The argument also suggests several lines for future empirical research. Empirical research can specify what effect marking Whiteness has/can have on the White lifeworld. Grzanka and Maher rely on blog responses as a measure of audience response to SWPL, but there are good reasons to believe that those who post responses on blogs may not be the typical blog reader. This suggests the need to test the effects of the kinds of texts described above on the “average White’s” view of the world. Effects of the more damning critiques laid out by Lander, Colbert, and Chappelle might be compared with effects of the more innocuous critiques. Framing, intratextual layering, and external commentary might all be varied to determine whether such strategies effectively moderate polysemy and maximize the effect of the intervention in terms of shifting the White lifeworld toward the Black lifeworld. Additionally, the impact of “marking Whiteness” on self-conception, sense of responsibility, and perception of the world might be compared to the impact of a transformed understanding of the past.
While I have suggested that the other strategies for facilitating cross-racial solidarity identified in this paper have their limitations, it is important to note that “marking Whiteness” does not preempt other enabling strategies intended to promote cross-racial solidarity. Efforts to transform public memory and efforts to mark Whiteness, for instance, can be mutually reinforcing. The struggle for racial justice necessarily must occur on multiple fronts, capitalizing on multiple discursive opportunities. I hope that with this paper I have broadened our thinking about how and where a cross-racial solidarity oriented toward racial justice might be facilitated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Juliet Hooker, Kate Schick, Jana von Stein, Christina Simko, and Ben Snyder for their close and thoughtful engagement with this work; Andrew Douglas, Justin Rose, and the attendees of the “Theorizing Cross-Racial Solidarity” panel at the 2013 annual meeting of APSA for the motivating discussion; and the reviewers and editors of The Du Bois Review for improving this article in all ways.
