Tracey Onyenacho Nicole Cardoza Tracey Onyenacho Nicole Cardoza

Divest from whiteness.

Anti-racism education is increasing, especially over the past few years after many protests for Black Lives and an increased visible, physical presence of white supremacists. However, many have questioned the importance and implementation of anti-racism education when it comes to analyzing whiteness or explaining its effect on people of color. In February, a New York City elementary school principal distributed an anti-racism curriculum called “8 White Identities” written by Barnor Hesse, an associate professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University in Illinois. According to a statement from the Department of Education given to the New York Post, the pamphlet was first given by some of the parents to school staff and then distributed by the principal to all the parents as part of the anti-racism education (NYPost).

Happy Friday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! I had this initially scheduled for Monday, but the points in Tracey Onyenacho's article – and the work of Barnor Hesse – are a good compliment to yesterday's newsletter and the latest act of racial violence this week. Yesterday we called for collective accountability. Today is a way to inquire about our place in the ethnography of whiteness defined by Barnor Hesse. It's also an opportunity to learn the difference between identifying as white and whiteness, the system of privileges and power afforded to white people. If this is new terminology for you, I recommend reading more about the related issues linked at the bottom of the email.

Saturday is our weekly Study Hall email. I do my best to respond to questions from the community related to our work to deepen our collective understanding of key topics and current events. Respond to this email to ask a question.

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TAKE ACTION

  • Sign the open letter encouraging Northwestern to support Barnor Hesse during the hate he’s experiencing online due to conservative backlash because of the use of his curriculum in a NYC public school.

  • Reflect on the ways you may have upheld white supremacy or whiteness in your communities and towards other people.

  • Explore the National Museum of African American History & Culture online. Dive deep into the portal “Talking About Race” where it discusses whiteness in greater detail.

  • Examine how these characteristics of white supremacy culture show up in your workplace and in your work behavior.

GET EDUCATED

By Tracey Onyenacho (she/they)

Anti-racism education is increasing, especially over the past few years after many protests for Black Lives and an increased visible, physical presence of white supremacists. However, many have questioned the importance and implementation of anti-racism education when it comes to analyzing whiteness or explaining its effect on people of color. In February, a New York City elementary school principal distributed an anti-racism curriculum called “8 White Identities” written by Barnor Hesse, an associate professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University in Illinois. According to a statement from the Department of Education given to the New York Post, the pamphlet was first given by some of the parents to school staff and then distributed by the principal to all the parents as part of the anti-racism education (NYPost). 

In an image popularized by Slow Factory, a 501c3 public service organization working at the intersection of climate and culture, the 8 White Identities is a scale composed of different white roles ranging from “white abolitionist” to “white supremacist,” that categorizes the different ways whiteness is used among people who identify with it. The curriculum includes a graphic that places the 8 white identities on a meter where “White Supremacist” is placed in red and “White Abolitionist” is placed in green. The meter shows where those who play these roles stand in terms of goodness and badness.

Hesse notes in the curriculum that these identities are not exclusive to white people. For example, the identity “White Benefit” is defined as being “sympathetic to a set of issues but only privately; won’t speak/act in solidarity publicly because benefiting through whiteness in public (some POC [people of color] are in this category as well).” Hesse acknowledges that whiteness can perpetrate all people, even people of color, in a way that advances whiteness and keeps it in power and in legitimacy. 

Many people, including parents of this New York City elementary school, have taken offense to this analysis. It serves as a simplified starting point for white folks who are looking to challenge the ways their whiteness has sustained itself in our current society and reckons with the lack of efforts to make whiteness obsolete. Whiteness, as with race in general, is socially constructed to place boundaries and restrictions on who is in power and who is not (Jeffrey B. Perry). The ever-changing definition of whiteness, including who is allowed to be considered white over time, proves its faultness as a social construct, its impact of social power in determining the effects its boundaries have on groups of people, and their lack of access to benefits solely bestowed on those who are considered white.  

The 8 White Identities examines whiteness not just in relation to other races—which a lot of anti-racism education has done—but it also looks at how whiteness relates to itself. “The White Supremacist” identity is placed as the most dangerous with its actions centered around maintaining white superiority. Most recently, the Capitol riot that happened on January 6 by white supremacists is a clear example of the role of white supremacists in action. They went through great lengths of violence to keep Donald Trump, a notable white supremacist, in power for their own benefit. To learn more, read our article “Confront White Supremacy”.

The curriculum also suggests that white roles that aren’t necessarily white supremacist, such as White Voyeurism, White Privilege, White Benefit, and White Confessional, are still complicit in keeping whiteness in power. These specific roles hold onto their whiteness while condemning it. They deceptively seek validation from people of other races to absolve them from their guilt while welding their whiteness to reap its benefits. This, in and of itself, is an act of violence as the performance of thinking about abolishing whiteness allows these specific identities to not face backlash from white supremacists and people of other races. 

For example, many workplaces that have clear white supremacist cultures have donned the performance of hiring a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion officer to hire more people of color among their mostly white staff while keeping the same racist conditions within their work environments allowing white folks and others to continue to perpetuate racism onto employees of color (BBC). According to Hesse, these white hiring employers are considered to identify as “White Privilege.” 

The protests for Black Lives last summer showed examples of white people playing the role of the “White Confessional” as many marched in the streets and posted black squares on social media to show their accountability to denouncing whiteness publicly (NBC News). Some white folks and people of color played the role of “White Benefit” by privately “checking in” on their friends of color to show false sympathy. Hesse’s scale shows that these gestures from these specific white identities don’t do much if whiteness is not challenged significantly (Vox).

In order to get rid of whiteness and race in general, Hesse suggests that white people must be critical of whiteness (“White Critical”) and become traitors to their own race (“White Traitor”) as starting points to its destruction. According to the graphic, the ultimate goal is to be a “White Abolitionist”, a white person who is invested in “changing institutions, dismantling whiteness, and not allowing whiteness to reassert itself.” Abolition of whiteness and all of its intricate systems are the only way forward to freedom for all people.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Studies and anti-racism education on whiteness is not racist.

  • In order for whiteness and white supremacy to be eradicated, white folks must be invested in abolition of whiteness in all of its forms.

  • White complicity and performance aids in the maintenance of white supremacy and refuses to challenge the nature of whiteness in order to reap its benefits.

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