Whiteness in the News: A Select Archive
Why Race Isn't as 'Black' and 'White' as We Think
By BRENT STAPLES copyright October 31, 2005 The New York Times
DNA test results underscore what anthropologists have said for eons: racial distinctions as applied in this country are social categories and not scientific concepts. Most of us are mixed, whether we know it or not. In addition, those categories draw hard, sharp distinctions among groups of people who are more alike than they are different. The ultimate point is that none of us really know who we are, ancestrally speaking. All we ever really know is what our parents and grandparents have told us. Read the whole story...
"White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art" Exhibit Opens
The International Center for Photography features a new exhibition on whiteness and race in art. Read the New York Times review of the show, curated by Maurice Berger. According to the Center's web site, the exhibit "asks all Americans—and especially white people—to take stock of the political, psychological, economic, and cultural implication of white skin, white entitlement, and white privilege."
History Repeats Itself (Again)
Read the whole sad story from the October 18 Times-Picayune, plus a related episode involving college students in Wisconsin.
White Privilege in Brazil: Evidence of the Globalization of Whiteness
João Bosco, a black businessman in São Paulo, got a nasty shock recently when he showed up for an appointment at a corporation in the city's main financial district. Rather than sign the prearranged contract, he says, the company's white manager insulted him and then showed him the door. "He said 'I thought they were going to send the boss, not the office boy,'" says Mr. Bosco, 47, a personnel consultant, who was so offended he refused to respond. He declined to name the company, which he is suing for racial discrimination. Such stories are common in Brazil, despite the country's self-image as a "racial democracy." The term is enshrined in the Constitution and has long been a source of pride among the country's multiracial population, the result of more than a century of intermarriage among the descendants of African slaves, Portuguese colonizers, and immigrants from throughout the globe. With 44 percent of the country's 170 million people claiming African descent, Brazil has the world's second-largest black population after Nigeria. But recent studies show that skin color continues to play a major role in determining Brazilians' access to jobs and education. Blacks earn less than half that of white Brazilians with the same educational background, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, a government research organization. Even more striking: only 2 percent of Brazil's three-million college students are black, according to the 2000 government census. A new business college in São Paulo is working to change that. By reserving 50 percent of its seats for black students, the Zumbi dos Palmares University of Citizenship seeks to train entrepreneurs like Mr. Bosco to compete in the white-dominated corporate world. Read the complete story. Read the complete story.
Study Says White Families' Wealth Advantage Has Grown
Associated Press, Oct. 18, 2004
The enormous wealth gap between white families and black and Hispanic families grew larger after the most recent recession, a private analysis of government data has found. Read the whole article.
White Supremacist Shoots, Kills Five People in Racist Rampage
Some white people simply go insane when confronted with a world of justice and equality for all. That apparently was what happened to Doug Williams, a white supremacist who had to live in a world where whites were no longer given special privileges or powers. His violent response reminds us of the long history of white violence and lynch law that attempted to keep African Americans and other non-whites in oppressed conditions. But some satisfaction lies in the fact that this time, no mob joined Williams to lynch his victims; rather whites and blacks tried to stop him, and were wounded and killed for their heroism. Eight of the 14 shooting victims were black, including four who were killed. Among those injured were five white men, two black men and two black women. Read the New York Times coverage: "When he overheard a black man complimenting a white woman a couple of years ago on the factory floor, Doug Williams stepped up to the man and, using a racial slur, angrily told him blacks had no business being with blond women, witnesses recalled today. [click here for the full story]
Washington Post article causes national furor over Whiteness Studies
"It's the suppressed history I'm interested in teaching," says University of Massachusetts professor Arlene Avakian, shown in class on the "social construction" of race, with students Natalis Forte, left, and Kate Rodriguez. We've been getting a number of letters, some not very friendly, as a result of recent publicity given to Whiteness Studies by the media. Read the article from the June 20 Post
Photo Credit: James Schaffer - For The Washington Post
More breaking news:
The Great 'White' Influx
Regardless of color, two-thirds of immigrants choose that designation on census replies. For some, it's synonymous with America.
By SOLOMON MOORE and ROBIN FIELDS
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
July 31 2002
Zarmina Khalili says she never considered herself white until she moved to the United States 15 years ago.
Race was a nonissue in her native Afghanistan, she said. There, the basic distinctions were tribal, between Tajiks and Pashtuns. Khalili knew where she stood: She was a Tajik.
In America, it wasn't so clear. The census forms that came in the mail asked Khalili, 42, a Canoga Park homemaker, to place herself in one of six racial categories. She picked "white." Though she is fair-skinned, it wasn't entirely a matter of color, she said.