Three Dimensions Of Whiteness In Leadership

In White Like Me, Tim Wise educates viewers about white privilege. He argues that this racial issue is still largely a problem in America today. According to Wise, the reason that racial inequality still persists is because we failed to realize in the past that white privilege existed. Because of this, our nation was in turn “created for” white

In this spellbinding lecture, the author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son offers a unique, inside-out view of race and racism in America. Expertly overcoming the defensiveness that often surrounds these issues, Wise provides a non-confrontational explanation of white privilege and the damage it does not only to people of color, but to white people as well. This is an invaluable classroom resource: an ideal introduction to the social construction of racial identities, and a critical new tool for exploring the often invoked – but seldom explained – concept of white privilege.

This being despite constant growing evidence that race really does matter in the post-civil rights age, effective solutions are in short supply and as the authors talk about "mutual obligations." The authors brought up a nice analysis of American race inequality, focusing on the rise of white supremacy and the continuation of white privilege despite the removal of direct institutionalized segregation. Solving current racial problems seems nearly impossible because it requires addressing largely unseen forces of indirect institutional

Lipsitz argues that in the post-World War II era, a combination of public policy and private prejudice has encouraged white people to “invest” in whiteness as an ongoing force of economic mobility and social differentiation. Lipsitz claims that such “possessive investment in whiteness” has not merely sustained racialized hierarchies but encouraged collective

The book has as its principal thesis the consideration of race as “a folk classification, a product of popular beliefs about human differences that evolved from 16th to 19th centuries” (Smedley, 2007, pag.24). The book also specifies three characteristics that distinguish the racial ideology in America: the absence of a category for biracial people, the homogenization of the black or African American Americans, and the impossibility to change a person’s race. (Smedley, 2007, pag.7)

The issue of race has been present in America's history since before slavery, and continues to be an issue in today’s society. The fight for equal rights between African Americans and white Americans is one that is dependent on the involvement of both parties. The two articles that I will be analyzing focus on the topic of white privilege in America and what it means. The everyday genre that I will be discussing is a Huffington Post article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, and an excerpt from a book written by Francis E. Kendall Ph.D.

Whiteness is an integrative ideology that has transpired in North America throughout the late 20th century to contemporary society. It is a social construction that sustains itself as a dogma to social class and vindicates discrimination against non-whites. The power of whiteness is illustrated in social, cultural and political practices. These measures are recognized as the intent standard in which other cultures are persuaded to live by. Bell hooks discusses the evolution of whiteness in an innovative article in which she theorizes this conviction as normative, a structural advantage, an inclusive standpoint, and an unmarked name by those who are manipulating this interdisciplinary. Most intellects, including hooks, would argue that whiteness is a continuation of history; a dominant cultural location that has been unconsciously disclosing its normativity of cultural practice, advocating fear, destruction, and terror for those who are being affected by this designation.

Matthew Frye Jacobson’s Whiteness of a Different Color offers innovative insight into the concept of “race” and the evolution of “whiteness” throughout American history. Jacobson focuses his analysis on the instability of racial identification over time and how race has been created and perceived throughout different stages of history. He states in his introduction that “one of the tasks before the historian is to discover which racial categories are useful to whom at a given moment, and why” (p.9) and while he is successful in some respects, his analysis is somewhat incomplete in providing a full scope of the power relations that created, altered and maintained racial identities in the United States. While Jacobson offers a detailed

In this paper, I will be reviewing Robert Jensen’s “The Heart of Whiteness. Confronting Race, Racism, and White privilege”, along with developing a critical analysis of this work. I will be comparing my analysis with the opinions of others that have reviewed this book along with utilizing concepts from James W. Neulieps textbook, Intercultural Communication.

George Lipsitz (1998) argues that both public policy and private prejudice have created a "possessive investment in whiteness" that is responsible for the racialized hierarchies of our society. He believes that “Whiteness” has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educations allocated to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the relatives and friends of those who have profited most from present and past racial discrimination, and especially through intergenerational

The United States has a longstanding history of racism and discriminatory policy, stemming from the colonial era. Generally, those who weren’t considered true White Americans faced blatant ethnicity-based discrimination and adversity in matters of education, human rights, immigration, land ownership, and politics. Specific racial institutions, characteristic of the 17th to 20th centuries, included slavery, wars against the Native Americans, exclusion from civil life, and segregation. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that formal racial discrimination was banned, and majority attitudes began to see racism as socially unacceptable. However, our relatively recent racialized history has left an unfortunate impact on present society. The legacy of historical racism still continues to be echoed through socioeconomic inequality, and racial politics still remain a major phenomenon. Many argue that our government systems have shifted from means of overt racism to more symbolic, covert racism, and that this is reflected in our societal institutions, such as employment, housing, education, economics, and government.

As a result, another term must be used to refer to the power and domination that white people have over minorities; therefore, in this paper I will use the term "white supremacy" as opposed to "racism." In the Constitution, in slavery, and even in our cities today, white supremacy has been prevalent throughout our history. White supremacy and black inferiority are the two main problems that our cites face today; once white supremacy and black inferiority are ended in our country, then the majority of the problems in our cities will cease to exist.

First is the belief that race is central, not peripheral, to American thought and life. Second is the notion that racism is common and ordinary rather than rare and episodic, so that a great deal of Americans’ social life is affected by it. A third strand is material determinism, or interest convergence—the idea that racial relations maintain a white-over-black/brown hierarchy that provides benefits and profits to elite groups in the majority race and are for that reason difficult to reform. A fourth feature is the social construction thesis, according to which races are products of social thought and invention, not objective or biologically real (Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge, 2011, p. 1).

For many years now the people in power or “whites” have passed laws so that other racial groups are kept at the bottom of the social hierarchy. These racial group that are kept at the bottom become racialized and oppressed therefore they become unequal to the people that are at the top of this hierarchy. The racial groups that are kept at the bottom vary from the Native-Americans to the Mexican-Americans and obviously the African-Americans. In this essay I will be comparing how the racialization process has been similar and different between these racial groups. I will also define race and racialization. Furthermore, I will explain how class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship has impacted the racialization process within these groups.

The dominant groups can play a role in marginalizing other groups based on racial and characteristics involving privilege tends to open doors of opportunity, but oppression tends to slam them shut. The dominant groups has played a role of marginalization to other groups based on racial characters that involve oppression and have emphasized pervasive nature of social inequality woven throughout social institutions. The dominant groups reap advantage and benefit from access to social power and privilege, not equally available to people of color. They receive more money and accumulate more assets than other racial groups, hold the majority of positions of power and influence, and command the controlling institutions in society. The dominant groups restrict the life expectancy, infant mortality, income, housing, employment, and educational opportunities of people of color for economic, social or political power (Adams et al., 2013).