Calling racial ideologies white practices erases how nonwhites co-produce and embrace them

Evidence

Is it accurate to refer to particular ideologies as “dominant points of view” if people of color embrace, develop, and modify them? It seems appropriate to refer to them as “racist” but erroneous to speak of “white practices” if they are, at least in part, the cultural products of nonwhites. An effect of this language is that the idea of subordinate classes collaborating with these discursive practices is not invited. The impression is created that these “lies” and “illusions” are simply foisted onto them. Besides furthering a notion of people of color as racism-free, this model of racist ideologies can leave scholars with unsatisfactory understandings of why it is that particular points of view resonate with subalterns, which in turn prompted Burdick to make the dubious assertion that there must be some validity to the racial democracy. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3617

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: whether labeling a discourse ‘white’ when it is co-produced by nonwhites serves scholarly accuracy or political comfort.