Whiteness being the unspoken norm makes naming it feel racist even to racialised minorities.
Evidence
Denico told me that in the area where he lived before being deported, in South Birmingham, residents were ‘predominantly white people’, before then asking, nervously, ‘wait, can I say that?’ He was worried that describing an area as populated by ‘predominantly white people’ might be construed as racist. At first glance, this is no doubt related to the fact that whiteness is the invisible norm and is therefore difficult to name – especially for someone racialised as black in a white nation. Denico’s concerns about being racist to white people reveal a ‘culture of racial equivalence’, in which racism, as construed in ‘post-racial terms’, is imagined to ‘work both ways’ (Song, 2014). Denico’s cautiousness around invoking ‘race’, then, is a reflection of the postracial silences, equivalences and anxieties that are produced in our profoundly racist and yet ostensibly postracial moment (Goldberg, 2015) – a context where racism is publicly and rhetorically disavowed even as it is allowed to flourish through euphemised and sublimated forms. — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 60
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the broader literature on postracial discourse and colorblindness (Bonilla-Silva’s colorblind racism, Goldberg’s racial states) and to how the invisible-default status of whiteness distorts who can name race. — connects to: Erasure of racial language makes naming racism itself look mad — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 838; Ethnicity-based race theories presuppose whiteness as the unmarked norm, now eroding. — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 58; Academic study of race long ignored whiteness as an unexamined norm. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 643
- DEFINE: Explains the ‘culture of racial equivalence’ in post-racial terms where racism is imagined to work both ways.
- corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 60
Related
- Academic study of race long ignored whiteness as an unexamined norm. (similarity 0.82)
- Ethnicity-based race theories presuppose whiteness as the unmarked norm, now eroding. (similarity 0.80)
- The dismissal of reverse racism can silence what the marginalized are actually saying (similarity 0.79)
- Racialized people can practice a vernacular anti-race-ism refusing racist categories (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Erasure of racial language makes naming racism itself look mad
#corroborates(0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 838 - Academic study of race long ignored whiteness as an unexamined norm.
#corroborates(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 643 - Ethnicity-based race theories presuppose whiteness as the unmarked norm, now eroding.
#qualifies(0.75) — Michael Omi, Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 58