Whiteness is the unspoken, invisible default setting of American life. |
Whiteness is the unspoken, invisible default setting of American life. We frame our conversations about race in terms of how white people see and what they think they see. We imagine that nonwhite Americans want to be more like white Americans. We imagine that to be American is to be white. When racial minorities complain about the slurs of a Paula Deen or a prank like the faked names of the Asiana pilots, they are often told by whites to stop being so sensitive or to take the context of tradition or history or humor into account. That ability, to dismiss and minimize people of color for being oversensitive, is itself one of the privileges that whiteness confers. The broader privilege that whites have by occupying the omniscient vantage point in media and civic life has to be named and then undone.
Eric Liu, “Trayvon Martin and Making Whiteness Visible,” Time Magazine (July 17, 2013). http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/17/trayvon-martin-and-making-whiteness-visible
Tags: Eric Liu, TIME Magazine