Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

2014 Edition
| Editors: Thomas Teo

Whiteness

Reference work entry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_331
How to cite

Introduction

In western societies – where “race” as a category continues to be treated as an organizing principle through which social hierarchies are legitimated – certain “racial groupings” are treated as the norm, in comparison to those groups who are treated as marginal. In being treated as the norm, dominant groups accrue a range of privileges that are typically left unsaid or unrecognized. In her now classic text on the topic, McIntosh ( 1989) provides examples of the privileges that accrue to dominant group members, such as “I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the ‘person in charge’, I will be facing a person of my race,” “I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented,” and “I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.” With the effects of these privileges in mind, over the...
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References

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Online Resources

  1. Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. http://www.acrawsa.org.au
  2. Whiteness Theory and Education. http://www.pauahtun.org/6624-7624.F03.html

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Social Work and Social PlanningFlinders UniversityAdelaideAustralia