Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: White studies acknowledge that for the most part, “whiteness” has been invisible since it has gone unmarked, assumed, and considered normative. Whites are able to treat race and race relations as apolitical and still navigate society successfully. However, due to the history of the South as a region with pronounced racial conflict and integration between “opposing groups” (blacks and whites), Southern whites may have more “race consciousness” about being white than whites in other regions of the United States. To address this question, I conducted forty-two semi-structured, in-depth interviews with rural, Southern whites in Mississippi. The data for this analysis are drawn from questions about what it means to be white, what it means to be a white Southerner, and what it means to be white in local communities. For some, being white is taken for granted while for others it is recognized as a status of at least past, if not current privilege and prejudice. In fact, whites can hold both positions. This complex understanding of whiteness is in contrast to generalizations about white attitudes, because many of the respondents do admit that they and/or other whites have benefited from past and current segregation and discrimination. However, the broader the context (being white in general vs. being white in the South vs. being white in their communities) the more likely the respondents were to acknowledge advantages of being white, while they were more likely to deny having white privilege the more specific the context.