One of the important theoretical endeavours of the Black Arts movement in America in the 1960s was its objectification and denaturalization of the ideology of whiteness. Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal, the chief ideologues of the movement, were concerned as much with the construction and representations of whiteness as of blackness. The goal of a positive black consciousness was often defined in terms of the rejection of, and independence from, the white world.

This paper proposes to examine the complex negotiations with, and deployment of, the categories of white and black in Baraka’s work. It is my argument here that in his emphatic gesture of rejection of the white world and an ostensible establishment of a black community, Baraka seems to accomplish a dual task. While he sets out the objectives of independence and self-determination for the African Americans in strong, bold terms, he simultaneously moves the debate about the nature and definition of whiteness and blackness to a more abstract level. Baraka’s essays and his play, Dutchman (1964), are examined to see how these works construct and represent the ideology of whiteness. The paper also takes a brief, self-reflexive look at this "brown" view of the "black" construction of "whiteness."

This paper will examine discourses and representations of whiteness in post-civil rights America (post-1960s and 1970s), and these have transformed during this period. Historically whiteness has held a position of universality and invisibility, representing others, but rarely represented or representing itself as something particular or differentiated. In the past two decades there has been an emerging and renewed focus on whiteness, a transformation which is two-fold: firstly, unlike previous discourses and representations, the focus is not on that which whiteness represents, but whiteness itself. Secondly, the focus of these discourses and representations is the displacement of whiteness, from a position of historical dominance, universality and invisibility to that of marginality, particularity and visibility. This transformation can be seen in the recent emergence of ‘whiteness studies’, concerned with theorizing the displacement or ‘abolition’ of whiteness. Notably absent from this body of work is the extreme-right, historically the most visible and politicized site of whiteness, which itself has undergone a significant transformation, representing the displacement of whiteness as a political reality in post-civil rights America.

Although these discourses are politically oppositional, they both attempt to discursively represent and ‘effect’ a political displacement of whiteness. According to Richard Dyer, the universality of whiteness depends on its invisibility. To call a universal (such as whiteness) into question is to recognize or ‘mark’ it as something particular, at which point it becomes not only visible but tied to a contextual particularity, where it reveals its contingency and is no longer capable of fulfilling its universal function. The question is not whether whiteness has been displaced but, if displacement operates as such, how such representations of whiteness discursively ‘effect’ its political displacement and what are the wider political conditions for and effects of such discourses, in light of their respective politics and racial-politics in post-civil rights America.

While many large manufacturing firms in the United States began employing African-Americans during the Second World War, some did not. One such firm was Norton Company, a large abrasive-manufacturinf corporation located in Worcester, Massachusetts. From its origins in 1885 to the end of World War II, Norton presented its all-white, largely immigrant workforce with a plethora of different paternalistic welfare programs, including company housing, health care, educational programs, and athletics. Workers had the option of playing basebal,, basketball and volleyball. Many went on hunting an fishing trips. In addition to sponsoring generous activites nd paying hig wages, Norton sponsored annual black-faced minstrel shows, events that attracted thousands of the city's residents. As a reslt of sponsoring such programs, workers were largely loyal; they never unionized, not even during the turbulent 1930s. Man certainly identified with the company. Indeed, assimilationist-minded immigrants looked to Norton as a place where they could obtain comfort and self-respect. Wartime contracts in the early 1940s provided workers with additional reaons to be loyal. Like Americans throughout the country, many of Norton's workers and formeremployees fighting in battle expresssed themselves in jingoistic ways; letters from former workers serving in the military illustrate a pronounced hatred for the Japanese. The war did more than give workers new reasons to demonstarte their ommitment to the compny; it also offered them additional ways to celebrate their whiteness. Drawing from the theoretical insights articulated by W.E.B. DuBois, David Roediger and Theodore Allen, this paper shows some of the diverse ways that Norton's workers and managers embraced a shared sense of whiteness.

Video Presentation

WhiteWashedHistory

written and produced by NoNameProductions,Brighton, England,2001
Given the recent upsurge in studies, books, documentaries, and general media discussion about 'whiteness' and its constructs and consequences, the makers of the video 'WhiteWashedHistory' were motivated to examine the idea of 'whiteness' in terms of how it has come about as an acceptable way of categorising people. Not merely acceptable, but highly definitive in both public and private discourse. What we conclude is that the orginins of such categorisation are based upon certain assumptions of shared group identity that has little root in kinship, tribal, national, territorial or cultural histories. Rather, the category of 'white' appears to us to be an ideological myth system whose folklore has levelled actual histories into a very one-dimensional surface.. The video will explore some of the visual imagery of this mythical ideology, with the intention of encouraging discsussion and debate.

Back to Panels