Whiteness

What does whiteness mean?
Have you ever thought what does whiteness mean to you? Today, some people still think that whiteness means having a light skin color or blue eyes. I think that whiteness is an idea that we, the humans have shaped by a history of cultural beliefs, traditions, religious, cultural, educational, social and economic policies. For example, when someone asks about a physicalcharacteristic of a Latino, most would say that they are a little darker skin compared to an American, but actually I think this is the traditional idea that we all have because I've known Latinos with blond hair and blue eyes. The knowledge, ideologies, norms, and practices of “whiteness” in America affect the way we think about race, how we see when we look at certain physical features, how wesee other races, how we build our own racial identities, and how we act in our society. This essay will discuss the ideas and different views that we all have about “Whiteness in America”, and how it has impacted in Education, Religion and our Society.
Racism in America
According to Maud Blair (2008) in the article “Whiteness as Institutionalized Racism as Conspiracy: Understanding the Paradigm”Whiteness is an “organizing principle” (249) that keeps the access to power and privileges for the whites, but not necessarily intentional or the result of conscious action of different whites. In fact most of us, regardless of color, ethnicity or beliefs we are involved in the perpetuation of whiteness. Blair is saying that white people may have the power or the privileges to do something but heis also saying that we all no matter what race we are or what our skin color is, we are able and have the right to do it as well. In my own experience, as a Latina student in an Honors class, where most of the student is white, I can say this is true, we all are able to obtain what we want as long we fight for it and our skin color will
Whiteness 3
not make a difference or will stop us toobtain it. However, sometimes people say that whites have more privileges, this is not true all the times, it is the idea that we all have, the idea that we ourselves created it, because when we really want to make our goals true, nobody is going to stop us to make it true, not even an idea of what race we are. Many times, we are the ones who create racism between us by forming our own ideas aboutother people just because they are different from us. We start to judge them without giving us the opportunity to meet them, we act racist, we make statements about them without knowing what kind of person they are, and we judge a person just by their physical appearance or the type of race they are. Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on thebasis of their race, sex, or last name and that some racial groups are superior to others. For example, in the text, “C.P. Ellis” written by Studs Terkel it emphasized how we, the human if we really want to make a change, to stop the racism, and the inequality in our society, we will do it no matter what. We all are the same, regardless to our race or skin color and we can get along as Ellis didwith African-American people. C.P. Ellis was a member of the Ku Klux Klan; he did everything against black people because he wanted to follow the traditions of his white father who was also a member of this group. One day he realized that it was not making him feel good. He decided to make a change in his society by doing the right things and change his life. This change made him realized that hewas not better than anyone. Ellis declared, “The importance of blacks and whites getting along” (405). This teaches us how we are the one who create racism among different races. We have the solution for this. No race is better than another. We should think about it and do not let this ideas of “whiteness" remain in our future generations as in the text, “The boy in the mirror” by James McBride...