Barbara Applebaum and Erin Stoik 307

On the Meaning and Necessity of a White, Anti-racist Identity

Barbara Applebaum
Illinois State University
Erin Stoik
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto

In this essay we argue not only that a positive, white anti-racist identity is
possible, but also that it is fundamental to the success of any social justice
educational initiative. Central to our analysis is a discussion of the perspective of the
Deconstructionists (also referred to as New Abolitionists). These theorists, who call
for the abolition of white identity, conflate “whiteness” as a system of dominance
and oppression with “whiteness” as an individual identity. On the basis of this
conceptualization, they conclude that the eradication of white dominance requires
the deconstruction of white identity. This conceptual flaw compromises the feasi-
bility of the proposals generated for anti-racist education from within this frame-
work and ignores important questions of agency. Nevertheless, we contend that the
Deconstructionists’ position offers tremendous educational insights. When white-
ness as a system of dominance is theoretically distinguished from whiteness as white
identity, the complex relationship between these two concepts is illuminated and the
positive educational implications of some of the Deconstructionists’ recommenda-
tions are brought to light.
Different situations prompted each of us to think more deeply about this issue.
Last year, in a course on Anti-racist Education Initiatives, I (Erin) presented a
critique of Peter McLaren’s recent work in which he contends that the renunciation
of white identity by white individuals is fundamental to the abolishment of racism.1
Following the presentation, one of my classmates, an African-Canadian male, asked
me in a most incredulous tone, “How can you argue for retaining any aspect of white
identity when it is so harmful and negative?” As a white person committed to social
justice, the question catapulted me into months of discussions with my classmate,
critical self-reflection and further readings on the topic. Certainly, from a psycho-
logical perspective, the implication that there could be no positive, anti-racist white
identity disturbed me greatly because it raised doubts around my own self-identity
as a white person committed to social justice. Yet I was also troubled philosophically
because implicit in my classmate’s comment was an unswerving certitude regarding
the assumption that whiteness as a system of hegemony can only be abolished
through the eradication of white identity.
My (Barbara) entry point is connected with my experience last year as a white,
female, Jewish, heterosexual educator teaching courses on diversity to predomi-
nantly preservice white teachers in the heart of Appalachia. My students’ initial
reactions to my attempts at raising their awareness of dominance were either
immobilizing guilt or harmful resentment. And because the neoconservative back-
lash on campuses across the United States has gained momentum, many of my white
students were embracing white identity as victimization rather than as an oppressive

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308 White, Anti-racist Identity

and privileged force. Such an embrace of white identity as victimization was

manifested in their assaults on affirmative action programs, multicultural initiatives,
and a general rejection of racial politics. It became clear to me that there was no
chance that I was going to succeed in getting my students to understand the subtle
nature of systemic racism, sexism, and heterosexism without also giving them a
constructive self-image to which to aspire.
Indeed, Henry Giroux maintains that white youths that are beginning to
recognize whiteness as an object of critical scrutiny need to be afforded an
opportunity to employ this understanding constructively.2 Giroux argues for the
need to reconstruct a positive, anti-racist white identity with our students. Yet at the
same time that I was resonating with Giroux’s arguments, I discovered the contem-
porary literature in whiteness and cultural studies which was replete with books and
articles that were claiming that such an identity is an oxymoron. These writers
argued that the eradication of white dominance requires the deconstruction, not the
reconstruction, of white identity. To achieve social justice, white people must
renounce their white identity. “There is nothing positive about white identity,”
claims Noel Ignatiev, one of the principal champions of The New Abolitionists.3 He
maintains that “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.”4 Similarly Peter
McLaren strongly contends,
I do not argue for the construction of a positive white identity, no matter how well
intentioned. Rather, I argue against celebrating whiteness in any form….Whiteness retains
its positive meanings only by denying itself. I call for the denial, disassembly, and
deconstruction of whiteness as we know it.5

Although the arguments of the Deconstructionists intrigued me, as a teacher I knew

that they were educationally unsound. In what follows, we will refer to those who
along with McLaren argue for this position as the Deconstructionists (but also
sometimes the New Abolitionists) and to those who support the position advocated
by Giroux as Reconstructionists.
Contrasting our different entry points exposes a conceptual problem common
to both my (Erin’s) classmate and the Deconstructionists that Barbara was reading
about. As I (Erin) understood it, my classmate’s question was strongly focused on
the conceptual premise that whiteness is inherently harmful. On this Deconstructionist
view, whiteness is devoid of any cultural content and has no independent ontological
or epistemological status outside of its hierarchical relationship to blackness. It is
nothing but a socially constructed system of dominance that confers certain
unearned benefits and privileges on white people.6 Since whiteness and white
identity are inseparable and almost co-extensive, if whiteness must be eradicated so
must white identity. In other words, whiteness subtracts from white identity without
remainder. According to this perspective, supporting white identity in any way only
fortifies the status quo. Understood as based on a conceptual claim, my classmate’s
argument ignores the educational implications of this conclusion that are under-
scored by Barbara’s experience.7
We argue in this paper that by not distinguishing between whiteness and white
identity, the complex relationship between the two is ignored and questions of
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 Barbara Applebaum and Erin Stoik 309

agency that have educational implications are concealed. Avoiding this conflation,
we contend, illuminates the tremendously important educational contributions of
the Deconstructionists’ recommendations.
RENOUNCING WHITE IDENTITY
In order to appreciate the question of agency that is raised by the Deconstructionist
position, we must first clarify what they actually mean when they demand that white
identity be renounced. Although they do not make this distinction, there seem to be
two different recommendations made by these theorists. The first is that white
people should embrace black identity and the second is that white people should
disown their white privilege.
According to the first recommendation, in order to cross out whiteness, white
people must crossover to blackness. The belief underlying this recommendation is
that whites take a big step toward becoming human when they reject their racial
identity.8 McLaren argues that whites can “choose” not only to be nonwhite, but also
to be black or brown.9 Quoting theologian James Cone, McLaren maintains, “Whites
will be free only when they become new persons — when their white being has
passed away and they are created anew in black being.”10 The New Abolitionists
argue that, in this way, whites must be converted into “reverse Oreo cookies.” This
is a step that would seem to entail, for many, some engagement with blackness,
perhaps even an identification as “black,” and recent experience, in the United States
and elsewhere, would indicate that it does.
There is, however, a second sense in which Deconstructionists demand that
white people renounce white identity. The New Abolitionists write approvingly of
“race traitors” — those individuals who renounce the societal privilege conferred on
them by virtue of their skin color. One example of race traitors is the small groups
of white people who are organizing “copwatch” programs across the United States.
These programs were developed in response to the realization that the police are
harassing innocent people of color for DWB (driving while black) or are giving non-
white drivers stiff penalties for small infractions that white people get away with a
mere slap on the hand. Such discrimination only becomes illuminated when
contrasted to white privilege but otherwise goes unquestioned. It is so common to
hear among white people that “the police are just doing their duty; blacks just commit
more crimes.” The objective of such initiatives is to monitor the conduct of the police
for signs of racism and discrimination. Although Civil Rights activists have been
involved in similar programs since the 1960s, the extraordinary aspect of these
contemporary anti-racist efforts is not only the concern to correct unjust discrimi-
nation, but, moreover, the concern to correct unjust discrimination that is obscured
by white privilege. These anti-racist white people are concerned with arresting
hidden types of discrimination by renouncing their white privilege. The New
Abolitionists are demanding that white people become aware of their white privilege
and disown it.
The educational implications of both of the New Abolitionists’ recommenda-
tions, the call for white people to embrace black identity and the demand that white
people renounce their white privilege, are problematic. It is the height of white
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310 White, Anti-racist Identity

arrogance to assume that white identity can be denied at will and that black identity
can be appropriated. The New Abolitionists exalt a group of white Indiana high
school girls who refer to themselves as the “Free to Be Me” club and attempt to
appropriate black identity. These girls were ridiculed and harassed by the white
community in which they lived. Yet in their glorification of this group, the New
Abolitionist completely ignore the reality that no matter how much these girls
suffered they did not forgo all of their white privilege. Whatever hardships these
girls endured, their suffering could not be compared to that which the black people
in their community experienced as a consequence of what the girls did. Moreover,
recognition of the fact that white people cannot totally renounce their privilege
illuminates the problematic nature of the New Abolitionists’ second recommenda-
tion — that white people renounce their privilege. Can white people renounce the
privilege that is conferred upon them by virtue of their membership in the dominant
group?
This insistence on the rejection of white privilege, however, is one of the
strengths of the New Abolitionists’ argument. We argue that the serious flaw in their
approach is the failure to explicate what this rejection can mean. Because the New
Abolitionists perceive whiteness and white identity as synonymous they cannot
appreciate the complex relationship between the two nor can they recognize the
notion of choice that is possible regarding white identity. Consequently, they are
unable to propose realistic and constructive ways of renouncing the unearned
privilege that they claim is necessary for the eradication of whiteness. Through
conceptual analysis, however, we can glean an important insight from the New
Abolitionists’ approach — the performative aspect of white identity. This insight
can also facilitate a more realistic understanding of what it means to renounce white
privilege.
WHITENESS AND WHITE IDENTITY
Underlying the Deconstructionists’ claims is the assumption that white people
can choose to renounce their identity. However, if race is socially constructed and
mediates every part of our lives as many race scholars have illustrated, to what extent
can individuals really change who they are? Indeed, many questions arise about the
nature and malleability of identity once attention is paid to the issue of agency. For
example, is the call for the destruction of white identity tantamount to a call to the
destruction of self-identity? Can white people genuinely renounce their white
identity simply by deciding to become black or is this just another manifestation of
audacious white privilege? Can white people choose to abandon their white identity
by forgoing their white privilege when their white appearance sustains that privilege
whether they want it to or not? And what effect would renouncing white identity, on
an individual level, actually have on eradicating whiteness, at the systemic level?
In their claim that white hegemony will be dismantled only if white people make
a choice to deny their whiteness, Deconstructionists blur the conceptual distinction
between “whiteness” as a system of dominance and white identity. This conceptual
confusion obscures the complex relationship between dominance and personal
identity, and obfuscates the type of agency that can be linked with white racial
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 Barbara Applebaum and Erin Stoik 311

identity. While these two concepts — whiteness and white identity — do not operate
independently from one another, conceptually separating them so that the connec-
tions between them can be illuminated is important.
In his attempt to unpack and remap the content of whiteness, Nelson Rodriguez
explains how whiteness has often been viewed only as a feature of identity politics,
as a facet of individuality on par with ethnicity or skin color.11 This has had
deleterious effects in helping to keep the “regulatory ideal” of whiteness hidden.
Whiteness, Rodriguez emphasizes, must be understood not only as an identity but
also as a “normalizing system”, that is, as a social and structural vehicle for the
production and perpetuation of oppressive standards and norms.12 If whiteness is a
social-political system of dominance, what is its relationship to white identity and
how is this normalizing mechanism sustained?
As a system of dominance, white hegemony is ubiquitous, implicit in all
avenues of semiotic production in our society. But the system can only be upheld and
perpetuated by the performances of the people who are a part of it. Both the
subordinated and the dominant have roles to play in keeping the system running
smoothly. Systems of domination require “everyone’s daily collaboration.”13 Con-
sequently, systems of domination will only be dismantled if the identities that
sustain them are renounced and if the practices that support them are disrupted.
Renouncing identities, however, is a complicated issue because who we racially are
is not something that is always under our control. What does it mean that our racial
identity is not entirely under our control?
Distinguishing between personal and ascribed identity draws our attention to
the messy intricacies of agency that can be connected to racial identity. This
distinction also facilitates our understanding of the relationship between whiteness
and white identity and draws our attention to the performative aspect of the latter.
WHITE IDENTITY — PERSONAL IDENTITY AND ASCRIBED IDENTITY14
When I (Barbara) first decided to stop smoking, I was told that I had to learn to
see myself as a “non-smoker.” In fact, although I tried many times to stop smoking,
it was not until I made that paradigm shift in my mind that “I am not a smoker” that
I successfully stopped smoking. In Memoir of a Race Traitor, Mab Segrest discusses
her allegiance to people of color and her disallegiance to her own race. As she begins
to feel more uneasy around whites in the South she reflects, “Maybe whiteness was
more about consciousness than color?”15
But is white identity just a frame of mind? Is white identity just a matter of
personal identity — an issue of who we think we are? In his discussion of gender and
race as sources of identity, Anthony Appiah distinguishes between ethical and
metaphysical identity.16 Appiah argues that we must think of social categories such
as race and gender as both sources of our self-identity (what he refers to as ethical
identity and that we refer to as personal identity) and as categories by which others
classify us (what he refers to as metaphysical identity and that we refer to as ascribed
identity). While there is a sense in which we can all clearly choose our ethical
identities, who has choice regarding metaphysical identity and what this choice
means is a much more messy issue.
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312 White, Anti-racist Identity

To illustrate this messiness, my close friend is biracial and has light-skin and
“white” features. She announces to the world that she sees herself as a black person,
but the world shouts back denying her blackness and imposing whiteness upon her.
In terms of ascribed identity (her metaphysical identity), she is racially white, even
though her personal racial identity is not. However, this is to oversimplify ascribed
white identity because it takes more than white skin to make a person “white.” As
a white, middle-class Jewish woman, I know from my ancestors that, regardless of
their light-skin, Ashkanazi or European Jews in North America were not always
considered “white.” Yet, I know that today I obtain privileges that others are unjustly
denied because I am considered “white.” When did Jews “become white” and who
bestowed this status upon them? Similarly, Noel Ignatiev argues that having fair skin
was necessary but not sufficient to make the Irish eligible to be “white.”17 They had
to earn their status as “white.”
The New Abolitionists recognize the power of ascribed racial identity —
especially as pertaining to white racial identity. They recognize that white privilege
is not simply a matter of who we think we are, or what skin color we have, but, more
importantly, how we appear to act. Christine Sleeter’s notion of “white racial
bonding” is fundamental to understanding the New Abolitionists’ position. “White
racial bonding,” according to Sleeter, involves the processes by which whites
maintain racial solidarity. White racial bonding is formed through the implicit
communicative actions and behavior of white people and takes many forms, among
which are race-related “asides” in conversations, strategic eye contact, and jokes. As
she puts it, “Often these communications are so short and subtle that they may seem
relatively harmless.”18 The notion of “white racial bonding” draws our attention to
the solidarity that is created by implicit but expected “white” action and behavior.
Acting as expected secures racial bonding.
When the New Abolitionists call for white people to provoke mass confusion
among white people over who is white, this is not some trivial and ridiculous
demand. In this recommendation, the New Abolitionists underscore that white
privilege is not only dependent on skin color but also a matter of how white people
act to each other. Yet, because the New Abolitionists conflate whiteness and white
identity, and thus, because they do not keep our personal and ascribed identity
distinct, they often confuse the choice different people have regarding their racial
identity. Consequently, they are led to pronouncements whose educational implica-
tions are unrealistic or counterproductive.
Only by distinguishing between whiteness and white identity, and, furthermore,
between white personal identity and white ascribed identity can the more performative
aspects of racial identity (what white people actually have control over and what they
can change) be illuminated. The performative aspect of white identity can also help
us better appreciate what renouncing white identity can mean.
RENOUNCING RACE PRIVILEGE — THE PERFORMATIVE ASPECT OF WHITE IDENTITY
To this point, we have argued that the Deconstructionist claim that the
renouncement of white identity entails renouncing white privilege is insufficient

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 Barbara Applebaum and Erin Stoik 313

because it leaves several important questions unanswered. Should all white privi-
lege be renounced? What exactly does it mean to renounce white privilege? Peggy
McIntosh maintains that while some white privilege needs to be eliminated because
it reinforces hegemony, some privilege that white people enjoy should just be
extended to all.19 In a related point, by focusing on the performative aspect of white
identity, Alison Bailey offers us a way to understand both how white privilege
sustains oppression and discrimination and what renouncing white privilege can
mean.20
Offering a significant concept, a “race traitor,” according to Bailey, is someone
who belongs to the dominant group yet resists the usual assumptions and practices
of that group. Borrowing from Ruth Frankenberg, Bailey distinguishes between
“privilege-cognizant” and “privilege-evasive” white scripts.21 While the former
involves white ways of acting that acknowledge white privilege, the latter involves
white ways of acting that sustain a blindness to the advantages incurred by enacting
them. Using these concepts, “race traitors” are “privilege-cognizant white people
who refuse to animate the scripts whites are expected to perform, and who are
unfaithful to the worldview whites are expected to hold.”22 In contrast, race traitors,
according to Bailey, are not white people who lose their privilege in the sense of
becoming marginalized themselves. Rather, “race traitors” are dominant group
members who change their way of seeing the world because they are critically
reflective about their privilege and take responsibility for it.
From Bailey, the case of Anne and Carl Braden illustrates this point. When
black families were continually being refused homes in all white neighborhoods, the
Bradens, a white couple who wanted to do something about this injustice, bought a
home in an all white neighborhood for the sole purpose of deeding it to Charlotte and
Andrew Wade, a black couple. While she applauds their action, Bailey points out
that although the Bradens lost some of their privileges as a consequence of their
action (and in that sense became marginal), they never completely lost their white
privilege (and in that sense could never be marginal like the Wades were). Thus,
“race traitors” are not white people who become “non-white,” because they cannot
become “non-white.” They cannot because their identity “as white” is only partially
self-determined. White identity, as not only a personal identity but also an ascribed
one, is also dependent on other whites. An individual is white when one feels and
acts white but also when society confirms that the individual is white. Thus, race
traitors become marginal, Bailey argues, not in the sense of their social location but
rather in the sense of how they perceive the world. They make an epistemic shift.
“Race traitors” are dominant group members who acknowledge their dominance
and privilege and try to do something about it. Traitorous identities, Bailey writes,
“(d)estabilize their insider status by challenging and resisting the usual assumptions
held by most white people (such as the belief that white privilege is earned,
inevitable, or natural).”23
Educationally, it is important to emphasize to our white students that it is
insufficient to understand racism from an individual perspective. Racism involves
a social-political system of dominance — it is all over, in the air we breathe — and
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314 White, Anti-racist Identity

is upheld and perpetuated by the performances of the people who are a part of it.
These performances are best understood in terms of scripts that we learn at a very
early age — in school, in our families, through the media. Although, racial scripts
are so deeply ingrained in us that they are often hard to recognize, a white person can
develop a critically reflective consciousness and refuse to perform the white script
one has learned.
I (Barbara) remember entering a crowded subway train in Toronto. There were
two seats available — one was next to a young, Black youth. My initial reaction,
without thought, was not to sit next to the young black man. But immediately I
caught myself. Another script in my mind asked me “why do you do that?”
Furthermore, I wondered what message I might convey to the young, Black youth
by not sitting next to him. So I made it a point to sit down next to him. But that I have
to make it a point, to me, is indicative of my deeper socialization. While I can become
aware of and can refuse to perform the white scripts that I have learned, I have to be
continually vigilant because there are scripts that I do not see but that I act upon
without being aware of them.
The performative aspect of white identity, however, also helps us understand
what it means to renounce white privilege by underscoring that it is not enough only
to not act as expected but it is also important to take positive steps to rectify an
injustice. The limitations of this essay require us to be brief. But to return to the
Braden case, the Bradens did not remain silent but risked some of their privilege in
their action against social injustice. Because they acknowledged their privilege, they
were able to see the discrimination that is usually hidden by white privilege. While
they did not entirely renounce their privilege, in one sense it is clear that they used
their privilege in ways not conventionally intended. Moreover, the Bradens shared
their privilege by affording the Wades the respect that is usually an unearned benefit
of being a member of the dominant group. They not only sold the Wades a house,
they listened to the Wade’s experiences, did not discount or dismiss them, and they
responded to their situation by taking their needs and concerns seriously.
It is our contention that such traitorous identities as Bailey describes are
redefining white scripts in privilege-cognizant ways. And we need more traitorous
white identities!!! If enough white people are educated to be privilege-cognizant,
whiteness and its concomitant oppression will more likely be challenged and will
lose support. If more white people become privilege-cognizant, redlining would not
be tolerated and profiling by the police would not have to be endured by people of
color before it became a valid injustice requiring attention. If enough white people
become privilege-cognizant, the degrading and aggravating experiences that people
of color (and other subordinated social groups) endure daily would be taken
seriously. The development of positive, white, anti-racist identities, we conclude,
plays a crucial role in the success of any social justice education initiative.
CONCLUSION
In this essay, we have attempted to show that when whiteness as a system of
dominance is theoretically separated from whiteness as white identity, important
questions about agency and racial identity are clarified and the constructive
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 Barbara Applebaum and Erin Stoik 315

educational insights offered by the Deconstructionists become known. Only when

whiteness and white identity are clearly distinguished so that the complex relation-
ship between them is exposed can we appreciate what white, anti-racists can do and
the role that a positive white identity plays in overthrowing white hegemony.
Moreover, these distinctions not only delineate what a positive, anti-racist identity
might look like but also powerfully explicate why such an identity is fundamental
to the success of any anti-racist, anti-bias educational initiative.
Educators committed to social justice must not only help raise their students’
awareness of dominance, they must also help their white students understand what
they can choose to do about it. In refusing to animate privilege-evasive white scripts,
anti-racist white people are not only renouncing their white privilege but also
choosing to invent privilege-cognizant white scripts.
Yet as educators, we must not let our concern with our white students eclipse
the needs and interests of our non-white students. Regarding the field of white
studies, Maulana Karenga cautions white people to be open and reflective about its
intent, methodology and effect.24 Similarly, social justice educators must make
certain that the focus on white identity does not make other voices peripheral or
overshadow the political, economic and cultural suffering of non-white people and
the ways in which their freedom and dignity are constrained by dominance. To make
white people the center of attention for even well-intended reasons is to reaffirm the
importance of white people and to reinscribe white hegemony.
Given these qualifications, the importance of reconstructing white identity
must not be underestimated. To teach our students how to avoid enacting privilege-
evasive white scripts is only a first, albeit significant, move that anti-racist educators
must encourage. Reconstructing a positive, anti-racist white identity that actively
struggles against injustice is also important. Even as we work together towards the
aim of dismantling whiteness, this will take a long time. It is mistaken to think that
by destroying white identity we will bring about the destruction of whiteness. On the
contrary, only when whiteness is destroyed will white identity lose its meaning.
Until that day, those of us who are white must always remember that we remain white
although we can be white and yet committed to the obliteration of whiteness.

1. Peter McLaren, “Unthinking Whiteness, Rethinking Democracy: Or Farewell to the Blond Beast;
Towards a Revolutionary Multiculturalism,” Educational Foundations 11, no. 12 (1997): 5-39.
2. Henry Giroux, “Rewriting the Discourse of Racial Identity: Towards a Pedagogy and Politics of
Whiteness,” Harvard Educational Review 67, no. 20 (1997).
3. Noel Ignatiev, “Extract of The New Abolitionists,” Transition 73 (1998): 199.
4. Ibid.
5. McLaren, “Unthinking Whiteness,” 32.
6. Ibid., 29.

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316 White, Anti-racist Identity

7. The classmate might argue that he is not making a conceptual claim but rather an empirical one. From
the perspective of a person of color who has been marginalized by white people, it is empirically true
that white identity is harmful. Moreover, the classmate might add that this empirical claim about the
harmful consequences of white identity is not just referring to neo-conservatives who have been
appropriating white identity but do not acknowledge the power and privilege of whiteness. Marginalization
is a consequence of even well-intentioned white identity. To this we reply that we do not deny that it is
an empirical fact that white identity as it is currently enacted is harmful in both explicit and implicit
ways. Yet we argue that white people can work to change such empirical consequences. Because this
individual is arguing that white identity cannot be changed, that it must be renounced, we see this as a
conceptual, rather than empirical, claim.
8. Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey, eds., Race Traitor (New York: Routledge, 1996), 115.
9. McLaren, “Unthinking Whiteness,” 30.
10. James Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (New York: Orbis Books, 1986), 97 as cited in
McLaren, “Unthinking Whiteness,” 31. McLaren is not implying that white people put on blackface and
feign blackness. Rather McLaren’s notion of renouncing white identity is a demand to politically
disidentify with white privilege and to identify with non-white social struggles. Employing phrases like
“becoming black” and “choosing blackness or brownness,” however, may mislead his readers.
11. Nelson Rodriguez, “Emptying the Content of Whiteness: Toward an Understanding of the Relation
between Whiteness and Pedagogy,” in White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America, ed. J.L.
Kincheloe, S.R. Steinberg, N.M. Rodriguez, and R.E. Chennault, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998),
31-62.
12. Ibid., 32.
13. Alison Bailey, “Locating Traitorous Identities: Toward a View of Privilege — Cognizant White
Character,” Hypatia 13, no. 3 (1998): 33.
14. It is important to emphasize that we are not implying an essentialistic understanding of racial
identity, nor are we reifying race. We recognize that whiteness, in general, and white identity, in
particular, are always changing and in flux. The power of whiteness and white identity is always affected
by its intersection with other axes of difference such as gender, class, and sexual orientation.
Nevertheless, race is a facet of everyday existence and it is in this sense that we maintain race discourse
cannot be ignored. To do away with race, we believe that it is necessary to go through race.
15. Mab Segrest, Memoir of a Race Traitor (Boston: South End Press, 1994), 80.
16. Anthony Appiah, “‘But Would That Still Be Me?’ Notes on Gender, Race, Ethnicity, as Sources of
‘Identity,’” Journal of Philosophy 87, no. 10 (1990): 493-99.
17. Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Routledge, 1995).
18. Christine Sleeter, “White Racism,” Multicultural Education 1, no. 4 (1994): 8.
19. Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Independent School
(Winter 1990): 31-36; also see interview with Richard Delgado in “The Study of Whiteness,” Roberto
Rodriguez, Black Issues in Higher Education (13 May 1999): 23.
20. Bailey, “Locating Traitorous Identities,” 27-42.
21. Ruth Frankenberg, White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness (Minneapo-
lis: University of Minnesota Press,1993).
22. Bailey, “Locating Traitorous Identities,” 28.
23. Ibid., 32.
24. Maulana Karenga, “Whiteness Studies: Deceptive or Welcome Discourse?” Black Issues in Higher
Education (13 May 1999): 26-27.

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