We Are Not Social Justice Equals: The Need for White Scholars to Understand Their Whiteness

• In Event: 66.052 - The Significance of Qualitative Studies on the Sociocultural and Sociopolitical Contexts of Education to Inform Policy

Abstract

This study presents White social justice archetypes identified applying extended case study methods over 6 years at two Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in the USA. This research is in response to a growing number of White scholars, entering the field of CRT, identifying as
‘Crit’ social justice scholars without using CRT as a lens to interrogate their role in perpetuating
White Supremacist ‘racial ideology in the composition and culture of American Institutions [i.e.
Higher Education]’).

Research adhered to an ontology of racial realism, applying a CWS epistemology and utilizing a
CRT lens. White social justice archetypes are presented that contribute to racial taxation, in an effort to make visible the trauma we [White scholars] inflict on our colleagues of Color in Higher
Education. Primary data collection was conducted during public departmental and program meetings, supported by meeting minutes and the documentation of counter White-hegemonic narratives through critical incident journaling. Data was collected over a period of 6 years resulting in the use of 60 critical incident entries. White scholar social justice archetypes were interpreted applying CWS and CRT to conversational and metaphor analysis using Witnessing-
Interpreting- Knowing protocols. Critical Incident Journal entries are numbered [not dated] and pseudonyms are used to mask identities. Thinking about race becomes a highly charged emotional experience resulting in resistance, misunderstanding, rage and/or feelings of inefficacy. Therefore, interpreting transcripts demanded CWS tools to guide this process. White
Talk, Safe White Words and In-group Messaging were applied during this process.

Archetypes are not intended to be viewed as a single identity enacted by an individual or group, but as multiple identities one takes on depending on their social and professional circumstances.
This means at any given time White scholars could enact multiple archetypes although in this study they typically moved within three archetype ideologies, which emerged, (1) equal agency,
(2) ignorance as bliss and (3) it’s not real. Each ideology deployed helping pedagogies supported and reproduced through the acts of ignorance that permeated institutes of higher education to rationalize their professional interactions during departmental and program meetings with scholars of Color. These pedagogies offered White scholars an objectified White ‘helping’ identity, which they viewed as saving them from being racist.

White Scholars hold potential to be antiracist allies, if cognizant and vigilant in ongoing interrogation and rejection of both hegemony [privilege and power] and Supremacy [domination and oppression] leading to an antiracist ally archetype and culture of equity. This interrogation not only demands a focus on current conditions but historic conditions as well. An antiracist
White ally must first be a student of histography, to unlearn a White history that has molded their being and is consistently reproducing White supremacy masked as alternative ‘facts’ and
Whitewashed interpretations of primary documents promoting helping rather than empowerment pedagogies. This distinction separates theoretical allies from real allies. The White social justice archetypes documented and discussed here inform CWS strategies scholars can model for undergraduate and graduate students, colleagues and IHE administrations towards social justice transformation projects.

Author

• Mary E. Earick, Plymouth StateUniversity