Rhetoric of Whiteness: The Critical Theories of Whiteness

• In Event: Investigations into the Construction and Deployment of Race, Gender, and Sex in Civic Culture

Abstract

Against researchers' grappling with the task of defining whiteness, a foremost assumption encompassed by recent whiteness studies manifests itself invisibility of the operations and nonessentialsim of its identity. With this concern in mind, this paper explores two main theories of whiteness, arguing that the reconstruction of whiteness is necessary to build whites' own racial identity; thus, the consciousness of white supremacy should be the primary concern prior to a racial system reform regarding social justice.

Author

• Kim McCann, Bowling Green State Univ