Toward a Discipline Specific Bibliography of Critical Whiteness Studies

Personal Narratives of Whiteness

Audrey Thompson

 

The literature on whiteness includes many personal reflections and interviews in which authors or speakers confront their privilege and their complicity in oppression. Some of these works are memoirs or autobiographies, some offer case studies or interviews, some theorize stages of racial development, and others provide analyses and critiques of the narratives and theories in which whiteness is framed.

I have included a wide range of works in which writers and speakers either evade or seek to take personal responsibility for the ways in which their lives and practices are structured by white privilege and dominance. I have also included commentaries on these works. Among the contributions of these works are the particular insights offered and the antiracist strategies described, authors’ descriptions or enactments of strategies to evade accountability, juxtapositions of white, brown, and black voices and experiences, the ways in which an author’s writerly voice engages readers, the challenges offered to dominant images and narratives, and the frameworks used to recast racial narratives. This is only a very partial list of the narrative literature on whiteness, and I would be delighted to be notified of other work that should be added to the list.

 

Aal, William. “Moving from Guilt to Action: Antiracist Organizing and the Concept of ‘Whiteness’ for Activism and the Academy.” In The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray, 294–310. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001.

Allison, Clinton B. “Okie Narratives: Agency and Whiteness.” In White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America, edited by Joe L. Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg, Nelson M. Rodriguez, and Ronald E. Chennault, 229–240. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Bailey, Alison. “Despising an Identity They Taught Me to Claim: Exploring a Dilemma of White Privilege Awareness.” In Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Narratives, edited by Chris J. Cuomo and Kim Q. Hall, 85–104. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

————. “Locating Traitorous Identities: Toward a View of Privilege-Cognizant White Character.” Hypatia 13 (1998): 27–42. Reprinted as: Bailey, Alison. “Locating Traitorous Identities: Toward a View of Privilege-Cognizant White Character.” In Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World, edited by Uma Narayan and Sandra Harding, 283–298. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Baldwin, James. “Everybody’s Protest Novel.” In The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948–1985, 27–33. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985.

————. “Stranger in the Village.” In The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948–1985, 79–90. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985.

Bennett, Lerone, Jr. “Lincoln and the Liberal Tradition.” In The Challenge of Blackness, 156–75. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., Inc., 1972.

Bergman, Justin. “Fortunate Son.” [Review of White like Me, by Tim Wise.] The Salt Lake Tribune (March 20, 2005): D5. [Associated Press]

Berlak, Ann, and Sekani Moyenda. Taking It Personally: Racism in the Classroom from Kindergarten to College. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Blee, Kathleen M. “White on White: Interviewing Women in U.S. White Supremacist Groups.” In Racing Research, Researching Race: Methodological Dilemmas in Critical Race Studies, edited by France Winddance Twine and Jonathan W. Warren, 93–109. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Brown, Cynthia Stokes. Refusing Racism: White Allies and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002.

Bulkin, Elly, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, eds. Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism. New York: Long Haul Press, 1984.

Carter, Robert T. “White Racial Identity.” In The Influence of Race and Racial Identity in Psychotherapy, 100–114. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995.

Carter, Sarah. Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada’s Prairie West. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.

Clark, Christine, and James O’Donnell, eds. Becoming and Unbecoming White: Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity. Westport, Conn.: Begin & Garvey, 1999.

Cochran-Smith, Marilyn. “Blind Vision: Unlearning Racism in Teacher Education.” Harvard Educational Review 70, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 157–290.

————. “Uncertain Allies: Understanding the Boundaries of Race and Teaching.” Harvard Educational Review 65, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 541–570.

Conley, Dalton. Honky. New York: Vintage, 2000.

————. “Universal Freckle, or How I Learned to Be White.” In The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray, 25–42. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001.

Cuomo, Chris J., and Kim Q. Hall, eds. Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Narratives. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

Davion, Victoria. “Reflections on the Meaning of White [Response to Frye].” In Overcoming Racism and Sexism, edited by Linda A. Bell and David Blumenfeld, 135–139. Lanham, Md.: Roman & Littlefield, 1995.

Derman-Sparks, Louise, and Carol Brunson Phillips. Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997.

Dolan, Kevin. “Lessons from Jasper: How a White Father’s Unimaginable Imaginary Conversations with His Black Daughter Shine a Light on Whiteness.” Studies in Symbolic Interaction. Vol. 28. Edited by Norman K. Denzin. 121-126. Oxford: Elsevier, 2005.

Edgington, Amy. “Growing Up in Little Rock.” In Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Narratives, edited by Chris J. Cuomo and Kim Q. Hall, 37–44. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

Ellis, Carolyn. “The Other Side of the Fence: Seeing Black and White in a Small Southern Town.” Qualitative Inquiry 1, no. 2 (1995): 147–167.

Ellsworth, Elizabeth. “Double Binds of Whiteness.” In Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society, edited by Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, Linda C. Powell, and L. Mun Wong, 259–269. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Feagin, Joe, and Eileen O’Brien. White Men on Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural Consciousness. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003.

Fears, Darryl. “Limited Passport.” [Book review of White Boy: A Memoir, by Mark D. Naison.] The Crisis 109, no. 5 (September/October 2002): 48.

Fosl, Catherine. Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2002.

Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

————. “‘When We Are Capable of Stopping, We Begin to See’: Being White, Seeing Whiteness.” In Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity, ed. Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi, 2–17. New York: Routledge, 1996.

————. “Whiteness and Americanness: Examining Constructions of Race, Culture, and Nation in White Women’s Life Narratives.” In Race, edited by Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjek, 62–77. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994.

Frye, Marilyn. “On Being White: Toward a Feminist Understanding of Race and Race Supremacy.” In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, 110–127. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1983.

————. “White Woman Feminist.” In Willful Virgin: Essays in Feminism, 1976–1992, 147–169. Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press, 1992), Also: Frye, Marilyn. “White Woman Feminist.” In Overcoming Racism and Sexism, edited by Linda A. Bell and David Blumenfeld, 113–134. Lanham, Md.: Roman & Littlefield, 1995.

Fuller, Laurie. “‘Whitie’ and ‘Dyke’: Constructions of Identities in the Classroom.” In Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Narratives, edited by Chris J. Cuomo and Kim Q. Hall, 63–74. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

Gurnah, Ahmed. “The Politics of Racism Awareness Training.” Critical Social Policy 11 (1984): 6–20.

Gwaltney, John Langston. Drylongso: A Self-Portrait of Black America (New York: Vintage, 1980.

Hall, Kim. “Learning to Touch Honestly: A White Lesbian’s Struggle with Racism.” In Lesbian Philosophies and Cultures, edited by Jeffner Allen, 317–326. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.

Harper, Helen. “When the Big Snow Melts: White Women Teaching in Canada’s North.” In Working through Whiteness: International Perspectives, edited by Cynthia Levine-Rasky, 269–288. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

Harrington, Walt. Crossings: A White Man’s Journey into Black America. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

Helms, Janet E. A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life. Topeka, KS: Content Communications, 1992.

————, ed. Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research, and Practice. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990.

————. “I Also Said, ‘White Racial Identity Influences White Researchers’.” The Counseling Psychologist 21 (April 1993): 240–243.

————. “Racial Identity and `Racial’ Constructs.” In Human Diversity: Perspectives on People in Context, edited by Edison J. Trickett, Roderick J. Watts, and Dina Birman, 285–311. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

————. “Toward a Model of White Racial Identity Development.” In Black and White Racial Identity: Theory, Research, and Practice, edited by Janet E. Helms, 49–66. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990.

————. “An Update of Helms’s White and People of Color Racial Identity Models.” In Handbook of Multicultural Counseling, edited by Joseph G. Ponterotto, J. Manuel Casas, Lisa A. Suzuki, and Charlene M. Alexander, 181–198. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995.

Hobson, Fred. But Now I See: The White Southern Racial Conversion Narrative. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999.

Jenkins, McKay. “Metaphors of Race and Psychological Damage in the 1940s American South: The Writings of Lillian Smith.” In Racing and (E)Racing Language: Living with the Color of Our Words, edited by Ellen J. Goldner and Safiya Henderson-Holmes, 99–123. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2001.

Jensen, Robert. The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege. San Francisco, CA: City Lights. 2005.

Jones, Katharine W. Accent on Privilege: English Identities and Anglophilia in the U.S. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Kohl, Herbert. “The Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Revisited.” In Should We Burn Babar? Essays on Children’s Literature and the Power of Stories, 30–56. New York: The New Press, 1995.

Landsman, Julie. A White Teacher Talks about Race. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001.

Lawrence, Sandra M., and Beverly Daniel Tatum. “Teachers in Transition: The Impact of Antiracist Professional Development on Classroom Practice.” Teachers College Record 99 (1997): 162–178.

Lawrence, Sandra M., and Beverly Daniel Tatum. “White Teachers as Allies: Moving from Awareness to Action.” In Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society, edited by Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, Linda C. Powell, and L. Mun Wong, 333–342. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Lazarre, Jane. Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness: Memoir of a White Mother of Black Sons. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996.

MacDonald, Michael Patrick. All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Martin, Biddy, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. “Feminist Politics: What’s Home Got to Do with It?” In Feminist Studies, Critical Studies, edited by Teresa de Lauretis, 191–212. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

McIntyre, Alice. Making Meaning of Whiteness: Exploring Racial Identity with White Teachers. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

McIntyre, Alice. “Exploring Whiteness and Multicultural Education with Prospective Teachers.” Curriculum Inquiry 32, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 31–49.

McLaurin, Melton A. Separate Pasts: Growing up White in the Segregated South. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987.

Moon, Dreama. “Racial Redemption and the White Southern Racial Conversion Narrative.” The Review of Communication 1 (2001): 97–102. [review of Fred Hobson, But Now I See] http://www.natcom.org/ROC/one-one/moon.htm

Moon, Dreama. “White Enculturation and Bourgeois Ideology: The Discursive Production of ‘Good (White) Girls’.” In Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity, edited by Thomas K. Nakayama and Judith N. Martin, 177–197. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Pub., 1999.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. New York: Vintage: Random House, 1992.

O’Brien, Eileen. Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and Their Paths to Action. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.

O’Brien, Eileen. “The Political Is Personal: The Influence of White Supremacy on White Antiracists’ Personal Relationships.” In White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism, edited by Ashley W. Doane and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, 253–267. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Paley, Vivian Gussin. White Teacher. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

Perreault, Jeanne. “White Feminist Guilt, Abject Scripts, and (Other) Transformative Necessities.” West Coast Line 28 (Spring/Fall 1994): 226–238. [Colour: An Issue, special double issue, ed. Roy Miki and Fred Wah]

Perry, Pamela. Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identities in High School. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002.

Pratt, Minnie Bruce. “Identity: Skin Blood Heart.” In Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, by Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith, 11–63. New York: Long Haul Press, 1984. Also: Pratt, Minnie Bruce. “Identity: Skin Blood Heart.” In Rebellion: Essays 1980–1991, 27–81. Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand Books, 1991.

Proweller, Amira. “Shifting Identities in Private Education: Reconstructing Race at/in the Cultural Center.” Teachers College Record 100 (1999): 776–808.

Razack, Sherene H. Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

Rose, Lillian Roybal. “White Identity and Counseling White Allies about Racism.” In Impacts of Racism on White Americans, 2nd ed., edited by Benjamin P. Bowser and Raymond G. Hunt, 24–47. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Pub., 1996.

Rothenberg, Paula. Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class, and Gender. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Rothschild, Mary Aickin. “White Women Volunteers in the Freedom Summers: Their Life and Work in a Movement for Social Change.” Feminist Studies 5, no. 3 (1979): 466–495.

Sandell, Jillian. “Telling Stories of ‘Queer White Trash’: Race, Class, and Sexuality in the Work of Dorothy Allison.” In White Trash: Race and Class in America, edited by Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz, 211–230. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Sartwell, Crispin. Act Like You Know: African-American Autobiography and White Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Segrest, Mab. “The Souls of White Folks.” In The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray, 43–71. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001.

————. Memoir of a Race Traitor. Boston: South End Press, 1994.

Singley, Bernestine, ed. When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2002.

Smith, Lillian. Killers of the Dream. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1949. Also: Smith, Lillian. Killers of the Dream. Rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1961.

Smith, Ruth. White Man’s Burden: A Personal Testament. New York: The Vanguard Press, 1946.

Stalvey, Lois Mark. The Education of a WASP. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1970.

Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about Race. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Also: Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about Race. Rev. ed. With a new introduction. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

————. “Talking about Race, Learning about Racism: The Application of Racial Identity Development Theory in the Classroom.” Harvard Educational Review 62 (1992): 1–24.

————. “Teaching White Students about Racism: The Search for White Allies and the Restoration of Hope.” Teachers College Record 95 (1994): 462–476.

Thompson, Audrey. “Tiffany, Friend of People of Color: White Investments in Antiracism.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 16 (2003): 7–29.

Thompson, Becky. Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

————. A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

————. “Time Traveling and Border Crossing: Reflections on White Identity.” In Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity, edited by Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi, 92–109. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Thompson, Becky, and Sangeeta Tyagi, eds. Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Thompson, Cooper, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod. White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003.

Twine, France Winddance. “Brown-Skinned White Girls: Class, Culture, and the Construction of White Identity in Suburban Communities.” In Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism, edited by Ruth Frankenberg, 214–243. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997. Originally: Twine, France Winddance. “Brown-Skinned Girls, White Girls: Class, Culture, and the Construction of White Identity in Suburban Communities.” Gender, Place, and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 3 (1996): 205–224.

Ward, Kathryn B. “ ‘Lifting as We Climb’: How Scholarship by and about Women of Color Has Shaped My Life as a White Feminist.” In Color, Class and Country: Experiences of Gender, edited by Gay Young and Bette J. Dickerson, 199–217. London: Zed Books, 1994.

Wellman, David T. Portraits of White Racism. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Wise, Tim. White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2005.

Wolff, Robert Paul. Autobiography of an Ex-White Man: Learning a New Master Narrative for America. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2005.

Wray, Matt, and Annalee Newitz, eds. White Trash: Race and Class in America. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Wynter, Leon E. “Considering Race: White Men Talk about the Color Line.” [Book review of White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories, by Cooper Thompson, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod, and White Men on Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural Consciousness, by Joe Feagin and Eileen O’Brien.] The Crisis 110, no. 5 (September/October 2003): 54–55.