how white college students protect whiteness ...

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Whitened rainbows: how white college students protect whiteness through diversity discourses a

Annie Hikido & Susan B. Murray

b

a

Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA b

Department of Sociology, San José State University, California, USA Published online: 27 Mar 2015.

Click for updates To cite this article: Annie Hikido & Susan B. Murray (2015): Whitened rainbows: how white college students protect whiteness through diversity discourses, Race Ethnicity and Education, DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2015.1025736 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2015.1025736

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Race Ethnicity and Education, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2015.1025736

Whitened rainbows: how white college students protect whiteness through diversity discourses Annie Hikidoa* and Susan B. Murrayb a

Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA; Department of Sociology, San José State University, California, USA


b

This qualitative study investigates white students’ attitudes toward campus diversity at a large, multiracial public university. Drawing upon focus group data gathered from a larger campus climate study, we identified four themes: participants voiced that: (1) racial diversity fosters campus tolerance; (2) diversity fragments into de facto racial segregation; (3) institutional support of diversity undermines and excludes whites; and (4) the university should avoid acknowledging white identity. Employing critical multiculturalism as a theoretical lens, we argue that these discourses maintain white dominance within a framework that promotes inclusion. These findings suggest that without more direct institutional guidance, white students will protect white supremacy even as they celebrate diversity in multiracial spaces. Keywords: whiteness; white students; diversity; critical multiculturalism; higher education

Introduction As the racial composition of the US diversifies and access to secondary education for minority groups improves, more universities enroll an increasingly racially diverse student population. Numerous scholars have documented the experiences of students of color as they navigate predominantly white universities, noting the challenges they face as members of under-represented groups (e.g. Feagin, Vera, and Imani 1996; Hurtado, Carter, and Spuler 1996; Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso 2000). The other side of this trend that remains relatively unexplored concerns the experiences and attitudes of white students as they observe students of color entering traditionally white territories. Because whites occupy a racially dominant position and most colleges operate as historically white spaces, white attitudes merit critical attention in the effort to include students of color. Schools where whites constitute a numerical minority, or ‘minority–majority schools,’ are of particular interest and importance. As crucial sites for personal development, they play an *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] © 2015 Taylor & Francis


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A. Hikido and S.B. Murray

important role in establishing behavioral norms, and thus dictate and foreshadow students’ interactions in other steadily diversifying institutions (Pascarella and Terenzini 2005). The diversity ideals that these campuses often promulgate in order to ensure inclusiveness generate further interest. Once a rarely mentioned feature, the positively charged catchword ‘diversity’ now peppers countless college marketing materials and mission statements (Aleman and Salkevar 2001; Osei-Kofi, Torres, and Lui 2013). Campuses highlight their multicultural centers and ethnic organizations, attest their commitment to students of all backgrounds and identities, and often establish a ‘diversity’ course requirement. Thus, students encounter an organic, compositional diversity accompanied by a commoditized and institutionally sanctioned diversity ideal. This study investigates the attitudes of white students on a multiracial campus where diversity is experienced both as a demographic feature and an idealized model. How do white students interpret and approach racial diversity? How do they apprehend the racial dynamics of a multiracial campus where ‘diversity’ is a prominent and defining theme? Using critical multiculturalism as a theoretical lens, this article argues that white students can preserve white dominance in a pro-diversity, multiracial environment by negotiating a number of competing yet interconnected diversity discourses. The study contributes to existing literature on campus climate and Critical Whiteness Studies in that it: (1) challenges the assumption that white supremacy will dissipate as universities become more racially diverse; and (2) reveals the white semantics that protect white supremacy within a paradigm that appears to promote pluralism and inclusion. These findings suggest that more direct curricular and institutional guidance is needed to shift the campus toward greater racial cognizance and understanding (Reason and Evans 2007) and by extension, a more democratic and full multiculturalism. Critical multiculturalism Embracing multiculturalism has become the marker and moral imperative of so-called ‘modern’ states, institutions, and individuals (Kymlicka 2007; Voyer 2011). As a result, ‘multiculturalism’ has manifested in multiple iterations. Indeed, Voyer (2011) notes that this politically loaded term defies simple definition since its meaning and application depend on the context in which it is rooted. Tracing the development of these variant paradigms, McLaren (1995) categorizes multiculturalisms into conservative, liberal, and critical models. All of these forms address differences, but only critical multiculturalism considers the complexities and inequalities inhered within them. In conservative or ‘corporate multiculturalism’ models, members of historically subordinated groups are merely ‘added on’ as tokenized representatives in order to superficially diversify homogenous spaces. In what is sometimes referred to as ‘The Benetton Model’ (Gates 1995, 211; Stam and


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Shohat 1995, 299) institutions actively seek to recruit individuals who, via their ostensible difference, foster an image of harmonious plurality while authority remains concentrated among dominant group members. This effectively keeps minorities at the periphery of influence while reinforcing hierarchies and reproducing hegemonic norms. Liberal forms of multiculturalism correctly recognize inequality between groups and seek to reallocate power, but tend to emphasize cultural differences as monolithic entities and thus essentialize ‘otherness.’ In contrast, critical multiculturalism, also termed ‘resistance multiculturalism’ (McLaren 1995), ‘insurgent multiculturalism’ (Giroux 1995), or ‘polycentric multiculturalism’ (Stam and Shohat 1995), calls for a redistribution of the inequitable organization of power embedded in differences. Rather than an endpoint that cheerfully glosses over distinctions in favor of an uncritical humanism, diversity is recognized as an ongoing process that strives for solidarity through critical self-reflection, engaging difference and struggle, and encouraging alliance building (Mercer 1990). A crucial tenet of critical multiculturalism is making whiteness visible and accountable. As long as whiteness eludes scrutiny as an invisible standard, it remains the marker against which all ‘others’ are measured, thus maintaining its centered and privileged position. Equally pertinent are proponents’ averments that schools, though traditionally sites of cultural assimilation, might now act as ‘border institutions’ where students can question hegemonic ideologies, learn alternative discourses, create new social identities and meanings, and develop a ‘critical dialogue’ between the school and greater public (Giroux 1995). As a university that serves a multiracial student body and promotes pluralism quite visibly, the school featured in this research has great potential to become such an institution of change. However, as this article demonstrates, white students can embrace multicultural discourses that conserve the legitimacy and centrality of whiteness. Whiteness Critical Whiteness scholars assert that in order to understand interactional and institutionalized racism, assiduous attention must be directed not only toward those who are victimized by systemic processes, but also toward those in the dominant group who benefit from the resulting inequities (Delgado and Stefancic 1997; Feagin and O’Brien 2003; Lipsitz 2006). Critical Whiteness Studies then seeks to make visible the assumptions of whiteness that produce and reproduce structures of domination, so that possible alternative realities can be collectively developed and striven for (Freire [1970] 1993). Whiteness refers to hegemonic racial power that privileges white groups while subordinating racialized ‘others.’ As an identity and performance, it is a position of racial privilege, a standpoint perspective, and a set of cultural


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practices that often remain unmarked (Frankenberg 1993). As an ideological and institutional structure, it is a complex web of discourses and processes that sustain racial domination (DiAngelo and Allen 2006). Whiteness maintains its dominance and power in large part by its perceived normality and nonexistence. When whites do not realize the privileges conferred by their race, they can construe many of their social, political, and economic statuses as natural and their achievements as solely the products of individual merit. However, whiteness does in fact promise a myriad of ‘hidden’ advantages and investments while denying these privileges to people of color (Lipsitz 2006; McIntosh 1988). Still, many whites remain unaware that they are beneficiaries in the established racial order and maintain a colorblind perspective, purporting that race is ‘not an issue’ (Bonilla-Silva 2013; Frankenberg 1993). Adhering to this ‘sincere fiction’ (Feagin, Vera, and Batur 2001) reifies racism. Denying the saliency of race denies the symbolic meanings attached to certain phenotypes, which then permits the reproduction of inequitable systems based on these social inscriptions (Leonardo 2002). More recent work warns against simply positing whiteness as a monolithic entity and stresses its contextual dependency, multiplicity, resiliency, and instability. This body of emerging scholarship, or ‘third wave’ of whiteness studies, observes and assesses the ways in which whiteness becomes locally situated, reconfigured, and reaffirmed (Twine and Gallagher 2008). Focusing on the regionally specific contours of whiteness affords a better understanding of its ‘patterned irregularities’ across various socialgeographical locations and recognizes race as a heterogeneous, fractured construct (Hartigan 1997). Thinking about whiteness must then also entail considering multiple whitenesses that are distinctly constructed but remain linked through their hegemonic claims. Many of these localized studies examine white students in US educational settings. Most of this research centers the development of white identity in both predominantly white and multiracial schools (e.g. Bucholtz 2011; Gallagher 1995; McKinney 2005; Perry 2002). While these studies have crucially demonstrated students’ confusion, contradictions, and discomfort in constructing their white identities, less work has scrutinized white students and ideological whiteness, which Michael Dyson defines as, ‘the systematic reproduction of conceptions of whiteness as domination’ (as quoted in Castagno 2008, 319). Further, there is limited material on white college students’ responses to multiracial environments and multicultural ideals. Our study addresses both of these gaps by first gauging white students’ attitudes toward racial diversity at a minority–majority campus, and then critically examining the discursive mechanisms they used to sustain white supremacy when immersed in this racially diverse, pro-diversity environment. Few studies focus specifically on white students and diversity in postsecondary educational institutions, but some previous work on white college students can be gleaned from the recent campus diversity literature.



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White students and campus diversity Numerous studies have verified the multitudinous benefits that racial diversity confers upon student development (e.g. Chang, Astin, and Kim 2004; Gurin 1999; Hu and Khu 2003; Hurtado 2005; Jayakumar 2008; Milem, Chang, and Antonio 2005). Yet researchers note that racial groups experience diversity differently. As part of the majority, white students gain disproportionately from diversity compared to students of color because increased structural diversity more dramatically increases their chances of engaging in cross-racial interactions, whereas minority students regularly interact across race (Chang, Astin, and Kim 2004; Engberg and Hurtado 2011; Saenz 2010). However, it does not follow that white students manifest positive gains all around. Engberg and Hurtado (2011) found that while greater structural diversity seemed to ameliorate anxiety for students of color, it increased levels of intergroup anxiety for whites. In the same study, they also reported that white students were more prone to guarded exchanges across race in more diverse settings. Antonio (2004, 465) reported that the positive effects of friendship group diversity surfaced for students of color only, suggesting that ‘racial diversity is not a salient environmental characteristic in academic domains for white students.’ More qualitative research is required to explain and elaborate upon these findings. The majority of campus climate work, while critically depicting the disparities between racial groups on campus and drawing attention to the lived realities of students of color, has been primarily quantitative (Harper and Hurtado 2007). Such work poses limitations in that selfadministered survey responses, the primary methodology in these studies, do not always accurately capture respondents’ latent ideologies and overlooks the depth and complexity of their perspectives and experiences (Bonilla-Silva and Foreman 2000; Gallagher 2000). The handful of qualitative studies that capture white students’ attitudes illustrates this underlying intricacy. In his report on campus diversity at UC Berkeley, Duster (1993) noted that though both black and white students desired interracial experiences, white students were less inclined to contact within designated programs that promoted such interaction. Chesler, Peet, and Sevig (2003) concluded that white college students reestablish ideological whiteness by dismissing structural and historical perspectives, and Cabrera (2014) explored white male students’ minimization of race and adherence to meritocracy as well as their attempts to deconstruct whiteness in practice while unwittingly reproducing it (2012). These nuanced studies prove pivotal not only in that they more consummately represent white students’ experiences, but also lay groundwork for future diversity initiatives by highlighting the various processes through which white students think about racial diversity. Campus climate work has been conducted foremost at or across predominantly white institutions. Thus, in addition to supplying another

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qualitative approach, this study also contributes a critical assessment of white ideology on a multiracial campus where white students constitute a minority. While a few studies have investigated multiracial sites in higher education (e.g. Cabrera 2012, 2014; Duster 1993; Johnson-Ahorlu 2012), more research is necessary to detail the challenges and potentials specific to these unique environments. Background on data Sample and methods This article draws upon data collected for a larger study requested by a university committee responsible for the ongoing assessment of the campus climate. As a follow-up to previous survey-based reports, the committee requested to conduct focus group interviews based on race, sexuality, gender, international, and occupational/student status. Data collection began in and continued through 2009. Participants were recruited on a volunteer-basis through notification in university courses and yielded a group of three women and two men aged 18 through 21. This sample is small and cannot claim to be representative of the school’s white student population. Nonetheless, the group interview yielded a rich data set that demonstrates the complexity of white student discourses regarding campus racial diversity. As previously stated, the purpose of this article is to untangle and investigate these discourses and their ideological foundations. The white student focus group was conducted by one of the authors, a white woman.1 While cross-racial interviews can elicit valuable data (Twine 2000), racial matching between the facilitator and the participants was employed in order to minimize the pressure for ‘safe’ or ‘politically correct’ responses that an interviewer of color might have effected (Bonilla-Silva and Foreman 2000). The session was digitally recorded and later transcribed and coded for overarching themes (Glaser and Strauss 1967). During this process, principles of discourse analysis were drawn upon. These include: (1) contextualizing language historically and socially in order to trace the communication of dominant ideologies; and (2) parsing meanings through careful attention to implications, presuppositions, word choice, and other elements of dialogue (DiAngelo and Allen 2006; Van Dijk 1993). Previous studies have found that whites may formally deny any racially discriminatory beliefs or attitudes, but attention to discourse can reveal ways in which whites reproduce racism and reinforce racial hierarchies when negotiating their racial position (Bonilla-Silva and Foreman 2000; Van Dijk 1993). Thus, discourse analysis can explicate how whites’ everyday experiences reinforce whiteness (DiAngelo and Allen 2006), a central concern of critical multiculturalism.



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Institutional setting At the time of this study, the participants were students at Pinewood University, a pseudonym for a large, public university in an urban environment in the California Bay Area. In fall 2009, total student enrollment was 4% African American, 30% Asian American and Pacific Islander, 18% Hispanic, and 28% white (US Department of Education 2010). The university prides itself for both its compositional diversity as well as its institutional support of inclusiveness. In addition to affirming a commitment to diversity in its mission statement, Pinewood also developed a ‘Diversity Master Plan,’ a strategy for ensuring inclusion and representation for all members of the campus community.2 According to this 2008 document, the plan is ‘a coordinated, integrated, campus-wide action plan that outlines ways in which an engaged, inclusive, thriving context of diversity will be deeply embedded in the university’s infrastructure.’ It additionally states that there are 227 diversity-related courses in the total university curriculum, 18 academic departments have a diversity-focused curriculum, 33% of all General Education course offerings are diversity-related, and there are 176 ‘active diversity efforts’ on campus. In January 2009, the plan’s website also proudly stated that the ‘US News & World Report ranks the university seventh in the nation in terms of ethnic diversity among colleges and universities conferring bachelor’s and master’s degrees.’ Thus, Pinewood is a multiracial campus and also might be called diversity-centric, at least in its stated efforts and reputation. Findings Four central themes emerged from analysis of the data. The participants voiced that: (1) diversity fosters tolerance on campus; (2) diversity fragments into segregation; (3) institutional diversity efforts undervalue and exclude whites; and (4) the university should overlook white identity. Diversity fosters tolerance Initially, these white students spoke favorably of campus diversity because they believed it naturally fostered a respectful environment. When first asked to describe the campus racial climate, they interpreted ‘diversity’ as an abstract entity that simultaneously engenders pluralism and erases difference. Though a seemingly paradoxical idea, they expressed these sentiments as two complementary sides of the diversity coin. When asked about her experiences as a white student on campus, Kelly3 states, I don’t think race plays a big part in my own daily life at Pinewood. Like I don’t even consider it. It’s really diverse here. So you can walk around and you’re used to it. And I don’t think race plays an issue in my interactions

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with other people on this campus. If anything, this is probably the best campus I’ve been to or school situation where race definitely doesn’t come into play or even in my mind.

Kelly praises Pinewood largely because race doesn’t ‘play an issue in [her] interactions with other people.’ Yet she also acknowledges that the school is ‘really diverse.’ She finds no ostensible contradiction here because she alternates between colorblindness and ‘happy talk’ (Bell and Hartmann 2007), the ascendant diversity discourse, when referencing race. Regarding individuals and personal experiences, she draws upon the familiar colorblind tactic. According to this dominant discourse, noticing racial difference is indicative of discrimination (Frankenberg 1993; Tatum 1999). Kelly thus says, ‘I don’t think race plays a big part in my own daily life’ to indicate the absence of racial animosity in her experiences on campus. But when she references the campus community as a whole, racial difference becomes superficially visible through the diversity discourse. ‘Happy talk’ imagines diversity as both a descriptive definition and a moral commitment to inclusion while glossing over tensions at the experiential level (Bell and Hartmann 2007). Because the school is ‘really diverse,’ Kelly says, ‘you’re used to [race],’ suggesting that the school’s racial diversity naturally creates a space where racial differences do not elicit hostility. Her reference to race in this context is nonchalant because the diversity discourse ‘appears to engage and even celebrate differences, yet does not grasp the social inequities that accompany them’ (Bell and Hartmann 2007, 910). But in her following statement, she recounts her interactions and claims that race ‘definitely doesn’t come into play or even my mind.’ Here, she quickly switches back to the colorblind discourse in which ‘race’ once again denotes racial tensions. Thus, colorblindness and ‘happy talk’ function seamlessly. By recognizing racial difference as part of an abstract diversity but barring such distinctions from consideration in the realm of lived experiences, they function concordantly rather than contradictorily. Jennifer also draws upon both of these ideologies and casts diversity in the same light. In response to the same question, she states: For me, I don’t think it’s [about] race interacting with people. Cause like I agree with everyone, it’s been, like, a nice experience. Especially being in a diverse community.

Jennifer affirms that race is not a salient factor in her interactions, which affords her a ‘nice experience.’ Colorblind logic operates again here: overlooking or ‘not seeing’ race indicates the absence of racism and hostility. She asserts this while noting that the campus is a ‘diverse community’ without contradiction. Like Kelly, she observes the insignificance of race and campus diversity as two corresponding factors that foster a pleasant racial climate. Again, colorblindness and the diversity discourse render race at the experiential level disconnected from group diversity.


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Mark also claims that campus diversity creates a pleasant space for all:


I think Pinewood is cool because, like, even if [professors] have an accent it is easy to connect with teachers too if they are not from here. I have another teacher who is full Mexican. So everyone’s kind of diverse together. So … so there’s no big [deal] with professors or anything like that … like ‘you’re white’ or anything like that.

Mark’s comment that ‘everyone’s kind of diverse together’ further emphasizes the transcendental nature of diversity. In this context, it is permissible for him to identify his professor as ‘full Mexican’ because her color contributes to his description of the diverse campus community. But he suggests immediately afterwards that it would be problematic if his professors explicitly named his white identity. Such recognition is impermissible because it is an experiential interaction that violates colorblindness rather than a reference to the overarching mosaic ideal. Moreover, previous studies have documented white students’ discomfort with confronting their whiteness (DiAngelo and Sensoy 2014; Gallagher 1995; McKinney 2005; Perry 2002). His use of the causative agent ‘so’ after claiming that the school is ‘diverse together’ indicates that he believes diversity helps occlude this kind of racial recognition, which, as informed by colorblindness, is tantamount to racial discrimination. Ken highlights campus civility from his perspective as a white student: Being white you are kind of the minority at Pinewood. You still get … I mean it’s not like you get treated any differently. So it’s been easy going here and stuff, and everyone’s pretty respectful.

Because white students ‘are kind of the minority at Pinewood,’ Ken suggests that he might be ‘treated differently,’ but denies that such differential treatment occurs. While he recognizes that minority students might not share the experiences of the majority, Ken defines ‘minority’ solely by numerical count within the university. In concert with the diversity discourse, structural inequalities do not factor into his perspective or reasoning. This omission leads him to position white students as more vulnerable to such discrimination, a notable inversion of the established racial hierarchy. Ken also surmises that because white students do not get ‘treated differently’ as susceptible minorities, ‘everyone’s pretty respectful.’ Here he implies that all students are treated the same, so no student need worry about racial hostility. Harper and Hurtado (2007) found that white students frequently make this universalistic conclusion, assuming that their peers of color share their nice experiences on campus. By vacillating between colorblind and ‘happy talk,’ two pillars of conservative multiculturalism, white students can effectively obscure the semiotic significance of racial identity and protect whiteness in a multiracial

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community. These two discourses distinguish and disconnect racial difference at the interactional level from diversity at the institutional level, obfuscating the students’ dominant position as whites. Colorblindness cloaks whiteness in interpersonal situations, where it frequently manifests in discriminatory acts (Bonilla-Silva 2013), while the diversity discourse neutralizes it by propagating ‘an ideal imagined community’ (DiAngelo and Sensoy 2014). Diversity fragments into segregation After confirming that diversity created a positive campus environment and afforded ‘nice’ and ‘easy’ experiences, the participants began moving toward an entirely different take on diversity in specific interactive contexts such as the classroom. In these accounts, their favorable perspectives of diversity frayed into feelings of anxiety and fear. Relating a class group exercise, Candace says: When there is that difference and diversity it is kind of hard to communicate. You know? And you kind of do have that fear, like, be careful what you say. You don’t want to hurt their feelings. At the same time, trying to do your work. It gets kind of difficult.

Candace claims that working with ‘difference and diversity,’ i.e. with people of color (Lewis 2004), is more difficult than collaborating in an all-white group because a diverse group demands additional tact. But this is a onesided burden: she and other whites must be more prudent of their actions around students of color so as to not ‘hurt their feelings.’ She thus frames her classmates of color as hypersensitive occlusions to group communication and productivity. Mark also articulates his fear and solicitousness when working in a diverse group: It’s hard in a diverse group till you kind of like almost feel each other out, like, what’s going to be alright. You know? Like, how they are and stuff, I mean you … cause usually when you get paired with white people, I mean, just saying, you kind of just start joking around with them and stuff. But when you get with a person of another ethnicity, you kind of want to feel how they are and kind of see what’s up.

Jennifer chimes in after Mark’s statement in agreement with, ‘You’re careful of what you say.’ Candace, Mark and Jennifer conjure a ‘classic discourse’ that depicts whites as inherently innocent and people of color as perpetrators of violence (DiAngelo and Sensoy 2014; Feagin, Vera, and Batur 2001). Mark’s essentializing language, referring twice to ‘how they are,’ suggests that while white students are easy-going and lend themselves to open discussion, students of color are naturally inclined to arbitrarily take offense and create tensions, thus impeding interracial collaborations. White students



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are then burdened by having to first ‘feel each other out’ and ‘see what’s up’ before the group can speak and work comfortably together. Candace and Jennifer’s avowed need to be ‘careful’ further contributes to the image of white people as tamers of unruly ‘others.’ DiAngelo and Sensoy (2014, 114–5) keenly note that this discourse ‘distorts reality and perverts the actual direction of danger that has historically existed between whites and people of Color.’ Jennifer then elaborates on her tag comment regarding precautions around students of color. Her earlier acclamatory assessment of a diverse campus is, upon closer inspection, one that appreciates opportunities for interracial collaboration during class, but criticizes her peers of color for failing to maintain relations outside of the classroom: Well, in groups, towards the end you end up working really well together with all the different diversities. But I’ve noticed that after class is over, you don’t really talk to them anymore. They act all kind of, like, separate.

Jennifer frames her classmates’ apparent self-segregation as a hostile barrier to continuing their friendships beyond class assignments. Antonio (2001) found that students at a racially diverse university reported much higher levels of racial balkanization on campus than actually occurred in their friendships. Still, even if Jennifer exaggerates, she clearly implicates students of ‘different diversities’ as those who fortify a racial division. Once again, whites are innocent and students of color the antagonists. Her use of ‘diversities’ as a synonym for ‘races’ or ‘ethnicities’ also reflects her belief that diversity mainly refers to people of color. This association surfaces frequently in diversity discourses and bespeaks the presumption of a white normative center (Bell and Hartmann 2007; Lewis 2004; Ward 2008). The affirmations of idyllic campus diversity continued to unravel into accusations of unfriendliness and self-segregation aimed at students of color. The students framed whites as not only innocent but also comparatively enlightened and open-minded. Candace laments: I don’t feel [students of color] even want to hang out with white people. Like I tried … like there was a girl in another class of mine, and she’s African American. And she was having problems with the classes and stuff, and I tried to reach out to her and help her with the class. And I tried to talk to her. And I tried like, two or three times, because I find it interesting, you know I like their people very much. But they don’t feel, like, really friendly or that they can connect with me. So I’ve never been able to make a friend or keep any that are African American.

Candace positions herself as a benefactress who deigns to aid an African American student in need. It is only after much persistence, which she stresses in saying ‘tried’ four times, does she give up and fatalistically conclude that ‘their people’ do not ‘even want to hang out with white people.’

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Candace’s statement echoes a neocolonial assumption that unskilled people of color would necessarily benefit from the help of their more learned white counterparts. In addition to her emphasis on ministration, her comment that ‘their people’ are ‘interesting’ further invokes the white ‘ethnographic gaze’ that denies blacks (and other people of color) subjectivity (hooks 1997). Though ostensibly well intentioned, Candace unwittingly propagates the ideological racism of the white man’s burden. Kelly similarly voiced an essentialist perspective that decried students of colors’ self-segregation and suggested colonialist revisions: I walk by the Philippines club twenty times and nobody’s going to give me a flyer. That’s their fault. You know? And I mean I wouldn’t mind being in that club because they have wonderful food. And … but I would never get it. Maybe that is something that the university may want … to send somebody to all the clubs and maybe teach them that it is important to integrate everybody. If the club’s gonna be under the name of the school, it has to encompass everybody and should not be afraid to reach out to everybody and to let them know about your club and stuff. So, to teach them.

Though she previously claimed that, ‘race doesn’t play a big part in [her] daily life,’ Kelly now expresses indignation because she believes she is deliberately ignored as a white person. Her positive view of diversity is, upon further scrutiny, one that nods to the potential of interracial interactions but places the onus of realizing these possibilities upon students of color. Because she is not offered a flyer, a potential cross-cultural experience becomes a missed opportunity that is ultimately ‘their fault.’ Kelly does not consider directly asking for a flyer, nor does she mention any earnest attempt to attend a club meeting. Instead, she asks the university to address this apparent discrimination by suggesting that it ‘send somebody to all the clubs … to teach them that it is important to integrate everybody.’ Like the other participants, she locates her experience outside of social and historical patterns and thus can rationally invert the racial order: students of color control the reigns of inclusion while whites stand excluded at the peripheries. And like Candace, she draws upon ideology that stems from civilizing missions and suggests that the university ‘teach them’ otherwise. Further, Kelly’s motive for attending such a club event appears to be reduced to, or at least centered upon, enjoying Filipino food. Indeed, Evelyn Hu-DeHart observes that, ‘misguided multiculturalism tends to focus on the four F’s: food, fads, fiestas, and festivals’ (as quoted in Rothenberg 2000, 61). Kelly’s objection revolves less around being denied a social or educational opportunity than a gustatory one. Thus, in this interactive context, the students’ understanding of ‘diversity’ no longer emanated tolerant humanism, but immanently conflicted differences between racialized peoples. Unlike the white students in Cabrera’s study (2014) who did not take issue with racial segregation on campus,


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these students did find such divisions problematic because they disrupt ‘happy talk.’ But in lamenting this racial separateness, they blamed students of color for inhibiting cross-racial interactions and positioned whites as the more open-minded mediators who attempt to embrace such situations. As Feagin, Vera, and Batur (2001) note, blaming people of color is a notably common white strategy for absolving responsibility in a wide range of situations. In this interactive context, whiteness did not retreat so much into invisibility as into an affirmed innocence. Diversity efforts exclude and undervalue whites The third context in which the participants discussed diversity regarded its institutional support. Though they had previously extolled campus diversity, their support of the university’s diversity efforts proved lukewarm at best because they believe these initiatives cater exclusively to students of color at the expense of whites. Here, they interpreted ‘diversity’ as the recognition of all racial and ethnic identities except white. Candace says: I think the university’s emphasis on diversity might create a little separation between white people and then, like, the rest of everyone else. Because it feels like everyone else is like, Asians and Filipinos and everything are very … they’re all bonded together because they are a minority and they’re what the school is all about, it’s diversity and things like that.

Like Jennifer’s use of ‘diversities’ above, Candace understands ‘diversity’ to mean ‘not white.’ Bell and Hartmann note that this common understanding reflects the ‘racial reality of the US, in which whites are both privileged and seen as normal, neutral, and regular, and everyone else is defined against a white normative status’ (2007, 909). As such, Candace sees Pinewood’s centralization of ‘diversity’ less as a paradigm for cross-racial collaboration and inclusion than a celebration of nonwhite racial-ethnic groups that fosters racial divisions. Students of color are ‘what the school is all about,’ while whites, who do not fall under the purview of ‘diversity and things like that,’ are less so. She elaborates on this thought elsewhere: It’s hard to participate when they emphasize diversity so much. Like it is highly emphasized and I think that’s really incredible that the university can do that for people. But then it does make it hard to participate in those kinds of groups. Even though they say of course anyone can go. But if you’re gonna show up, some people are always like, ‘Wait you’re in the African American club? Like what?’ You know?

While generally supportive of the university’s efforts to ‘emphasize diversity,’ Candace remains ambivalent about her role as a white person within this framework. She feels that ‘those kind of groups’ that constitute the diversity agenda, such as ethnic-based clubs, are difficult for white students


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to meaningfully partake in. It is unclear whether Candace actually attended one of these club events, but she clearly believes that her participation as a white student would be questioned. Her statement further belies an assumption that such groups and other institutionally supported ‘diversity’ measures serve primarily to affirm nonwhite racial-ethnic identities. Critical multiculturalists warn that this perception of ‘diversity’ as ‘not white’ can recentralize whiteness by casting ‘whiteness as a cultural marker against which Otherness is defined,’ thereby reinforcing its invisibility and normality (McLaren 1995, 59). Similarly, other scholars have argued that multicultural programs and events that act as ‘add-ons’ to campus life reinscribe the normality and centrality of whiteness and other dominant identities (Hurd 2008; Perry 2002; Rothenberg 2000). But even at Pinewood, where ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’ are seen as fundamental rather than ancillary to the university, whiteness remains covertly privileged as the norm. As in previous studies that focus on white college students (Cabrera 2012, 2014; Chesler, Peet, and Sevig 2003), these students are not privy to the ways in which whiteness is structurally embedded within institutions and its corresponding legacy of dominance, leading them to construe the ‘diversity’ agenda as white exclusion. Jennifer and Mark also lament what they perceive to be the absence of white recognition on campus: Jennifer:

Mark:

All the statues or, like, monuments surrounding everything, it’s always someone of, like, there’s Cesar Chavez one, and there’s the … the African American Olympic one. There’s not anything celebrating any white people. Yeah, like they’re saying … there’s all kinds of clubs for different cultures, but there’s nothing … it would be considered racist if there was a club just for white people. It’s just the same thing with our country, like we have Hispanic pride or black history month, black pride. And if we had white pride month it would be considered racist. And I think that’s stupid.

Jennifer and Mark reserve approval toward these dedications because whites are ostensibly excluded from similar recognition. Kelly similarly says, ‘They try, you know, really hard to give all the other minorities and other ethnic groups activism for their cultures, [but] then it’s like if we ever did say anything, it’s like, ‘oh, you’re racist.’ The university’s focus on ‘diversity’ does not move these students toward appreciation or awareness as much as doubt and resentment. Bereft of a critical historical perspective, they remain blind to the legacy and extensions of whiteness. In their conviction that the campus does not consider whites worthy of acknowledgement, they overlook many of the buildings and plazas that are named after whites and the numerous portraits and plaques that feature and celebrate white people.


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The students pointed to scholarships as further proof that the university undervalues white students. Although the campus offers a variety of grant opportunities, they honed in on ethnic-based awards or those that request racial identification, claiming that this constitutes unfair protocols that discriminate against whites. Jennifer:


Ken: Kelly:

And with all the scholarships and everything. There are special scholarships just for like Latin people, or like … Being black. Latin American. Yeah. You’re almost excluded from getting an award if you do list yourself, as you know, Caucasian. And if you do that, sometimes, it like, hurts your chances of winning that award or scholarship.

From their perspective, the university rewards students of color for passively ‘being’ a certain race or ethnicity; white students are not merely ignored but considered less desirable recipients, as identifying as white ‘hurts your chances of winning.’ Perceptions of white identity as a stigma and claims of ‘reverse racism’ relentlessly reoccur in whiteness studies, especially in the context of affirmative action and other measures that promote diversity and multiculturalism (e.g. Cabrera 2014; Feagin and O’Brien 2003; Gallagher 1997; Hochschild 1999; McKinney 2005; Perry 2002; Wellman 1997). Without critical historical hindsight, whites often create ‘false parallels’ (Michael Schwabe as quoted in Roediger 1999) whereby the experiences of a less powerful group are equated with those of a more powerful one. These students accept this premise among racial groups and conclude that ‘listing Caucasian’ invites white discrimination. Thus, though these students likely garner some positive benefits from attending a multiracial campus, their gains remain ultimately limited in that their attitudes toward ethnic-based scholarships and recognition matched those documented in previous whiteness studies. That is, they perceived their whiteness to be a liability and framed themselves as ‘victims of multiculturalism’ (Cabrera 2014; Feagin and O’Brien 2003). In response to the interviewer’s prompt regarding what role the university might take to ameliorate these issues, Candace suggested that it consider ‘making whites feel more equally accepted at the school.’ Thus, these white students see a commitment to diversity as a centralization of racial minorities while marginalizing whites, a position they are not adjusted to in a world that by and large centralizes whiteness. They crucially fail to grasp that whites have always been included and celebrated, while people of color have been historically barred entrance from countless spaces. This missed insight ironically provokes them to construe institutional attempts at racial inclusiveness as racial exclusiveness in spaces traditionally controlled by whites.

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Avoiding whiteness Although they discredited what they perceived to be the university’s centralization of racial and ethnic minorities, the group also conceded that explicitly celebrating white people would be problematic. When the interviewer asked the students how the university might create a more inclusive environment for whites after their complaints of racial exclusion, they struggled to articulate an acceptable protocol. Initially, the group collectively rebuffed white recognition and affirmed that ‘white’ groups and activities would breach an established taboo. Associations between ‘white’ and ‘racism’ largely informed their position. For example, Ken says, I don’t think they’re … before this I’ve never seen anything at Pinewood that said, like, you know, like a white community type thing. Where there is, like, an Asian community club or something like that. You can’t have, like, a white club or something like that, it’s called, like, KKK.

Ken claims that a white club is impermissible because it would evoke extremist connotations. Indeed, scholars point out that one of the few instances in which whiteness becomes recognizable is within the context of the KKK and other forms of egregious racial violence. Marked by their individualized acts of atrocity, they are largely regarded as fringe groups and thus not representative of all white persons (Cabrera 2014; Feagin, Vera, and Batur 2001). Ken correctly recognizes the historic violence a white-oriented group would suggest. But this is ostensibly the only reason he resists such an organization; that is, his rationale stems solely from the symbolic significance of a ‘white club’ and fails to additionally see why creating a white group would be unnecessary given the current ascendancy of whiteness. The other participants agreed that establishing a white-based organization would not be an acceptable option. Like Ken, they did so primarily in light of the overtly racist overtones associated with whiteness and in anticipation of others’ reception of such a group. Kelly:

Mark:

In lectures there’s just no celebration of our culture. And it’s almost like you’d be scolded if you were like, ‘Oh, white power.’ Like that’d be so bad. You know? Like that’d be all wrong. You know? I don’t know … like, I would never even want to celebrate that. If we did, I think the other racial groups would be really offended by that.

Kelly rejects carving out a similar space for white identity because this would be tantamount to declaring ‘white power,’ a phrase associated with extreme racial hate and violence, things she would ‘never want to celebrate.’ Mark agrees that creating a specifically white space would be laden



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with racist meaning, and concludes that doing so would antagonize students of color. Again, associations between white collectivization and individualized white violence motivate their position. Because white groups that purposefully name their whiteness (as opposed to unnamed groups that operate vis-à-vis the normality of whiteness) have always been explicitly and violently racist in nature, these white students realize that a white student group would not be tolerated, and thus is neither a viable nor desirable alternative. Although they reject the violence of white supremacist groups, they fail to see how whiteness as a hegemonic social reality renders white clubs and events not simply offensive but also unnecessary. As noted in the previous section, the participants believe racial and ethnic themes on campus serve primarily (if not only) to celebrate various cultures and identities on campus. Where nonwhite identities can be utilized as a source of pride, white identities, when named, can only be reminders of racial oppression and thus a source of shame. After expressing their reservations about a white club, Jennifer summarily remarked, ‘You can’t just say, ‘I’m proud to be white,’ which was met with a chorus of further agreement. Since they surmised that establishing white-named organizations and events would be divisive and incendiary, these white students eventually decided that the university should avoid considering white identity altogether. They advocated instead programs and protocol that minimized the significance of race and difference. Candace:

Interviewer: Kelly: Ken: Interviewer: Ken:

I think making these clubs that are only for whites possibly, or just for people of this race or that race, well it will just bring us, you know, farther apart. You know? So I think we need more clubs that are religion-based or based on things that are common like democracy, justice, and make more classes that are geared towards communicating with each other. So nothing around whiteness as an identity? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, like … So highlighting whiteness as an identity is not a goal? Yeah, I think … I agree with her kind of like more stuff so. … Pinewood could create things that bring people together rather than separating by groups.

According to the participants, discussions and activities that center race foster segregation, but those that focus instead on presumably more unifying themes, such as ‘democracy [and] justice,’ would ameliorate racial tensions and ‘bring people together.’ Mark also comments that groups emphasizing commonality rather than difference could improve campus dynamics. He states, ‘I think sports are a unique thing where a bunch of people from different backgrounds go through a lot of hard work together. They kind of bring ‘em together. Like if you’re in the military, you go through a lot of


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tough things and that brings you together.’ In sum, they agree that inclusion and increasing cross-racial interactions are worthy campus aims, but maintain that the best route to these goals is through erasing difference, which breeds conflict, and affirming sameness through nationalistic themes. Like ‘democracy’ and ‘justice,’ Mark’s comparison between sports and the military also emphasizes a common citizenship that transcends distinct identities. In other words, they espouse a model of multiculturalism that allows them to embrace diversity superficially without critically considering their whiteness and power relations between groups. Their recommendations seek to reify the imaginative ideals of ‘happy talk’ but unwittingly – and dangerously – push toward a suppressive form of pluralism in which whiteness retreats into normalized obscurity. Giroux (1992, 15) is worth quoting at length here because he responds directly to the students’ suggestions: [The] attempt [of liberal multiculturalism] to accommodate pluralism to a ‘common culture’ rather than a shared vision grounded in a struggle to expand the radical possibilities of democratic public life underestimates the legacy of the dominant culture to eliminate cultural differences, multiple literacies, and diverse communities in the name of totalizing and one-dimensional master narratives refigured around issues such as nationalism, citizenship, and patriotism.

Minimizing racial difference appeals to these white students because it allows them to avoid considering their white identity, which they interpret monolithically to indicate past oppression and current stigma. Opting for these ‘unifying’ themes and ideals frees them from considering whiteness and also conveniently absolves them of feelings of guilt and confusion that this racial self-reflection often evokes (e.g. McKinney 2005). And ultimately, advocating this protocol allows whiteness, in its unrelenting ability to claim legitimacy and authority, to reclaim space and voice only very recently won by minority groups.

Conclusion Speaking from their experiences at a multiracial university, the white students in this study initially expressed an appreciation for campus diversity, echoing the institutional messages that celebrate plurality and promise inclusiveness. However, when further probed, their positive affirmations frayed into feelings of exclusion and hostility that ultimately positioned students of color as self-segregating beneficiaries of diversity promotion and white students as a marginalized group within the campus community. Ultimately, these students propagated a multiculturalism that protects white superiority in a multiracial setting by normalizing whiteness and stabilizing racial hierarchies. These white semantics demand considerable attention, not only



19

because they ironically erode the collaborative ideals that diversity platforms seek to accomplish, but also because they serve as a template for future scenarios where whites live and work in multiracial environments. Indeed, therein lies this study’s pressing contribution to campus climate literature and Critical Whiteness Studies. While a racially diverse environment and a pro-diversity ethos may open up channels for interracial collaboration and inclusion, these factors alone do not ensure that individuals will be able to critically think about race and their racial identities. Rather, as the ‘third wave’ of whiteness studies warns, the white students in this study utilized and negotiated diversity discourses to ‘recuperate, reconstitute and restore white identities and the supremacy of whiteness in post-apartheid, post-industrial, post-imperial, post-Civil Rights’ contexts (Twine and Gallagher 2008, 13). Both institutional and pedagogical measures must include elements of critical multiculturalism if students are to unlearn these ideologies and engage mindfully in multiracial spaces. At the institutional level, Milem, Chang, and Antonio (2005) have outlined protocols that engage diversity as a process rather than a numerical goal. In addition to recruiting and retaining students, staff, and faculty of color, these include acknowledging any history of campus exclusion and its present repercussions, funding and responding to ongoing campus climate reports, and encouraging critical diversity discourses across disciplines rather than mandating a singular ‘diversity’ course requirement. At the pedagogical level, instructors must explain the ubiquity and relevance of whiteness and its role in enduring inequalities. This discussion must eventually move beyond confessions of white privilege toward one that interrogates the historical and structural reaches of white supremacy (Blum 2008; Leonardo 2004; Lensmire et al. 2013), as well as the intersectional complexities of white identity (Gillborn 2008) and localized manifestations of whiteness (Hartigan 1997; Twine and Gallagher 2008). When educators and students locate their experiences in these racial realities, they can move towards more effective antiracist discourses and strategies that challenge rather than perpetuate the enduring legacies of whiteness. If universities are to create more inclusive environments that foster interracial collaboration and antiracism, elements crucial for a rapidly diversifying country, they must implement such pedagogies and institutional initiatives. These measures direct the campus toward ‘a unity-in-difference position in which new, hybrid forms of democratic representation, participation, and citizenship provide a forum for creating unity without denying the particular, multiple, and the specific’ (Giroux 1995, 339). Without such facilitation, white students, regardless of their racial environment, will likely adhere to shallow multiculturalisms that inadvertently sustain the chasms of racial inequalities.

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Notes 1. Although only this author collected data, both she and a co-author, an Asian American woman, analyzed the data for this study. We note this collaboration not to essentialize ourselves, but to recognize the influence of our racialized subjectivities at all stages of this research. 2. The campus climate committee that requested the original report was born of this plan. 3. Pseudonyms are used to ensure participants’ privacy.


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