Gero - Blog Post 2

In Whiteness as Property, Harris discusses the property interest of whiteness constructed of several elements, including racial subjugation, power structures, and class exploitation. Harris frequently describes whiteness as a negation of Blackness, and the subsequent racial domination is built on the negation of systemic Black subjugation (page 1737). This poses Black people as the “other,” which served as a uniting force for whiteness, which lacks a racial identity (page 1742). The amorphous and ambiguous white identity made it easy for whiteness to adopt new groups in order to maintain power and systems of white supremacy. During the 19th and 20th centuries, influxes of European immigrants settled into these American structures of white supremacy and tried to claim the property interest of whiteness for themselves. Harris says, “the question was not so much ‘who is white,’ but ‘who may be considered white’” (page 1742). Her brief mention of the assembly of whiteness around “Anglo-American norms” again hinges on the idea of whiteness as exclusivity or being “in the club” (page 1743). 

In the 19th century, being “in the club” for European immigrants—like the Irish, Italians, or Poles—was claiming whiteness in order to exert power over racial minority groups. This manifested most clearly in the development of policing as being passed down to white nationalities that were lowest on the scale of “whiteness.” The job of policing Black people, especially in large cities like New York and Chicago, was granted to these European immigrants by white institutions in order to buy them into the property interest of whiteness. 

Throughout American history, whiteness has enveloped other ethnic, national, or religious groups in order to preserve racial subjugation. The modern definition of whiteness has expanded to include white Jews, Eastern Europeans, and—according to North Thurston Public Schools in Washington—Asians as well. Due to growing diversity in the United States, systemic white supremacy retains its power by offering the property and expectations of whiteness to a larger and larger population. It is only once the property of whiteness is delegitimized and devalued that equitable structural changes can be made. 

 

Sources: NPR and Northwestern Asian Weekly