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70 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 1375 (1994-1995)
The Antidemocratic Power of Whiteness

handle is hein.journals/chknt70 and id is 1395 raw text is: THE ANTIDEMOCRATIC POWER OF WHITENESS A REVIEW OF DAVID R. ROEDIGER, THE WAGES OF WHITENESS. RACE AND THE MAKING oF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS KATHLEEN NEAL CLEAVER* Like the formally neutral concept of civil rights, race usually makes one think of blacks. To link the idea of race with the social construct of whiteness is uncommon. As a rule, white Americans no longer see race in relation to their own identity, and genuinely believe that racism' poses a problem for others. Nobel prize winning au- thor Toni Morrison finds it both poignant and striking that the aca- demic concentration on racism's targets avoids studying the impact racism has on its perpetrators.2 But this little noticed blindness does not stop with academic disciplines. A widespread failure to acknowl- edge that whiteness conveys internal meanings at the same time it ful- fills anti-black functions helps frustrate programs that seek to eliminate racism's pernicious legacy.3 Thus, The Wages of Whiteness, a sophisticated analysis of the significance of racism in the formation of the nineteenth-century white working class, offers a welcome addi- tion to the emerging literature interrogating whiteness.4 Labor historian David R. Roediger draws upon recent scholar- ship in social history, such as the study of gender roles, industrial disci- * Assistant Professor of Law, Emory University School of Law (on leave 1994-95); Fel- low, The Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. 1. In America, racism is generally thought of as that intense, virulent form of hatred un- derlying the victimization of outcast groups. However, here I am using a broader definition in which racism consists of any set of beliefs that ascribe to real or imagined genetic characteristics a socially relevant character such that these differences can be legitimately used to rank and discriminate between social groups defined by race. See PIERRE L. VAN DEN BERGHE, RACE AND RACISM: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 11 (2d ed. 1978). 2. TONI MORRISON, PLAYING IN THE DARK: WHITENESS AND THE LITERARY IMAGINA- TION 11 (1992). 3. The intense public controversy that has accompanied legally enacted programs to di- minish preferences formerly accorded to whites, such as affirmative action, civil rights laws bar- ring racial discrimination in employment, programs that promote diversity in professional school admissions, and the redrawing of the boundaries of electoral districts to conform to Voting Rights Act provisions, all testify to the recalcitrant nature of this problem, quaintly attributed to white backlash. 4. For an in-depth examination of the legal nature of whiteness as a form of property, see Cheryl I. Harris, Whiteness as Property, 106 HARV. L. REV. 1707 (1993).

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