“This assumption that white people are just people, which is not far from saying that whites are people whereas other co lours are something else, is endemic to white culture. Some of the sharpest criticism of it has been aimed at those who would think themselves the least racist or white supremacist. Bell Hooks, for instance, has noticed how amazed and angry white liberals become when attention is drawn to their whiteness, when they are seen by non-white people as white. Often their rage erupts because they believe that all the ways of looking that highlight difference subvert the liberal belief in a universal subjectivity (where are all just people) that they think will make racism disappear. They have a deep emotional investment in the myth of ‘sameness’, even as their actions reflect the primacy of whiteness as a sign of informing who they are and how they think. (Hooks 1992; 167)” – Chapter 1, “The Matter of Whiteness” By Richard Dyer
The very fundamental belief that we’re all the same, are afforded the same opportunities, and are judged exclusively by our moral character in this “post racial America” is quickly destroyed by the fact that white privilege and the subconscious and conscious societal preference for “whiteness” is a real issue plaguing our society. To deny the existence of “whiteness” and white privilege is the mental equivalent of shoving your head into the sand like an ostrich. To deny the existence of a problem in delusion isn’t the same as not having a problem to begin with.
-Edgar Nava
Race, Media, and Representations 