You showed your Whiteness: you don't get a ‘good’ White people's medal

Abstract

The White liberal is a person who finds themselves defined as White, as an oppressor, in short, and retreats in horror from that designation. The desire to be and to be known as a good White person stems from the recognition that Whiteness is problematic, recognition that many White liberals try to escape by being demonstrably different from other, racist Whites. When good White liberals exhibit certain behaviors the expectation becomes a good White people's medal; through the use of a counternarrative, our attempt is to problematize the good White person's identity and subsequent reward that many expect because of some deed or some political stance they made.

Keywords:

• Critical Race Theory
• Whiteness Theory
• counternarratives

Notes

1. We changed the names of the colleges in question, to protect Malcolm. Malcolm is an untenured professor in his third year at Inland University.

2. Michelle is the White professor at Inland university. Michelle is also a pseudonym

3. At this University before a faculty member can teach a class they have to shadow a professor who has taught the class. In our opinion this shadowing process only serves as a way to continue the oppressive hegemonic practices of the department.

4. We are purposefully using this antiquated/offensive term to bring home the fact that to many people of color this good White people status is offensive. The term colored is also use to refer to Blacks as well as Latinos. These are the two groups that are usually the target of good White people.