Cause with effect: critical whiteness studies and the material consequences of whiteness on communities of color

Abstract

Cabrera described the development of Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), in particular within higher education scholarship, as a complementary response to Critical Race Theory (CRT). Specifically, if CRT work in higher education offers a deep analysis of the harm of systemic racial marginalization on BIPOC communities (effect), then CWS explores the inner working of Whiteness that led to this racial harm (cause). However, there is contemporary concern that CWS is evolving into more of a space for White people to explore Whiteness without directly linking it to anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, anti-Brownness, and anti-Asianness, essentially an inversion of the original problem (cause without effect). Therefore, I am proposing a CWS moving ahead that explicitly merges both lines of inquiry so that CWS offers the underlying structures and mechanisms of racial marginalization (cause) coupled with the material consequences of this on BIPOC communities (effect).

Keywords:

• Whiteness
• white supremacy
• higher education
• racism
• critical race theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 BIPOC is an acronym that stands for “Black and Indigenous People Of Color.”

2 https://www.sonyclassics.com/badass/press/baadasssss.pdf

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nolan Cabrera

Nolan L. Cabrera is a full professor at the University of Arizona where he studies the racial dynamics of higher education institutions with a focus on whiteness, while also exploring the efficacy of Ethnic Studies classes.