The wild (white) ones: comparing frames of white and black deviance

Abstract

In this case study, I establish how a racial privilege shields whites from being framed as deviant by using two racially segregated motorcycle rallies as a naturalistic experiment. I conduct a content analysis of reader posts to online newspaper stories about the biker events (which regularly include deviance) and discover the bikers, their behaviors, and the proposed community reactions are framed in nearly opposite ways. Posters attribute a ‘white innocence’ to white bikers, framing them as upper class exemplars of American Individualism who temporarily suspend their morality during the rally by drinking, exposing their nude bodies, and ignoring newly passed laws, banning loud mufflers, and requiring helmets. Posters claim these unpleasant, although non-dangerous forms of deviance can be ignored, overlooked, and even celebrated as defiant acts against authority. The white innocence can appear racially innocuous until compared to the perception of black bikers who engage in similar behaviors at their rally but are framed as underclass criminals who attend the rally to steal and murder. This reveals how a usually unseen privilege shields whites from entanglements with the criminal justice system, as posters also call for further policing of racial minorities.

Keywords:

• whiteness
• white privilege
• white innocence
• symbolic racism
• deviance
• frame

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In a later essay, Frankenberg (2001) develops an eight point understanding that concludes whiteness is a mirage or an illusion, rather than something unseen. Since this more refined conceptualization accounts for cultural practices, historicity, and the socially constructed boundaries of whiteness that are outside the scope of this investigation; I engaged the earlier conceptualization.

2. These authors argue there is a danger in using whiteness as a generalized category that does not account for the diversity, especially the class diversity, across the population of those designated white. While I agree, since this paper explores how whiteness as a generalized, social construct influences social-psychological frames as opposed to whiteness as it can be accurately conceptualized and described social-scientifically, my usage of whiteness in this study does reference the abstracted, overly-general category embedded in culture that does not recognize class differences amongst whites (e.g. ignores the existence of poor, deviant whites).