perfidy

I thought I'd pull this out of the comments section. Thanks to Windy City for the opening volley.

WINDY CITY MIKE: I've spent so much time pointing out the flaws in whiteness with my departmental compatriots that I''d rather not rehash it now. But I'll go on record to say that it''s wrong, stupid, and just another way for historians of ethnic America to brow-beat Irish-Americans, except that everything they say about Irish-Americans is wrong. Race isn't really the big divider in the U.S. It's actually class. Aside from Japanese Americans during WWII, who hates Asians? Seriously. Do people with prejudices fear African-Americans wearing a three-piece suit, carrying a briefcase, and speaking into a cell phone? No. Propagators of whiteness are only trying to deflect attention from themselves because they are members of the middle class or better. That's the group that really has all the privileges they attribute to "whites." White is not an ethnic group. I say to Noel Ignatiev, Matthew Frye Jacobson, and this professor at UMass, get your head out of your ass.

JOHNNY TWO-CENTS: Mike, I disagree. Although class is a powerful, and unheralded, divider in the USA, race still exerts a powerful undertow. Also, despite the great class consciousness shown in the Gilded Age and first part of the 20th century when Frick, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, and Morgan formed a brotherhood and the mill workers formed one in opposition, the middle of this century all but wiped out the working-class unity of spirit that I think you would agree is necessary for a true class consciousness. The proud man in overalls was replaced in American iconography by the man in the gray flannel suit, and the so-called working classes have never quite made it back to that status, except on a local scale. However, race retains its power to divide and unite long after the worst abuses took place. To take an easy example, why do you think "In The Heat Of The Night/They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!" is still such a good film? Because it plays upon the mistrust of middle-class African-Americans (suit, briefcase) by certain white Americans. If viewers of the film can't all necessarily agree with that prejudice, it is still familiar enough to resonate with most if not all American viewers. 

When whipped up by demagogues, race can still trump class. Although empirically I agree that people really differ and unite more along class lines, the perceived power of race (what certain marxians would call a "false consciousness') is greater. Long after racial inequality/discrimination/awareness has been minimized, the spectre of race will linger. 

As for whiteness studies, it is of limited usefulness. A few excellent books and articles have been written on the subject that avoid navel-gazing and total self-indulgence, but as I said, the field lends itself so easily to abuse, indoctrination, and dogmatism that it is a dangerous petard to hoist. To coin a phrase. Petard... is that even a word? (Yes, yes I know...)

In closing, I just want to say to you, Mike, that from what I have seen you are 110% correct in characterizing most "whiteness" studies practitioners as having ulterior motives. I do think there's more to it than class, though, namely the famed and notorious white liberal academic guilt we hear so much about these days. Having taken classes in which "whiteness" was a topic of "learning" (enough with the "scare quotes," Johnny!), I can report that class, politics, and race all come together in one big ball of squishy, soggy pointy-headed guilt. 

Finally, what an amazingly provincial concept, "whiteness studies" is! Made by US historians and US cultural theorists for the study of US History by specialists in US History. A bit of a tempest in a teapot, if you ask me. Or at least it should be.