Reconceptualizing Whiteness

Presentation by: Paul Madden – Paulemadden@gmail.com

Susan Naimark – Susan@naimark.orgCOMMUNITY CHANGE, INC.Promoting Racial Justice and Equity Since 1968

Reconceptualizing Whiteness by Paul E Madden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

AgendaTime Topic10:30 – 10:45 am

Session Overview & Introductions

10:45 – 11:00 am

Framing the discussion

11:00 – 11:20 am

Question 1: What might a transformed European-American culture be like?

11:20 – 11:35 am

Question 2:What changes in personal interactions can we make to transform European-American culture to be a giant step closer to racial justice by 2042?

11:35 – 11:50 Question 3: What changes in institutional practices can we make to transform European-American culture to be a giant step closer to racial justice by 2042?

11:50 – 12 noon

Question 4: What do white people have to gain from this transformation?

Introductions1.Name2.Why you chose this session3.1 word that comes to mind when you

hear the phrase “white culture”

Starting AssumptionsRacism is systemic.Race is not biologically real but race really

effects people.Cultures at their core can change.European culture is particularistic, not universal. We are not here to present an universal “master

plan.” There is no single right way to transform white culture.

Framing the DiscussionDefine CultureEuropean Culture, at it’s core

Describe Nascent European CultureShow homeostasis of European Culture Overview Comparison of European Culture to Asian,

African, and Native American Culture.Linking European Culture to RacismImplications of Not Changing European CultureSeeds of Change

Defining Culture“…the combination of motor and mental

behavior patterns arising from the encounters of man with nature and with his fellow man…”6 – FRANZ FANON

“A process which gives people a general design for living and patterns for interpreting their reality.”4 –WADE NOBLES

Nascent European Culture: Nature and Neighbor

“ European behavior toward other racial/cultural groups is a result of the early experience of the Northern Cradle, since a people’s collective personality is determined in their first intense experience as a group, much as a child’s personality is determined in its first, formative years. The personality type persists even when conditions and geographical locations change.”1

Encounters with Nature

“The environment of the Northern Cradle was harsh, cold, and relatively infertile, lacking in opportunities for agriculture”1

“Here nature left no illusions of kindliness. he must learn to rely on himself alone…he would conjure up deities maleficent and cruel, jealous and spiteful…all the people of the area whether white or yellow were instinctively to love conquest because of a desire to escape from hostile surroundings.1

“They forced these early Aryans into a nomadic existence in which women and children were regarded as liabilities, since in the absence of agriculture, their contribution to material survival was extremely limited.”

Encounters with Neighbors

The lack of agriculture and of other survival resources severely limited the opportunities for cooperation as a model for social organization; instead these meager resources encouraged a competitive, aggressive attitude toward one’s neighbor, i.e., a fierce individualistic battle over the little that existed”1

“Survival in this circumstance rested more on the ability to view others with suspicion than as potential allies.”1

Nascent European Culture: Nature and Neighbor

The Core of European Culture: Ever Expanding Power and ControlEuropean’s experience with their environment and

neighbors resulted in an ever expanding desire for increased power and control.

European Culture, Whole and Homeostatic?

“In marked contrast to all the other great civilizations of the ancient world, the Greek economy was not completely dependent on agriculture. The Greek ecology conspired against an agrarian base, consisting as it does mostly of mountains descending to the sea. This sort of ecology was more suited to herding and fishing than to large-scale agriculture. The sense of personal agency that characterized Greeks could have been the natural response to the genuine freedom that they experienced in their less socially complex society.”5

When in Rome…do as the Greeks do? British philosopher Whitehead (1861–1947) once stated that all occidental

philosophy after Plato (427–347 B.C.) were nothing else than a sequence of ‘‘footnotes’’ to Plato.7

European Culture Seems Diverse and Divergent but, not at It’s Core “In all these [thought, ethics, literature, music, painting] facets of culture the

development was European, but not national. There never was a lasting national isolation within Europe with respect to any of these facets.”7

European African Asian Native-American

Metaphysics – “theories about the nature of the world”5

or “first principles we must possess in order to make sense of the world in which we live”3-

Oppositional relationship with nature, humans on top.1

Nature is objectified and despiritualized.The world as a collection of discrete objects which could be categorized by reference to some subset of universal properties that characterized the object.5

“Regards all men as his brethren – as members of his ever extending family”6

“The concept of the person in African thought extends to encompass the entire universe. “1

The world is a collection of overlapping and interpenetrating stuffs or substances.Parts only exist within wholesBelief in the fundamental relatedness of all things and their impact on each other.5

“The world, and all its possible experiences, constituted a social reality, a fabric of life in which everything had the possibility of intimate knowing relationships because, ultimately, everything was related.” Relationship are personal and ethical.5

Epistemology – “people’s theory of knowledge, including what counts as knowledge, the degree to which different kinds of knowledge is certain and presumed relation between the knower and the object that is known.”5

Analytical - Detachment of the object from its context, a tendency to focus on attributes of the object to assign it to categories to explain and predict the objects behavior using formal, abstract logic.Knowing does not imply action.5

General distrust of experiences.

Intuitive understanding– global thinking that does not separate “reason” from “emotion” or “spirituality” and attends to an object within its context.6

Knowledge based on experience & observations.Use of diunital logic – both/and thinking1

Dialectic – middle way, A and not A both have merit and inform each other.

Holistic thought – attention to relationships between a focal object and the field.Experience-based knowledgeKnowing entails some consequence of action.5

Relational- focused on personality (power and place) of objects and entities in the natural world in order to understand how to engage a personal universe. Emphasis is on the particular with an understanding that messages will come from nature.5

Cosmology – Essentially theology. How a people experiences spirituality.

Monotheistic, strong male principle without an equal female principle.

Universalistic, separate and above nature. Spirit over matter. Religion and spirituality separate.

Belief in the interrelatedness of all things through a common energetic origin.No separation between spirit and matter. Balanced male and female principles -appositional complimantarity”1

“Did not have a concept of nature’ as distinct from human or spiritual entities; all things are related and effect each other.

Existence of male and female principles.5

Everything is related – possibility of intimate knowing relationships. 3 Balanced and complementary male and female principles. Spirituality is inseparable from everyday life.

Harmony Individualistic – When “higher” parts of being control “lower” parts of being.

Community Centered –Balance is key, “fair share must be fair in relation to the whole society” 6

In-group – achieved by performing roles w/in boundaries of duty/ expectations.5

Balance between peoples (e.g. humans, bears, elk), spirits, mother earth, and the universal whole1

Identity Personal Agency5 “I think therefore I am”

“I am because we are”6 Collective agency5 Power and Place = Personality3

Linking European Culture and RacismRacism functions ideologically and systemically to

rationalize and maintain European’s Power and Control over people of color and their homelands.

No Cultural Change Racism ForeverAs long as European culture, at its cultural core,

seeks ever expanding power and control, Europeans will not forfeit the power and control afforded to them by the system of racism.

What if Racism Ends Without Cultural Change?Again, as long as European culture, at its cultural

core, seeks ever expanding power and control, Europeans will not forfeit any system that affords them ever expanding power and control unless another, more effective system takes its place.

This system will be as bad if not worse than systemic racism, if you can imagine that…

Example Implications of Not Changing European Culture at its CoreRacism continues to adjust as it is never put on a

“terminal path,” or is replaced by something worse.

The uni-linear ideology of progress that positions indigenous people as inferior prevents us from looking at other possible ways of living that would be more harmonious with the environment and other peoples.

Seeds of ChangeRecognition of Ecological DevastationInterpersonal Racism is Seen as BadRevitalization of indigenous cultures in the US and

worldwideIncrease in Interracial marriages (Pew Research

Center)15% of all new marriages in 2010Of the 15%, Over 69% included a white partner and

a person of color

Citations1 - Ani, Marimba, Yurugu: An African Centered Critique of European Cultural

Thought and Behavior, Trenton: Africa World Press, 1994.2 - Allen, Cheikh Anta Diop's Two Cradle Theory : Revisited, Journal of Black

Studies, http://jbs.sagepub.com/content/38/6/813, March 20, 2008.3 - Deloria and Wildcat, Power and Place: Indian Education in America,

Golden: Fulcrum Publishing, 2001.5 - Nisbett et al. – Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic Versus Analytic

Cognition, Psychological Review, Vol 108, No 2, pgs 291-310, American Physiological Association, 2001.

6 - Hord and Lee, I am Because We Are: Readings in Black Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Press, 1995.

7 - Muller-Merbach, The Cultural Roots Linking Europe, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol 140, pgs 212-224, 2002.

Question 1

What might a transformed European-American culture be like?

Q1: Discussion QuestionsA) White people w/ ethnic identity: What core aspects

or practices of your own ethnic identity deviate from white culture and match other majority world cultures?

B) White people not choosing an ethnic identity: What have you observed in the White American experience that seems to deviate from white cultural norms and match other majority world cultures?

C) People of Color: What aspects of your own cultural identity must be part of a reconceptualized white culture?

Question 2

What changes in personal interactions can we make to transform European-American culture to be a giant step closer to racial justice by 2042?

Q2: Discussion QuestionsIf White culture was transformed, what would day

to day interactions begin to look like?Pick a situation and discuss how you/white folks

would act differently to model a transformed set of white values.

Question 3What changes in institutional practices can we

make to transform European-American culture to be a giant step closer to racial justice by 2042?

Imagining Institutional ChangeMove to the part of the room where the sign is

located for an institution you care about or work in – could be health care, education, housing, mass media, criminal justice or other.

Small Group Discussion:Identify a specific, significant change within this

institution that would support a different set of values. Ones that will help change European culture at their core.

Question 4What do white people have to gain from this

transformation? Goal: How are you going to gain support?

What is my sphere of influence? “What’s in it for me?” – that personHow can I get other white people to join in this

process of transformation?

Benefits of Fighting the Fight Derrick Bell, in his book Faces at the Bottom of the

Well argues that racism is permanent. Yet he also argues that we should continue on with the struggle even if in the end we do not reach our ultimate solution because unexpected miracles have occurred.

“If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.” – Lewis Carroll

Reconceptualizing Whiteness

Presentation by: Paul Madden – Paulemadden@gmail.com

Susan Naimark – Susan@naimark.orgCOMMUNITY CHANGE, INC.Promoting Racial Justice and Equity Since 1968

Reconceptualizing Whiteness by Paul E Madden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.