Whiteness
A social construction that has created a racial hierarchy that has shaped all the social, cultural, educational, political, and economic institutions of society. Whiteness and the normalization of white racial identity throughout history have created a culture where nonwhite persons are seen as inferior or abnormal. This white-dominant culture also operates as a social mechanism that grants advantages to white people, since they can navigate society both by feeling normal and being viewed as normal. Whiteness is a dominant cultural space with enormous political significance, with the purpose to keep others on the margin.
white
White is a socially constructed category of “race” with no biological or scientific foundation.
Despite this, whiteness is often treated as racially neutral, leading many white people to perceive themselves as having no ethnicity, while other groups are racialised and marked as “ethnic.” Being identified as white typically entails access to social legitimacy, authority, and resources that are denied to others, reinforcing racial hierarchies even when individuals do not consciously endorse racist beliefs (Dyer, 1997; Bonilla-Silva, 2018).
To be white means to hold privilege and power – for example, the privilege of not having to confront racism directly. Peggy McIntosh (1989) described whiteness as an “invisible knapsack” filled with unearned advantages that white people can rely on every day without being consciously aware of them.