In the Fall of 1996, Arlene Avakian, faculty member in the Women's Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst taught The Social Construction of Whiteness and Women. (See syllabi for Fall 1996 and 1997 in Appendix 1). Because the course was a powerful experience for both the faculty member and many of the students, the faculty member considered writing about it to urge others to teach such courses, but thought that student experiences in the course and perspectives on it were crucial to conveying the impact of the course. Student views had to be central to the discussion rather than merely included. The result is that this article is written collaboratively by some of the students in that course and the faculty member.

After a general description of the course including the goals, organization and some of the issues it raised, we will discuss what happened in the classroom around this material and our evaluation of the positive and negative aspects of the course.

DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE

The goals of the course as stated in the syllabus were:

1. to look at the historical, economic and political forces responsible for the construction and maintenance of whiteness;
   
   
2. to explore the mechanisms that insure that whiteness is experienced as the norm and not a race
   
   
3. to consider the relationship between the constructions of whiteness and the constructions of gender;
   
   
4. to help students place themselves on the multiple axes of race, gender, class and ethnicity and to help the white students gain an understanding of the role they play in maintaining the privileges they have; and
   
   
5. to explore effective action to challenge white supremacy.

The course was organized into three interrelated components:

1. Above all other considerations, the course was primarily an academic enterprise. Understanding whiteness requires hard intellectual work. The course materials were chosen to accomplish that goal, and students were required to write a research paper.
   
   
2. In addition to the three credit course, all students enrolled in the course were required to participate in a one-credit, pass/fail discussion group where they had the space to talk about the ways in which the class was affecting them both intellectually and emotionally. The groups of ten students each were facilitated by students who were not in the class, but who had some familiarity with the material. White people who are charged with talking about whiteness usually drift quite quickly away from themselves to the much easier area of racism and people of color; the work of the student facilitators was to keep the focus on whiteness rather than to raise topics for discussion and keep the discussion going. Students were responsible for bringing their issues to the group. Weekly journals were required. One copy was given to the facilitator and an anonymous one was for the faculty member.
   
   
3. Students were required to work in groups to take some anti-racist action on or off campus. This component was included for a number of reasons. It would build in a mechanism to avoid the common problems of whites becoming immobilized by guilt or passive in the face of the enormity of white supremacy, or feeling sorry for themselves for being white and having to "carry the burden of privilege." Confronting white supremacy would be a powerful reality check for white students about these "burdens." These groups also would help to develop support networks among anti-racist students.

Designed for students who had some familiarity with the historical, economic and political bases of racism, the three credit course first looked at various aspects of the development of whiteness. Using Theodore Allen's critique of the sociogenic and phylogenic definitions of race and Barbara Fields' argument that race is a social construction and therefore must be continually constructed, and must be explained historically rather than being used as a historical explanation, we were alerted to the tendency to essentialize race even as we insist that it has no biological basis. Keeping this analysis in mind, we then looked at the various legal definitions of races and their historical evolution.

The next section of the course focused on Allen's thesis that racial oppression ought to be defined by a set of relationships rather than by skin color. He argues that the Indigenous Irish were racially oppressed by the English and that Irish Catholics in the Six Counties in the North of Ireland continue to be racially oppressed. Despite his persuasive argument, many of us whites had difficulty with a conceptualization of "race" that extended beyond the boundaries of skin color, or to think of acts of racism occurring in any framework other than a Black or people of color/white dichotomy. As one student said, "it was a complete mind-fuck." The idea was contrary to all the socializing forces that had shaped our views of race. Along with an examination of the development of whiteness in Ireland, we also considered the accumulation of capital by European states who participated in the slave trade and the effect of newly developing capitalism on gender roles.

Focussing next on the 19th and 20th centuries we looked at science and literature. Audrey Smedley's chapter on the rise of science explores the development of biological determinism, specifically of the idea of races as separate species. Toni Morrison's Playing in the Dark provoked much discussion. Analyzing exclusively writers who are considered to be within the cannon of American literature, Morrison argues that white novelists created what she terms Africanist characters; stereotyped Black characters who bear no resemblance to African or African American people. These characters function to build the white characters and by extension conceptions of whiteness. Although ignored by literary critics, Africanist characters, then, belong at the center of literary analysis. Never named, whiteness is delineated by being the opposite of blackness, and Morrison maintains, is developed in a gendered framework.

Focusing on Christianity as it was practiced in the Southern United States in the first half of the 20th century, we grappled with Lillian Smith's argument in Killers of the Dream that the split between the stated tenets of Christianity and the practice of segregation created in individual whites and in white culture a kind of schizophrenia. African Americans, on the other hand, spared both this split and sexually repressive Christianity, were seen by Smith as emotionally healthier than whites. In this partially autobiographical work, Smith pays particular attention to the roles of white and Black women in this system. Our discussion of women's participation in systems of white supremacy was deepened by the works of Claudia Koonz and Katherine Blee whose work focuses on Nazi women and women in the Ku Klux Klan respectively.

Moving into the contemporary period we looked at the invisibility of whiteness in public policy, the development of the concept of white "innocence" and the mechanisms though which European immigrants, specifically the Irish and Jews, became white. Two sessions were devoted specifically to resistance to white supremacy; the first a talk by a white woman from the South who participated in the Civil Rights Movement and had tried to organize other whites and the second a general discussion among students about their efforts, both in the action groups and other activism, to confront white supremacy The final classes were devoted to group presentations from the action groups.

We saw two videos, both of which proved to be enormously effective in stimulating discussion. The Color of Fear, a documentary of a discussion among a multiracial group of men about racism, including an obviously racist white man (David), was shown in the first class. The students were asked to keep in mind two issues while they watched the intense personal interactions in the video: 1. the ways in which they saw aspects of themselves in David, and 2. whether this discussion among men would have been different had it been among women. The second video was Blood in the Face, a documentary about militant white supremacists. Students were again asked to find similarities between the ideas espoused by these Christian white supremacists and their own assumptions, discussions about race among their peers, and contemporary rhetoric about race in the media and in government.

Twenty one students were enrolled in the class. Of these all but one were white; fifteen were women and six were men; seven were Women's Studies majors, five were STPEC majors (Social Thought and Political Economy, an interdisciplinary program that attracts progressive and activist students), two were BDIC majors (an individually designed major), four from Anthropology, one from Sociology and one was an exchange student.

ISSUES RAISED

The course raised as many questions as it answered. We discussed the ways that race was defined legally and socially, but it was not always clear to us what race is. Nor were we always sure who is "of color" and who is white? Are there shades of whiteness, and how are they determined? Is racial oppression always tied to skin color? When was whiteness developed? Did it predate the slave trade or was it central to the development of capitalism? What role does science play in keeping whites white? Is it white supremacy what makes America unique? What mechanisms continue to keep whiteness invisible, and how do we and other "anti-racist" whites grease those gears? What role does white "innocence" play in our lives? Does the tendency of some anti-racist whites to be super critical of efforts by other whites function to keep them politically correct and beyond criticism? What does it mean to be a race traitor? How can we become one? Can we stop being white? What are the connections between whiteness and class? Is using white as a definer of more than color and privilege valid? Is it there a white culture? How do we define white as an identity when it is definitively changed by gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and "insider/outsider" status?

And what about gender? What are the connections between the construction of whiteness and the construction of gender and how do we live out those constructions as women and men? Does the idea that white women are less prone to racism because they do not have power in patriarchal institution hold up under the scrutiny of how white women have actually behaved? Or is that formulation merely a way for white women to use their victimization to ignore their complicity in white supremacy and to deny the privileges they derive from their white skin? Has the oppression of women made white women, particularly feminists, resistant to a critical interrogation of their whiteness, or can white women use their own gender oppression as a way into a deeper understanding of white privilege? What is the specific experience or role for white women in white supremacy? We struggled with how to approach the specific experiences of white women and their role in relation to the white patriarchal power structure. While we concluded that white women, like white men, benefit from white supremacy and perpetuate the cycle of racism, we were not clear on how to incorporate white women into the larger theoretical frameworks.

Did the course answer these questions? While everyone in the course might have a different answer to that question, most of us agree that merely being engaged in an ongoing discussion about whiteness with both the authors we were reading and each other helped to push us to deeper levels of understanding whiteness and the role it plays in our lives, those of us who are "white" and those of us who are "of color."

CLASSROOM DYNAMICS

Because the class was discussion based, and because the topic raises such personal and volatile issues, the dynamics between class members are important to analyze. The topics discussed created many conflicts for individuals since there were differences among class members in how free or comfortable they felt voicing their opinions. Students came from different backgrounds with regards to knowledge of race and whiteness. Some students in the class had had many classes and professors who had addressed the topics, but most students were exploring the issue of whiteness for the first time.

As a result of this variety of experience in the class, some students felt intimidated by their perception of the extensive knowledge and experience of other students. Some felt a level of competition among the students as to whose comments would show them to be the most enlightened on the topic. Both the perception of others' greater familiarity with the topic and the competitiveness kept some students from speaking. There was a fear of being labeled racist by other members of the class.

I felt myself silencing my own voice, or rather, censoring my own words to the point of silence...I can admit to myself now that I was overwhelmingly fearful of being labeled RACIST for any of my stories or thoughts that I might utter...I could not even admit this fear to myself...[let alone] in front of other white people. (midsemester journal entry)

Other students commented on being overwhelmed by the awareness of their whiteness.

So, then--why do I remain quiet in class? I sit, searching for experience to relate, new thought which I would like others to examine. I begin to formulate them--but they get confused. I become immensely aware of my whiteness. I get scared--I feel glaring eyes--I feel like I have to watch my words--my temperature rises. I am committed to deconstructing my whiteness and stop it from being a source of privilege. I'm convinced that this must be an active process. But I've become the quiet man.

For others, being quiet during the discussions was not a negative experience, although it may have been perceived as such by other students. Listening to the discussions gave them the opportunity to process other's contributions. As one student said, "It was difficult to reconcile the fact that, by nature, I am a quiet person in classes with the danger of white people's silence around racism." She felt that other students assumed her silence meant that she was reluctant to deal with the material or was afraid to speak, therefore felt pressure to speak in class, though it is not her usual style of being in the classroom.

And for others, the magnitude of what they were learning was daunting. Many students felt that they needed more time to digest the material.

Class has been frustrating thus far. There is a feeling, I sense, that many people (and this very much includes myself) are holding back. I've gotten this impression from other white students. I feel like I am trying to accomplish so much, that being the total unlearning of my whiteness and the privileges attached with one semester.

In our discussions after the semester was over many students said they continued to be involved in that process of assimilating and incorporating the material.

For other students there was sometimes a disjuncture between their personal experiences and the texts and/or the classroom discussion. Topics in the reading did not always apply to their experiences of class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and the ways they intersected with each other.

I don't feel safe in this supposedly "safe" space because all we talk about is white privilege in the abstract, and we never talk about all the different privilege levels within the class. Continually in the class I realized how often the middle class white experience was generalized as the experience of being white.

I don't think many people other than Jews think about the effects of anti- Semitism. I think about it because I grew up with it and it scares the living shit out of me. I get frustrated with Jewish men and women who compare their oppression to people of color's oppression because it is so very different. The thing that I struggle with is ...where does my being a Jew have [a place] in my feelings of identity. I am white and I receive white privilege. I do not really look like the stereotypical Jew and I can hide my Jewish identity really easily. I mean that is a given and that is why I get upset with other Jews who compare their oppression to racism. The problem is that while I receive white privilege, when people find out I am Jewish, sometimes it is another story...When people in our class talk about being white and American, I keep wanting to say, but I have not, that we are all not the same. I, as a Jew, am not treated the same way that many white Christians are. I have seen it in full force since birth.

A few months after I came out as Queer to my family, my father, brother and sister and I were sitting around in the kitchen discussing interracial relationships...[the father made it clear to the heterosexual children that he did not want them to be involved with Black partners]. My brother and sister's heterosexuality was being policed by my father because there is the expectation that they will form families and have children. The ramifications of interracial relationship for them involve, at their core, fear of race mixing, and ultimately, fear of a black planet. For me because I am Queer and the expectation is that I will not procreate and probably not have a family I was, in a strange way, outside of that policing. I think my father believed that whatever it is I'm going to do in regards to my sexuality it is so beyond his comprehension that he can't regulate it racially. This has led me to consider the relationship between heterosexism and white supremacy.

Most of the topics were dealt with on a very intellectual level, and many students did not want to or could not separate the academic idea of whiteness from the emotional connection to their lives.

There is this weird duality to how I am dealing with the class right now. As the classes get more academic, the more emotional I find that I am getting around issues of race. I am more aware of advertising, in class racism, the way books are written, advertisements, everything has become racialized. I can't go ANYWHERE without there being an issue of race. My friends are sick to death of hearing me talk about it and I find it hard to not be constantly pissed off wherever I go. I can't go to the movies, can't have a conversation with anyone, of color or white, without some kind of race debate coming up. I feel as if I have put on a pair of 3-d glasses and no one else knows what the hell I'm seeing. I'm excited for the conference and the discussion groups can be helpful in relieving some of the stress that I build up, but not much. I just feel like I have a lot going on with very emotional issues and frustrations and no place to put them. And maybe it is just important for me to hold onto that frustration for awhile.

I think we should talk about rage. It is my perception that many of the students, myself included, are enraged about many aspects of our lives and the life that surrounds us in Amherst, in Massachusetts, in "America," in the West...What does this anger mean? Do we, as whites committed to "uprooting racism" understand how rage is a force intrinsically bound to social control, oppression, liberation and freedom: Are we prepared to mesh rage with academic teachings, intellectualism with unadulterated anger...I believe that Rage is part of the struggle...The Rage that I fear is that which we direct at each other, in class. I feel it, in myself and around me. I fear that we walk on eggshells, and can make no progress because we must not offend, we must use the proper language, we must not slip and inadvertently identify with the oppressor.

***

Since I enrolled in this class, everything in my life has become race. I can't stop talking about it or thinking about it. My white friends (who aren't in this class) don't know what to do with me. I'm white. This isn't supposed to happen to me.

***

The fear many students said they felt in the classroom raised the issue of the classroom as a "safe space." The faculty member's position is unequivocal: I would not allow students to attack each other, but I do not feel a "safe" space is necessarily conducive to learning about such unsafe topics. I have felt pressure from both students and even sometimes other faculty to make the classroom "safe," and considers this insistence on "safety" to often be a function of white students invoking their privilege. White people are implicated in white supremacy and an exploration of that topic is not, in fact, "safe." I am further disturbed that faculty members who teach courses that do not deal with racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism are under no expectations to make their classroom safe, though they may be experienced to be very unsafe for women, gays and lesbians, and people of color. Who ever heard of asking a math professor to make his/her classroom safe?

Many students asked who the space would be safe for? They felt that white people are often in spaces where they feel safe, and that in order to deconstruct whiteness we have to look at the ways that safe space is created and maintained by privilege. Who is validated? Whose voice was heard? How did issues of race, class, gender, sexuality or religion privilege particular students at particular times?

I felt relatively comfortable in class discussion. As a white male, although in a predominantly white female discussion, it was typical that I dominate, control, and want a structured discussion which facilitated a "safe space" that made me feel comfortable.

On the other hand, for some students, the lack of safety pushed them to challenge their whiteness and the expectations of safety that accompanied it. When we examine whiteness, when we conceptualize it as a constructed race, we deconstruct it and one consequence of that process is that the very safety of being white, and the feelings associated with that position of dominance are challenged. Some students felt that the challenge to those expectations of safety were crucial to their whiteness being revealed to them. A challenge to safety is a challenge to whiteness.

I did not always feel safe in class. Sometimes when I spoke I was shaking and scared shitless, but I said what I had to say anyway. I pushed myself to say it because I had to. I had no choice.

I thought that last week's discussion was the most beneficial out of all of them for me. I felt really put on the spot, and actually that is how I learn best. I really know that `woman' had been a very blanketing statement for me and has served to perpetuate racism in my own language and I use the word `women' often when I should be stating `white women.' It is hard to unlearn when that is used in most of my training as a women's studies major.

POSITIVE ASPECTS OF THE COURSE

For most students the class was exploring new territory. As one student put it, "the class was a fire under my ass." Before this class, for some students, a discussion of race was a "hit and run" topic, one that was easy to avoid--to have a discussion, play innocent, and run. Having a class with a focus on whiteness forced some students to think about race in ways they never had previously. It provided a language for race outside of the realms of "the other" focussing on whiteness, theorizing its elusiveness. For some, the class put words to an uneasiness about discussions of racism's effect on people of color that they had experienced but never been able to articulate.

Being involved in discussions of whiteness along with doing anti-racist work is often very isolating for whites, particularly from other whites. Activist students who were drawn to the class in the hopes of finding people like themselves were able to create networks of support both for their feelings and their organizing work.

Over the past few years I have become more and more interested in doing anti-racist work, but rarely had somewhere to do it or someone to do it with. The isolation I experienced [at the private women's college she attended before she came to the University] was seriously demobilizing personally, and I was hoping to connect with a community where I could develop my thoughts about my roles as a white person in exploring race and in fighting racism, and then where I could act upon it with other people...The class provided aspects of all of these processes. I explored material I never would have come across otherwise...in a place where the stated goal was critically examining whiteness in order to challenge racism. I also became connected to a community that was incredibly important to me...I had new things to think about, new projects to work on, and people to fight with. The emotional, intellectual and political effects of the class will be with me for awhile.

The class provided an opportunity for some that most other classes did not: a link between the classroom and "real life." Because the subject matter affected everyone in the class in significant ways, both materially and psychologically, students' world views were transformed. Seeing white privilege as an everyday experience provided a bridge to new realizations about race. Students had to deal not only with what was in themselves, but with how they conceptualized the world. Previous held ideas about racism being exclusively about people of color were replaced by the realization that we are all implicated in white supremacy and that white privilege is built on the foundations of what has been and continues to be taken from people of color. As this understanding deepened, class members shared assumptions and began to develop a language to unmask whiteness. For those students who had been studying issues of race and whiteness for years, the class provided a space to be around people who shared their views, rather than being considered to be an extremist, at best, or insane, at worst. It was a relief to be understood and to be able to have explore the issues in depth rather than establishing the validity of focussing on whiteness.

Basically, I think I needed to take this course because of the welling up of emotions, of betrayals by the system, of being lied to for so long and for accepting it, that it needed an outlet or at least a conduit of language of ways of talking about it. The class offered a connection, it said I wasn't alone. Of course all of this was completely beneath the surface of my consciousness at the time.

Many students felt a sharp dichotomy between the understandings they shared with other students and the faculty member and what they experienced when they tried to discuss these issues with those who were not in the class.

Lately, I have also felt very frustrated with white men and women who do not understand their place as oppressors. I am mostly frustrated at myself because I am so tired of trying to explain to white people, but at the same time, I think that it is of the utmost privilege to walk away from "those" white people instead of facing the challenge and educating them as much as they are willing to receive it. I think in a way, this class has made me have an unrealistic perspective on other white people's place in not only understanding their racism, but their whiteness. It has become a challenge for me to try to reconcile that I can't talk about whiteness in the same language as we do in this class. And it is very frustrating to get so far in talking about whiteness for these short periods of time, and then to have to adjust my language for the rest of the time.

For many students, bringing the class material to others in families and communities proved to be difficult, painful and complex. Others found it enormously rewarding.

I think I am ready for public activism now because I'm confident in myself and my identity now to bear criticism for taking an active stance against racism and the myth of whiteness. Before I did not feel supported enough or firm enough in my convictions since I did not have a group of other people I felt in sync with. One of the most intimidating aspects of this sort of resistance is how it changes me and my relationships with people close to me. Will my friends, family, teachers, boss, girlfriend etc, still support me? Will they understand my commitment and conviction if they think I am attacking them. I think if I express to those who I'm close to and don't want to push away, that I love them and implicate myself within the process of reproducing racism in the past, then it might bridge the gap of defensiveness.

***

As this class winds down, I feel as if a revelation has taken place and now I'm learning how to implement it in my life. I have all of these altered perceptions (which are changing by the minute) and now I am busy trying to find the language to talk about them...Everything that I have learned has told me not to talk about race -- either someone had no answer for me or it wasn't "polite" to talk about it. Now, it seems, to talk about race, more or less, racism is not only taboo, but a quick way to get a silent, angry room...The hardest part is bringing this into my life in a way where people hear me-- mainly my family and close friends. I have many people in my life who don't want to hear about race. They are perfectly satisfied with the fact that they lie in a white utopia where they don't have to think about race.

Perhaps because of the feeling that the class provided the only place to have the discussion we were having, some students did not want the class to disband at the end of the semester. In the last class a few students said, "We can't stop meeting." Despite the faculty member's reminder that this was a class and that the semester was over, they continued to insist that the class continue, until the faculty member agreed to meet with the class once a week the next semester. Thirteen of the twenty one students enrolled in a one credit pass/fail discussion group.

PROBLEMS WITH THE COURSE

In addition to the many positive aspects and outcomes of this course, there were problems. A focus on whiteness raises enormous questions. The very term "whiteness" itself is problematic. Gender, sexual orientation, class and religion or ethnicity all affect the way privilege is both constructed and experienced. Whiteness can not be isolated since it is connected to every other part of our being and is affected by every situation we encounter. The work of trying to theorize whiteness in the context of other social formations is made more difficult because very little analysis exists which actually integrates race with class, gender and sexual orientation. Throughout the class we struggled with the issue of focussing on whiteness while simultaneously acknowledging that it is not a universal experience. Essentializing whiteness is not anymore justifiable than essentializing anything else.

Yet, keeping the focus on whiteness is important. The integration of other issues has the potential to take the focus off of whiteness, something that whites do all too easily. Thinking and talking about whiteness is difficult, precisely because it has not been theorized and remains unmarked.

And it feels natural to fall back into the safer discussion of racism, turning the focus onto people of color so that whites can escape the spotlight of our own implication in white supremacy. Or when whites do focus on white supremacy, we continue to find ways to displace ourselves from it by identifying only the most blatant racists as white supremacists. The face of white supremacy usually appears as the Ku Klux Klan or other militant white supremacists groups freeing us, at least in our own white consciousness, of our responsibility and accountability.

Coinciding with the academic material, the tremendous emotional impact of the course was often not contained within the class.

I am tired and disappointed when I talk about my experiences as a white woman in the class and/or discussion and I don't see one face that shows me recognition in what I am saying except Arlene. I feel like I am a freak again among white people and these are white people who are supposed to know more about white privilege...I am tired of going around in circles because no one wants to deal with the pain, fear, anger, frustration of what it means to be a white person, a white women, a white man.

Whiteness does not remain an abstract discussion. For white students, most of the questions we discussed raised issues of our own white identities and how they might be linked to other aspects of our socially constructed selves. Whiteness is a way of being and living that is integral to our constructed identities.

When we were talking in class and in discussion about the positive aspects of whiteness, I was racking my brain to think of any and I couldn't. Then someone said that it's positive that it is socially constructed because if it hasn't always existed then it doesn't always have to exist. I find that comment particularly poignant. All the things I think of about being white are negative. It's not that I think white people cannot achieve anything positive, but until we do contribute to anti-racism on a broad scale, I don't think we should be looking for reasons to toot our own horn...to look for goodness in whiteness in general seems premature. As a "race," we don't deserve praise.

I have had a lot to absorb, and that is good, but I am really looking to make some progress. I am feeling really stagnant; like I'm locked in a room with the most uncomfortable feelings. I don't want to be in the room anymore. I don't know how to deal with my whiteness without hating myself and I can't bear to hate myself anymore. I feel worse everyday about my relation to race.

I've never had bad things happen to me because of my race, only my gender and even that is easy to forget. Until I fall though the cracks again and something happens. It's the epitome of white privilege and safety--the lure of safety and if it isn't happening to me, it's not happening to anyone...I feel like I have no option in this place [a White place like Amherst] except to hate myself, as well as try to change things. It seems so futile when we can't even reach out to the other we/I am trying to work with.

What is the process white people must go through to "come to terms" with their whiteness and their complicity in white supremacy? Must it include a way to become comfortable in their whiteness before they can enter into serious anti- racist work or must we face the pain of our white identity? As one student asked, "does dismantling whiteness mean dismantling myself, and is that a bad thing?" Can one stop being white? Despite anti-racist work, and our racial or ethnic background, whites do not lose our whiteness and we can never forget that we are perceived as white. A difficulty for some students was the distinct discrepancy between how one perceives him/herself and how one is perceived by others in terms of racial identity. Regardless of the anti- racist work we undertake, and despite our individual racial and/or ethnic make up, if we are perceived as white by others, we can not lose our whiteness. And we questioned how much of this work can be addressed in the classroom?

We were also aware of the danger of a group of mostly white people discussing white privilege and being self-congratulatory as a result. It is not enough to discuss whiteness and be happy with that. We found it difficult to find the balance between honoring the work we are doing on whiteness while realizing that we are not saints, nor giving up any of our privilege, because we are engaged in this work. Some students felt that the study of whiteness was rite with contradictions. It is important for white people to focus on whiteness to advance anti-racist consciousness and activism, but that very focus is fraught with the danger of making ourselves the center of the universe as we have been socialized to do.

DISCUSSION GROUPS

All students were required to enroll in a one-credit discussion group which consisted of approximately ten students and a facilitator who met once a week for an hour. Depending on the general mood of the group the hour would sometimes feel like a few seconds or a few days. The discussion section was important because it provided a set time, place and group for peers to meet outside of class to discuss whiteness and the course material on a more personal level than was possible in the context of the class.

Students brought the topics to the discussion. Someone might ask if they could talk about what they wrote in their weekly journal entry, or someone raised an issue that had occurred that week such as a response someone received from a family member or friend to learning that a son, daughter or friend was taking a course called the Social Construction of Whiteness and Women. Discussions might also center on the class material, sometimes developing the ideas further than they had been in class or discussing the "obstacle" that had hindered the discussion.

Often there was no discussion. The room was silent, particularly in the beginning of the semester when we were learning where each of us were coming from.

When the group first began, I noticed that I was often very uncomfortable. I felt myself silencing my own voice, or rather, censoring my words to the point of silence, because I never quite felt at ease enough to speak a lot of what was on my mind. I can admit to myself not that I was overwhelming fearful of being labeled a RACIST for any stories or thought that I might utter.

***

I think that maybe we need to have an idea of what we all want this space to be. Right now I don't feel like it is a place for me to talk, share or be honest. It seems more like a shame/anger circle to me. And I feel it within me to, rather than supporting the people in the group and learning from them, I often find myself getting frustrated with others.

***

I came into the discussion craving at least one other person who would listen to me with open ears and perhaps corroborate my experiences. Outside from other people I knew who had personally studied whiteness, I felt like I was on my own--even mentioning the word whiteness made me feel uncomfortable.

Despite these feelings of discomfort the discussion sections did provide the opportunity to integrate the emotional and the intellectual. Discussing whiteness among peers forced us into reflexive exploration and to be more accountable to our social identities. By the end of the semester, some students did have their experiences as whites corroborated by others. I feel like I've learned so much from my group, and so much about myself through the support of my group. It has, at times, challenged me directly about my own assumptions and community. It has also supported me when I could not have expressed myself otherwise, somewhere else. And, it has complemented class discussion and issues, sufficiently. I feel that some of us will constitute a group similar to this once the class has ended. The structure and support it provides is necessary for me to have the insight, community and strength to work for social justice against racism, both externally and internally...

ACTION GROUPS

The third component of our class was an action group addressing racism, whiteness and white privilege either on campus or in the surrounding communities. Students chose the areas they wanted to address and divided into three groups. One group worked on educating the campus community through a postering campaign, another did invisible theater on campus, on a bus and at the large mall in the next town, and the last group addressed admission policies, retention rates and financial aid for students of color at the University.

Students considered the action groups to be useful learning experience. Students learned organizing skills, as well as more about themselves as whites as they plastered the campus with anti-racist posters, did invisible theater taking roles as racists or anti-racists in public places to address issues of race and gathered information on admissions and made a coalition with an ALANA group (acronym for students of color) working on the same issues.

The groups were not, however, without conflict around both strategies to accomplish their goals and the division of labor within the group. The admissions group in particular was overwhelmed with the amount of work it would take to even gather the information they needed to lay the groundwork for action. Most students felt that being involved in the action group was well worth the cost since it allowed them to put all their studying into action, making the theoretical very real.

The takeover of the Goodell building in March of 1997 by a multi-racial group of approximately 250 students the semester after the course was over is included here because a majority of the students in the class were part of the takeover and most of the rest were involved in support work. The takeover focussed on admissions, retention and financial aid for students of color, child care, scholarships for first generation college students, and other policies at the University that adversely affect working class and poor students. Some students felt they would not have been involved in the takeover if they had not been in the class. Both a deeper understanding of the issues and personal connections to ALANA students through work on the admissions action project enabled some students to become deeply involved in the takeover. Students also felt that what they had learned in the class helped them to work more effectively as part of an action who leadership was comprised primarily of ALANA students. Other students expressed frustration that their tendency to be self-conscious about race and to over intellectualize their interactions with people of color were exacerbated by a semester focussed on whiteness.

CONCLUSION

I am confused about this whole class--for me one of the main outcomes..has been forming bonds with other white kids and feeling really comfortable with everyone. I suppose that it is good to have support from other people doing the same inner work, but how comfortable should we be? ...I'm just concerned with all my white activities--focussing on whiteness; this whiteness class, my discussion group for this class, the theater group-activist project, my white women's support groups on whiteness. It's good and all, but so much of my time is spent with all white people! Is this the right way to go about it? Not to mention all the other white parts of my life...It's all up to me to change this--I'm just feeling awkward with my life--my comfortable life as a white person.

***

It boggles my mind to think about all the things I, as a White woman, can do due to my white privilege. I will probably die still not knowing the million other things my white privilege gives me...I guess my job for the rest of my life is to keep finding ways my White privilege benefits me and to try to resist as much as possible. I know I will always have White privilege, but I am going to try damn hard to fight it every step of the way no matter what!!!!!

***

The challenge for me will not only be the confrontation of my whiteness, but to deal and name the feelings of a reality becoming fluid. No motion in any one direction, not a straight ahead streaming to understanding. This fluidness is the marking of the transition from solid sense of identity and location to a melting sense of identity. As a white (light skinned, privileged, male) my skin is representative of more than I was ready to accept.

***

Maybe I need to read more, maybe I need a little more courage or maybe I should just spit it out...I get defensive, condescending; sometimes, I think that I only needed the first month of this class; just enough to raise my consciousness so that I would be more aware of what it means to be white in the United States and the privileges attached. Ultimately, I suggest to myself, the path I take in becoming an effective anti-racist will be one I define for myself. But after many of my classmates recounted their experiences at the conference, I realize that so much more is possible here and that I am completely missing the justification for a collective struggle against our own white privilege. In a sense this is just another course, one where I can calmly leave in December to slowly make my own conclusions. Part of me, however, wants it to be so much more; I want every meeting to leave me totally engaged and exhausted and even a little upset. I want to feel part of a process; part of a struggle. Yet, at the same time, I want to get on my bike and disappear for a year to "think things through." It is easy to rely on time to solve my problems; that I think, is part of my privilege. In this situation, therefore, I need to take another approach; one which I have not had a model or precedent for...I'm scared that I will leave this class hating everyone in it and hating myself.

***

This is some `tuff shit to work through, and the trouble is that we are going to still be white when all this is done. It was easier to discuss racism in high school because that was something that I did not locate myself in. I could walk away at the end and not have to feel the effects of the racism that I was conceiving of. Now, I know that when I leave this class I am followed by the historical significance of my skin and how it hangs onto my male social identity.

***

I find that this is one of the hardest traps not to fall into -- the superiority of white racial exceptionalism. I felt complimented by his statement [a Black leader in her high school told her that he did not think of her as white] most of the time I don't want to be associated with dominant white racial views. Regardless of how much I dissociate myself from these views though, I benefit from the privilege they accord. No matter how many friends of color don't think of me as white, no matter how much I want to disassociate myself from whiteness, when I walk down the street, or apply for a job, or encounter the police, it is as a white person. I find it really difficult to keep these compliments from letting me off the racial hook. This is especially dangerous and disturbing when I find it becoming an unconscious goal in the anti-racist work that I do.

***

The thought of losing this class is a scary and sad prospect...something will be missing in my life without this class next semester. And I don't even want to think of January break when I lose my friends who are keenly aware of their white privilege for a whole month. I know I will still have people to talk to next semester about these issues, it won't be the same. While this was a class and a difficult class at that, on many level, I also found it a comfort to have a designated place where I could go twice a week and discuss these issues with people who understood where I was coming from. Is this an issue of white privilege: Do I have this space because of my white privilege?

The course ended, grades were given, but some of us went on into the next semester processing what we had experienced in the class and finally, putting some of our thoughts into this article. The faculty member is teaching the class with some changes based on her discussions with the students. She plans to make the course a regular offering in her department. Most of the students and the faculty member felt that the course was both difficult and rewarding, raising many issues that could not be answered, but beginning and/or continuing the work of looking at whiteness in institutions and in ourselves.

Marlene Applebaum, Student
Arlene Avakian, Faculty
Christina Cincotti, Student
Kelly Facto, Student
Brenda Fitzpatrick, Student
Sarah Gold, Student
David Hanbury, Student
Keisha Kenny, Student
Kathryn McGarvey, Student
Nicole Lisa, Student
Nicole Morse, Student
Judith Schneider, Student
Andrew Susen, Student
Katie Thoennes, Student

All of the quotations are from student journals, evaluations or other pieces written and given to the faculty member.