White Culture in Relief
Chapter 2 in White Women's Work
Most of Ali’s work is written in collaboration with colleagues of color because so much of the story of race is about how different racial groups are separated from one another, and then defined in relation to one another. As anthropologist of education, Howard Winant, writes, “Whiteness is a relational concept, unintelligible without reference to non-Whites" (2001, p. 107). This chapter on White Culture in Schools is a perfect example of a piece on Whiteness that could only be written in collaboration with a multiracial team. Drawing on Stacey Lee’s work, written about in her book Up Against Whiteness, we define Whiteness as a force that can only be described in terms of the ways that it comes up against other racial/ethnic cultures such as Blackness, being Caribbean American, being Latina, or being South Korean American. If you are asking yourself, "What exactly is White culture and how does it do damage in schools?" you will appreciate the specific examples explored in this chapter.
Michael, A., Coleman-King, C., Lee, S., Ramirez, C., & Bentley-Edwards, K. L. (2016). Seeing White Culture. In S. D. Hancock & C. A. Warren (Eds.), White Woman’s Work: Examining the Intersectionality of Cultural Norms, Teaching, and Identity Formation in Urban Schools. Information Age Publishing.
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