Whiteness theory
The theory examines how that blindness may exclude, otherize and perhaps harm non-white individuals and segments of the population.
In the colonial era social class was more important than race among white people, however during the post-colonial era, social changes gave non-whites an opportunity to engage freely in the economy and those changes economically threatened lower and middle class white people.
[14] The opportunism for gaining an economical advantage motivated the lower and middle class white people to reproduce what whiteness can be in order to have a privileged lifestyle, and it was augmented and legitimized by the surviving plantation bourgeoisie class through social and psychological courtesies for further protecting their own privileges.
[14] Whiteness is a socially constructed concept, identified as the normal and centric racial identity.
[13] The ideologies, social norms, and behaviors associated with white culture are the comparative standard to which all races are objectified to.
Such classifications include stereotypical expectancies of behavior, in which a binary system is created that classifies a person's culture as either "White" or "other.
[24] In the United States, White privilege is theorized to exist due to the hierarchy of power distribution, where White men were granted institutional power over minorities in the establishment of the country's political, social, and economic systems.
White people have selective preference of granting power and privileges to those of the same ethnicity, referred to as in-group bias.
[30] Socially, institutional slavery, then racism has played a major role in the discrimination of not only African-Americans, but as well other minority affiliations as suboptimal.
Economically, access to higher-paying jobs and wage gap discrimination are an ongoing discourse demanding institutional change, both as a result of White bias.
Communication research revolving around critical race theory seeks to understand the privileges and associations of whiteness.
[33] In 1993, legal scholar Cheryl I. Harris published a paper entitled "Whiteness as Property" in the journal the Harvard Law Review.
She argues that that system reinforces racial hierarchy across society, relegating people of color to a disadvantaged status.
[37] It argues that when an ethnic group transitions from non-white to quasi-white, the boundary between racial dominants and subordinates blurs, threatening the contrast value of whiteness as property.
Sal, Vito and Pino are an Italian-American family who own a pizzeria in a predominantly black neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
[45] Sal sees his own cultural and racial identity to be central to his view of American representation and thus is an example of his whiteness.
The police ask the man to describe the men who soaked his car and he says, "Mo and Jo Black…Yeah, they were brothers".
Not only does Danny Archer dedicate his time and resources to help Solomon Vandy find the diamond and thus his family, he asks for the help of other white characters such as Maddy Bowen which ultimately result in Danny Archer's sacrifice of his own life and the money from the pink diamond to save Solomon Vandy and his family from definitive death.
