Some of these studies are better than others. Frankly, most I've seen have been ahistorical and sacrifice accuracy and honesty in the interest of a cookie-cutter model.
To talk about racism and racial categories as a cultural construct is only a new insight if we have a very serious amnesia. Beyond recasting this very old observation, what does "whiteness" do? "Whiteness" means so many different things in so many settings in the real world that its application assumes that either the customs, laws, etc. imposed by the elite are universally accepted (which is not only elitist but simply untrue) or that the standards in society are somehow set from the bottom-up by the unenlightened whites at the bottom of class structure (which is both elitist and delusional in its democratic faith). The intellectual origins of this are sociological models which are almost always overgeneralizations. This one is based on Ted Allen's view of seventeenth and eighteenth century Caribbean, so it's application to the different parts of North America requires that social sciency leap of faith that makes historians cringe. The prescriptive elements of "whiteness" go beyond "being aware" to rejecting "whiteness." Nobody in their right mind seriously believes that something socially imposed (or expropriated) can be inverted by an individual will. The unfair advantages a white has in the society are rooted in things like the job market and housing patterns. How does an individual repudiate "whiteness" in any area that really counts? A bit like expecting to levitate the Pentagon, isn't it? Historians generally used to argue--some of us still do--that racism is a feature of institutions and practices that transcend individuals and their specific state of mind. The entire range of "whiteness" reflects the white racism of the academic world. When discussions of race and racism were introduced, they were generally linked to specific specializations, mostly set aside as ghettoized area studies and positions. White scholars who wanted to discuss such questions had great difficulty having their work taken seriously--not by black scholars--but by the institutions that had pretty much ghettoized the subject. The creation of "whiteness" began among white scholars who rightly wanted to discuss issues of race but without waging an ideological war on the assumptions of the professions. I suspect that the translation of these ideas into institutional terms has had a far different effect than intended. The origins of this are related to "masculinity" studies and other ways of permitting male academics to discuss gender and sexuality. But haven't I said most of this before.... Solidarity! ML
