[KS] the "white males" question

Young Rae Oum youngrae at ma.ultranet.com
Thu Oct 19 12:57:43 EDT 2000


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At 11:07 AM 10/18/00, michael Robinson wrote:

>But in the midst of deconstructing for clarity purposes the stereotypes
>and essentialized useages about such groups why does the use of the
>common and undifferentiated sobriquet "white males" remain in use?

(snip)

>Mike Robinson

The "white males" (as a group and as an identity) is a social
construction,
which means it is powerful, thorough, and profoundly and pervasively
instilled in social realities in the form of privileges and power and
control.  I would like to suggest a few readings to the "why white
males?"
question rather than respond to it at length.  Please see some of the
following. These provide eloquent and complex answers to this question.

        Aida Hurtado, The Color of Privilege. Ann Arbor: The University
of
Michigan Press.  1996. (esp. chapter 1)
        Gayatri C. Spivak, Feminism and Critical Theory, in Spivak, "In
Other Worlds" (pp. 77-92) New York: Routledge. 1987.
        Gayatri C. Spivak, A critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a
History of the Vanishing Present.  Harvard University Press.  1999. 
(esp.
the "philosophy" chapter)
        Ruth Frankenberg, The Social Construction of whiteness.
Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. 1993.
        Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double
Consciousness. Harvard University Press.  1993.

Regards,

Young Rae Oum





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