White Identification and Centeredness: Perpetuated Racial Discrimination in American Societies

Author’s Note:

In the wake of the unacceptably unjust murder of George Floyd at the hands of two police officers in Minneapolis, I have decided to publish an academic essay that I wrote a few years ago in a Race and Ethnic Studies class I took in high school.

While this essay does not talk specifically of white privilege and those systems of power and privilege that place people of color at a disadvantage, this essay discusses the concepts of White Identification and White Centeredness which play equal roles in creating and perpetuating racial inequality and injustices of this kind.

In many societies, whiteness has become the standard or default for human beings. This concept is defined as white identification, which states that white people have become the default and standard for what is normal for all humans. In these societies, people who do not fit the white standard are placed in a single category labeled “other” or “nonwhite” or even the more culturally acceptable “ethnic.” This categorization of people into white and non-white groups strips people of color of their racial and ethnic identity as they are not recognized for what they are, rather, they are recognized for what they are not. White identification is further complicated by the concept of white-centeredness, which Allan G. Johnson defines as the tendency to place white people and white cultures at the center of attention, such as in film, television, newspaper articles, and magazines. When white people are placed at the center of attention, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity that results reinforces the idea that whiteness is the standard for all humans. These concepts of white identification and centeredness cause many people of color to become invisible. In other words, they and their experiences with subsequent racism are often dismissed, overlooked, and treated as though they do not exist. This invisibility and failure to recognize the struggles of people of color in society can be seen in Pat Mora’s poem “Immigrants” as well as in Amy Tan’s essay “In the Canon, for All The Wrong Reasons.”

In the poem “Immigrants,” Pat Mora explores the erasure of immigrants’ cultural identities as they are forced to assimilate into the dominant white culture in America as a result of white identification and centeredness. Since American society is culturally identified as white, many immigrants feel as though they must let go of their cultural identities and make room for America’s dominant white culture. Mora explains how many immigrants attempt to Americanize their children in hopes that they will be accepted in society. These immigrants, she explains, “wrap their babies in the American flag,/feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie,/buy them blonde dolls that blink blue eyes or a football…before the baby can even walk” (Mora 1–2,4–6). Through juxtaposing the American flag with a variety of culturally white items, Mora communicates the idea that white culture has become equated with American culture. Because of white dominance and centeredness, these items have been placed at the center of American culture. As a result, whiteness has become the definition of what it means to be American.

In Privilege, Power, and Difference, Johnson makes a similar argument about how centeredness and white identification have transformed American culture. Johnson argues that because white people have become the standard in America, the term “American” has been socially redefined to only include white people. In his chapter discussing how systems of privilege operate, Johnson argues that because “privileged groups are assumed to represent humanity and society as a whole, [the term] ‘American’ is culturally defined as white, in spite of the diversity of the population” (Johnson 80). Similarly to Mora, Johnson argues that based on the assumption that all Americans are white or identify with the culture, white culture has been placed at the center of attention and has even become the definition of American culture.

Like Johnson, Mora seems to claim that because white culture has become the definition of an American, immigrants are forced to assimilate into this dominant white culture in order to be considered and included in society. Out of fear of being excluded, many immigrant parents force their children to conform to the white culture and standards that surround them in hopes that their children will be accepted. Mora further argues that this forcible assimilation of minorities to the dominant white culture causes these marginalized groups to become invisible because their ethnic identity becomes substituted with the white culture they are pressured to adopt. These people’s ethnic background becomes erased when they become a part of a white America that does not recognize them for their differences. As a result, their accounts of the racial inequality and discrimination that they experience are never heard, which only perpetuates these issues.

Likewise, these ideas of racial inequality, discrimination, and invisibility are further explored in Amy Tan’s “In the Canon, for All the Wrong Reasons,” where Tan questions whether or not she was placed in the Canon as a result of her talent or because her Asian background was meant to add diversity to the Canon. In this essay, Tan explores her invisibility as a result of being one of the few ethnic writers to have made it into the Canon of literature. Tan begins to wonder whether her talent or her ethnicity is to credit for her inclusion to the Canon of literature when readers label her as an Asian writer whose goal is to write about the Chinese experience. Tan explains that according to her readers, she “[is] apparently…driven to capture the immigrant experience…demystify Chinese culture… point out the difference between Chinese and American culture, [and] even…pave the way for other Asian American writers” (Tan). Amy Tan discusses how the practice of racial labeling causes her to feel invisible because readers assume and even insist that, because she is Chinese, she writes in order to shed light on the Chinese experience and Chinese culture. In making this assumption, readers ignore the true reason why she writes, which she explains is to write stories that are universal to the human experience and “discover the past for [herself]” (Tan). Due to her label of being an Asian American writer, Tan is not seen for the universal messages that she expresses in her work, rather, she is seen as a writer who stories simply offer insight into Chinese culture. Tan makes the argument that white identification and centeredness cause people of color to feel overlooked and ignored on a human level because their human qualities are overlooked and their talents are credited to their race.

Similarly, Johnson makes the argument that racial tags are a product of a white-identified society. In his chapter on white identification, Johnson argues that “in a white-identified system, white is the assumed race unless something other than white is marked. Whites are rarely if ever identified as white because it is assumed. For everyone else, however, racial tags are common [like] ‘black president’…‘Latina writer’ and ‘Asian actor’” (Johnson 81). Johnson argues that racial tagging is a direct result of white identification and centeredness because it is assumed that all people are white. When people of color are identified, they are immediately labeled as if their talents stem from their race. As a result, works of literature are often looked at through a white lens where anything written by a person of color is either accredited to their race or assumed to be a “racial protest.”

White identification and white centeredness cause people of color to become invisible and even feel erased from society because they are categorized into a single group labeled “other” or “nonwhite” in relation to the white standard. This invisibility and failure to recognize people of color perpetuate issues of racial inequality and discrimination because dominant groups never hear their voices. This contributes to a lack of progress in alleviating the world of racism because, without hearing directly from the groups that are being oppressed, we remain unaware of the severity of racism and are unable to move forward as a society. Bringing minority groups to the forefront could help society in its efforts to alleviate the world of racism because the accounts of inequality and injustice that these groups face would better equip society to address and fix these issues.