White Talk and Racism

“White Talk”: A Review
Name
Institution
“White Talk”: A Review
McIntyre (1997) explores the meaning of whiteness and white privilege by examining what she refers to as “white talk”. She defines white talk as a conversation amongst white people that keeps them from identifying and acknowledging their role, both individual and collective, in preserving racism. In this case, racism refers to the set of individual and institutional practices and beliefs that identifies one race as superior to the other, therefore awarding the superior race more benefits (Tatum 1997, p.7). Racism is a sensitive topic, yet one that needs to be addressed and McIntyre does so by explaining how whites evade the issue by covering each other “racist attitudes, beliefs, and actions (McIntyre 1997, p46).” The evasion happens in several ways, as observed by McIntyre in group sessions. For instance, the participants avoided questions, walked away from the discussions completely, remained quiet and even dismissed those with different opinions on the issue (McIntyre 1997, p.46). In doing so, they actively enhanced the white talk and avoided dealing with racism by analyzing their role in promoting it.
To properly illustrate white talk, McIntyre highlights some of the conversations shared by the participants. The first is Elizabeth’s story where they discuss tipping in restaurants and from their conversation, they reveal that black people don’t tip as well as white people. Elizabeth explains that she was not even told by anyone at the restaurant about this “trend”, she observed it on her own (p. 49). This reveals how she is protecting other white people because she tries to show that it's not something they talk about, they just see it as they go about their lives. She goes further to say that it doesn’t matter if you give them the best services, they will still tip badly, a view that is shared by Faith and others (p.51). This is a perfect example of white talk because the participants are colluding by stating that they give excellent services to both black and white customers, but only white customers tip well. Another example is the discussion about what entails racism. Christine and Faith agree that a person is only a racist if they actively think or act in a racist manner (p.54). In their conversation, they are trying to shield themselves from taking any action against racism. They believe that just because they don’t practice racism, they are anti-racist. This is an example of white talk because both Faith and Christine believe that they do not have any responsibility towards changing how things are done. They point out that they are still young and are not sure whether, in the future, they will actively engage in anti-racist activities. These two stories reveal how unaware white people are about the consequences of their conversations (or lack of) on racism.
The idea of color blindness in society has been instrumental in helping me understand the white talk. In her article, Lewis (2001, p.788) explains color-blindness as the freedom from any racial classifications where everyone is treated equally and their race is not taken into account. This idea is based on the ...