Protecting Whiteness: Counter-Terrorism, and British Identity in the BBC’s Bodyguard

This article uses Bodyguard to trace the ways that whiteness is represented in counter-terrorism TV and so draw the links between whiteness, counter-terrorism and culture. It argues that Bodyguard offers a redemptive narrative for British whiteness that recuperates and rearticulates a British white identity after/through the War on Terror. As such it belongs to a later genre of counter-terrorism TV shows that move on from, but nonetheless still propagate, the discursive foundations of the ongoing War on Terror. This reading of Bodyguard is itself important, as popular culture is a site where much of the British population made and continues to make sense of their relationship to the UK during the War on Terror, forging often unspoken ideas about whiteness. It affords the opportunity to draw out the connections between whiteness and counter-terrorism, connections that need further scholarly attention to fully understand the complex relationships between security and race.

The good ol’ days: White identity, racial nostalgia, and the perpetuation of racial extremism

A prevailing theme in White nationalist rhetoric is nostalgia for a time when Whites dominated American culture and had unchallenged status. The present research examines a form of collective nostalgia called racial nostalgia and its association with negative intergroup attitudes and extreme ideologies (White nationalism). In Studies 1 and 2, racial nostalgia was associated with higher racial identity, anti-immigrant attitudes, and White nationalism. Study 2 revealed that racial nostalgia was related to extreme ideologies, in part, through perceptions that immigrants and racial minorities posed realistic/symbolic threats. Study 3 manipulated nostalgia using a writing prompt (“America’s racial past” vs. “games of America’s past”) and an identity prime (prime vs. no prime). Racial nostalgia was higher in the racial prompt versus the games prompt condition, regardless of identity prime. Furthermore, there were significant indirect effects of the nostalgia manipulation on support for anti-immigrant policies and endorsement of White nationalism through increased racial nostalgia and its association with perceived threats. These findings show that racial nostalgia can be a maladaptive form of collective nostalgia linked to a sense of loss and threat, and can make people sympathetic to extreme racial ideologies.

Shifts in Racial Self-Identification for the Greatest Generation: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Data

Researchers generally recognize that racial identification may shift over the life course. However, there is less consensus about the prevalence of these shifts. Previous estimates suggest as many as 6% of Americans shift their racial identity. Using administrative data on Social Security applications from 1984 to 2007, we quantify the magnitude and direction of shifts in racial and ethnic self-identification among Black, White, Asian, American Indian, and Hispanic members of the “Greatest Generation,” those born between 1901 and 1927 (N = 410,388). Approximately 9,274 (2.3%) persons in this dataset changed their racial or Hispanic identity, with distinct patterns of change for racial-ethnic subgroups. Overall, the most common shift was from a non-White identity to a non-Hispanic White identity. We then link to the 1940 Census to investigate whether social status in youth and young adulthood predicts a shift in identity in later life, and we find a positive and significant association between socioeconomic status in early life and a shift from non-White to non-Hispanic White identity. These systematic patterns would be unlikely if these shifts were due entirely to measurement error. We conclude the prevalence of racial fluidity is itself contingent, varying across time and cohort with response to racial climate, events in greater society, and social position.

Afrikaner nationalism and the light side of the colonial/modern gender system: understanding white patriarchy as colonial race technology

There is a growing body of feminist scholarship and literature exploring the ways in which Western patriarchal technologies of gender differentiation and sexual violence structure the racial categorisation and dehumanisation that define South Africa’s history of slavery, colonialism and apartheid. In this article, I consider the gendered history of white Afrikaner nationalism in the context of these insights. Using the decolonial feminist lens of María Lugones, I interpret the historical and contemporary patriarchal subjugation of the white Afrikaner woman as a site of the production and maintenance of colonial racial categories and hierarchies. Gaining a better understanding of how gender operated as a colonial mode of organisation in the process of forging the ethno-racialised white identity of the Afrikaner in the early nineteenth century in opposition to the black indigenous majority population helps to explain how the continued patriarchal subjugation of white Afrikaner women by Afrikaner men in postcolonial/postapartheid South Africa works to reassert and maintain colonial racial categories and inequalities that continue to plague the country.

Skin whitening as a menace to African identity through Tony Morrison's 'The Bluest Eyes': An Afrocentric examination

The African democratic forces, among other things, aimed to resuscitate and re-essentialise African identities that the colonial administration had endangered earlier. These autonomous corps dispensed mechanisms to champion Africanism and conscientise African natives about their heritage. The cherishing of African identities automated decolonial shifts and inculcated an urge into Africans to be proud of who they are and where they come from. Notwithstanding these efforts, the study diagnoses skin whitening as a stubborn nemesis that menaces the authenticity of Africanism in the present day. Many Africans, especially black women appear to be gravitated to skin whitening. This act embraces the attempt to alter one’s dark skin tone to be bright. Most of the skin whiteners are postulated to whiten their skins in an effort to qualify into the modern-day Eurocentric criterions of beauty at the expense of their black (African) identity. This paper employed a qualitative methodology and has relied on secondary data to unveil the extent to which skin whitening imperils African identities. It has employed Morrison’s The Bluest Eyes as a lens to crystalise the impacts of skin whitening on Africanism. The study has discovered that the skin-whitening phenomenon epitomises and perpetuates Eurocentric ideologies and it is preferred by most women because of the assumed glory that comes with the white identity such as social class, privilege, attractiveness, favour, and admiration.

Politicians’ Ideology Matters More Than Their Race in Determining the Association Between White Identity and Evaluation of the Politicians

White Americans’ racial identity can predict their sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors, demonstrating an emergent trend of White identity politics. However, when it comes to predicting support for political candidates, it remains an unclarified question whether the effects of White identity politics are determined more by candidates’ ideology or race. This article disentangles and compares the role of candidates’ ideology and race. Four studies using White American samples consistently support the ideology hypothesis, which suggests that White identity predicts support for conservative politicians and opposition to liberal politicians because of their ideology. The evidence is limited for the racial hypothesis, which suggests that White identity predicts support for White politicians but opposition to Black politicians because of their race. Thus, this article complements theories of White identity politics and clarifies implications for who might benefit from its growing influence.

Constructing a white mask through English: the misrecognized self in Orientalism

By examining relationships between language and race within Bourdieu's theoretical concept of “misrecognition”, this article highlights distinctive ways in which the mental structure of a minority individual becomes Orientalized in relation to a racialized identity construction. Specifically, it examines how English becomes misrecognized as the key to a desired white identity in the case of one prominent Korean intellectual of the 19th century, Yun Chi-Ho (1864–1945). To this end, this article analyses the English diaries written by Yun, which began during his sojourn in the United States (1888–1893). The analysis of the diaries illustrates how Yun subjected himself to an Orientalized gaze in 19th century America, a society marked by racial and language boundaries and how his inferiority complex led him to pursue a white identity with English as a primary tool. While Self-Orientalism is regarded as both a cause and outcome of Asian participation in the construction of the Orient, this article reconceptualizes Self-Orientalism as a process of misrecognition born out of the colonial context of superior-inferior distinction characterized by the boundedness of language and race. The article concludes by broadening out from the case of Yun to illustrate the impact of misrecognition on the continued covert operation of Self-Orientalism in contemporary times.