Prof. G's Whiteness as Social Construct Slide Show

I know this exercise in creating a white museum (see previous post) has been difficult, uncomfortable and a bit baffling for many of you. As I reflect on how it is going, I am realizing that my presentation of it (as a professor who is not white) and the way I set you up (not as well as I would have liked in hindsight) was filled with troubling concerns. It looks like I am trying to entrap you into racist ideas and thinking. This much be disconcerting so early in the semester for many of you.

I promised this class would be a safe space to learn and grow in. I want you to be ready, willing and able to embrace and be empowered by ANY communication by the end of this course. Perhaps I've failed at bit at preparing you just yet. In any case, this is an important exercise that will set us up our conversations not about whiteness but about the nature of culture found in Chapter 3.

Yes, we need a definition of whiteness to complete this exercise though there are perhaps many we can come up with. That's the art of exploring the unknown, i.e., learning. To get to the unknown, we must empty ourselves of all we already know. Then discovering new things becomes available rather than replicating the past as if that's learning (sharing what you already think is known or true--that's just the first step). Additionally, we also need to define CULTURE to get at the heart of what this course in cultural anthropology is about and how it will become useful for you in the future. I gave you one definition--the learned ways of thinking, feeling, believing and behaving and now you've read about the value of working with a key cultural consultant (formerly called "informants" but the term evoked spying on your own culture/community).

So, I invite you to check out my emic slide show, my virtual white museum. I invite you and your group to create your own emic collaboration on whiteness as a slide show. That way we'll have 6 slide shows from the body of the class to compare. What different stories of whiteness can we tell or will the be the same? You game?? You can tell it from ANY perspective, from ANY point of view, from how far we come, what is no longer, from the view of minorities or from people considered white but view themselves as a particular ethnicity, or from religions, from sports, or from eye color and shape. Anything that tells a story about what we already know about whiteness. A local view of whiteness. We will explore and distinguish the difference between emic and etic in class. Prof. G