{"id":6122,"date":"2017-02-16T15:03:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T20:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=6122"},"modified":"2017-02-13T15:04:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T20:04:22","slug":"why-we-dont-need-a-white-history-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2017\/02\/16\/why-we-dont-need-a-white-history-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Don’t Need a White History Month"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by S\u0268\u2113\u03bd\u03b5\u044f S\u0266\u0268\u0273\u03b5, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

February is Black History Month (now African-American History Month), a celebration of black Americans and the ways they have shaped American society. But critics have often posed the question, “Why is there no white<\/em> history month?”\u00a0Brown University sociologist <\/span>Daniel Hirschman<\/span><\/a> explains to\u00a0<\/span>Vox<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that this question ignores the already pervasive white privilege in U.S. society. Hirschman states,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe celebrate whiteness every day. Calls to celebrate whiteness ignore the institutionalized celebration of whiteness that\u2019s built into the very fabric of our day-to-day lives … such calls imply that, absent such a specified month, we would somehow have a state of equality.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, calling for \u201cWhite History Month\u201d implies that whites are on the same footing as other ethnic and racial identities that\u00a0have a specific \u201chistory month.\u201d These calls ignore the fact that the vast majority of American history already focuses on white individuals and faces. Furthermore, demands for a \u201cWhite History Month\u201d work to\u00a0normalize the idea that whiteness in America is under siege, or that white people are the new target of institutional racism.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Hirschman does not think we should stop talking about whiteness. In fact, he praises a \u201cWhiteness History Month\u201d event at Portland Community College which highlighted how race is a social construction and whiteness is tied to particular forms of historical and contemporary racism. After all, race and racism may only be \u201csocial constructions,\u201d but their <\/span>consequences <\/span><\/i>are real when it comes to people\u2019s lives. Unfortunately, ignoring race won\u2019t make it go away, and this goes for whiteness as well. Instead of a \u201cWhite History Month,\u201d we should talk openly about the historical power of whiteness and ways we can construct a more racially equitable society today. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February is Black History Month (now African-American History Month), a celebration of black Americans and the ways they have shaped American society. But critics have often posed the question, “Why is there no white history month?”\u00a0Brown University sociologist Daniel Hirschman explains to\u00a0Vox\u00a0that this question ignores the already pervasive white privilege in U.S. society. Hirschman states, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,14],"tags":[96134,39112,39110,39111,82,96135,105],"class_list":["post-6122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-inequality","category-race","tag-black-history-month","tag-culture","tag-inequality","tag-race","tag-racism","tag-white-history-month","tag-whiteness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6122"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6130,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6122\/revisions\/6130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}