As someone who partially majored in whiteness studies, it’s still awk even in that academic context. Since all other history months are celebratory, it sounds like a celebration of whiteness/white supremacy.

I’m with you in that I understand the academic study of whiteness, white privilege stems from whiteness, racism is directional, etc. I’m just wondering if the disagreements are stemming from your claim that it is whiteness that puts social pressure on white people in the particular examples you provide, particularly…

You obviously don’t get it. They didn’t choose the right name for their project, therefor it’s the stupidest idea since coats for dogs. It’s not like what they’re actually doing is important or anything.

Yeah, I don’t see why an initiative to examine and deconstruct privilege is a bad thing! It is also interesting to explore the history of the concept of whiteness and how it is applied to certain ethnic groups over time. “Whiteness History Month” is certainly a little clunky, but it’s also clearly drawing attention,…

Wait, what? Isn’t a project to analyze the meaning of “whiteness” and its history a pretty obviously good idea? I expect to see people upset about that at the Daily Caller, not here.

Don’t worry, this is an example of a Jezebel writer offering readers only a tiny snippet of a story and then twisting it for clickbait value. There are plenty of actual news outlets covering the project (both its potential benefits AND flaws) in-depth, but you can be sure that the VAST majority of commenters here…

I’m not at all surprised that the administration picked the name.. nor am I surprised that there has been a lot of negative reaction, because — people are stupid.

The main problem I have when teaching about privilege is that many people don’t understand the difference between racism and bias. The cling to the old idea…

Whiteness as an idea definitely arose, historically, when blackness did (really interesting to read about how race, as we know it, was constructed when slavery needed to be justified). That being said, I think whiteness now exists as a very specific entity that, yes, contrasts with blackness but also exists on its…

That’s a good sum-up of probably exactly what went wrong. The “Ivory Tower” has never been more apt as a term...

Hi there, I am a student leader at Portland Community College. I am helping to organize this event. I just wanted to let you know that we are addressing intersections of privilege—in fact, we have multiple workshops about this topic going on this month. Whiteness History Month has been really difficult for our school.…

Eh, 45 minutes. It’s sunday, the Farmer’s Market really segregates things.

Yeah-you lose your whole family to dysentery or they drown fording the river, and you’re going to be a little out of touch due to the grief. Yeah maybe I SHOULD have stopped to rest okay. But I’m a banker not a DOCTOR. Also, why can’t I make MULTIPLE trips for the bison meat. I’m just going to leave it there to rot?…

In a “Whiteness” critical theory class I took back in undergrad, we talked a lot about how whiteness is treated as being neutral. As in, ‘to be white’ (acknowledging the construction of race as a not real but all too real thing) is thought of as not having a race, when in fact there are a number of specific…

I have a real problem with this wording.

Yeah, I see what they were going for, but in their defense, it would have taken at LEAST another half an hour to find a person of color in Portland to run that name by.

He looks like Rupert Everett. Like present day post plastic surgery.

Here’s another.

I casually follow architecture and architecture criticism. In my observation, it rarely comes up. She was famous and this was an extreme case.

Usually architects — especially international starchitects — design the building but a local firm deals with the actual construction. She technically wouldn’t have had anything to do with those workers’ deaths or could do little to stop bad labour practices at that moment (although not accepting commissions in…

The ethical relationship between architects and dictator states is a persistent controversy. Hadid bore the brunt of the most recent controversy because she was a celebrity and, I think, with that comes a certain backlash, particularly because her work was so striking. Whether or not that criticism was underpinned by…