Abstract

Structural and systemic mechanisms reinforce institutionalized racism, whiteness, and white supremacy in the United States. These mechanisms prove adaptable and resilient, shifting and changing to continuously restructure and reinforce the material reality that people experience within a racialized social order. White people's incomprehension of complicity in racism and privilege, along with color-blind ideologies, perpetuate racialized disparities resulting from this social order and render white superiority as "normal" and "universal." This underlies an often internalized sense of normative, white American identity interconnected with racism and white supremacy. In a society where many white Americans remain sheltered from and/or resistant to acknowledging the material realities of institutionalized racism and white supremacy, how and why do some white people become racially aware and take action in favor of equity? That was the focus of this research project. In applying a multifaceted theoretical and methodological framework rooted in critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, grounded theory, and narrative approaches to the analysis of 33 interviews of white Americans, it emerged that the process of becoming racially aware is a complex process of ongoing identity (re)construction. Participants actively push against a normalized white identity to (re)construct an alternative white, racially aware identity, making sense of this identity (re)construction through three components of this process: (1) becoming aware through several stages; (2) making sense of the meaning of being racially aware; and (3) engaging in social action. Together, these components formulate this process of identity work and expand existing critical whiteness studies scholarship by deepening our understanding of how some white Americans attempt to deconstruct systemic inequities through their own identity (re)construction. Such understandings inform potential interventions that could be utilized for collective social change.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2023

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Koontz, Amanda

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Sociology

Degree Program

Sociology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0009610; DP0027635

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0027635

Language

English

Release Date

5-15-2024

Length of Campus-only Access

1 year

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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