Tiffany, friend of people of color: White investments in antiracism

Whites have long designated people of color as "pgood" when they were "friends of the white man." In a reverse move, some antiracist whites now identify themselves as "good" whites - as friends of people of color. A number of antiracist psychologists and teacher educators have argued in support of this move. To develop a coherent and abidingly antiracist stance, they say, white students and teachers must feel positive about their racial identity. If the "anti" aspect of antiracist white identity development is given too large a role, learners will have no room to measure themselves in proactive as opposed to reactive terms. Accordingly, white students need to be able to think of themselves as "pallies" of people of color. Although less likely than students to aspire to the status of friend of people of color, progressive white professors, too, insofar as they pride themselves on "getting" race issues, congratulate themselves on being exceptional whites. Both forms of white exceptionalism rely on an indispensable "anti" status: antiracist whites are invited to see themselves as not that kind of white and to embrace only those aspects of whiteness that can be construed as positive. This paper argues that progressive whites must interrogate the very ways of being good that white identity theory offers to protect, for the moral framing that gives whites credit for being antiracist is parasitic on the racism that it is meant to challenge. In order to move towards new conceptions of white antiracism, the paper argues, we need to adopt emergent approaches to both cross-race and intrarace relations.