“Hot hoes” and “dirty whites”: racial contestation and fetishization of multiracial and contested white women

Abstract

The fear of race-mixing through procreation has been strategically propagated in the Unites States as a force for social control, even though interracial intimacies have taken place since the 1600s. Fetishization can be considered an inversion of that fear. In contemporary times, the college and graduate school years constitute seasons wherein individuals learn from interpersonal, romantic, and sexual relationships, and both fear of race-mixing and fetishization show up in this arena. This manuscript considers the narratives of 14 contested white cis women students at a predominantly white postsecondary institution and delineates the construction of the paradoxical “Hot hoe/Dirty white” subjectivity through discourse. The discourses of white supremacy shape the experiences of postsecondary students, ordering romantic and sexual possibilities and engendering subjectivity. Considering racialized subjectivity through discourse illuminates the role of hegemonic norms and adds important insights to contemporary, widespread developmental models of racial identity extant in social science literature.