Race Discourses and Antiracist Practices in a Local Women's Movement

Abstract

Increasingly, feminist scholars examine how the stability of racial hierarchies is maintained through discourse. This article explores the importance of race discourse in the construction of white women's accounts explaining their race politics. Specifically, the author examines the connections between race discourse and politics as they emerged in interviews with white women involved in a local women's movement between 1972 and 1999. The interviews revealed five discursive strategies women used to talk about race and the movement's antiracist practices. In addition, one of the most important contributions of this study is the evidence it provides of the relationship between the discursive construction of an “invisible white self” and the broader structure of power relations.