White Identity Research Articles

Performance replication of the Hospital Mental Health Risk Screen in ethnoracially diverse U.S. patients admitted through emergency care.

Patients admitted to hospitals after emergency care for injury or acute illness are at risk for later mental health problems. The American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Standards for care of injured patients call for mental health risk screening, and the Hospital Mental Health Risk Screen (HMHRS) accurately identified at-risk patients in a developmental study that included patients from five ethnoracial groups. Replication of these findings is essential, because initial positive results for predictive screens can fail to replicate if the items were strongly related to outcomes in the development sample but not in a new sample from the population the screen was intended for. Replication of the predictive performance of the 10-item HMHRS was studied prospectively in ethnoracially diverse patients admitted after emergency care for acute illness or injury in three hospitals across the U.S. Risk screen scores and follow-up mental health outcomes were obtained for 452 of 631 patients enrolled (72%). A cut score of 10 on the HMHRS correctly identified 79% of the patients who reported elevated levels of depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms two months post-admission (sensitivity) and 72% of the patients whose symptoms were not elevated (specificity). HMHRS scores also predicted well for patients with acute illness, for patients with injuries, and for patients who reported an Asian American/Pacific Islander, Black, Latinx, Multirace, or White identity. Predictive performance of the HMHRS was strong overall and within all five ethnoracial subgroups. Routine screening could reduce suffering and health care costs, increase health and mental health equity, and foster preventive care research and implementation. The performance of the HMHRS should be studied in other countries and in other populations of recent trauma survivors, such as survivors of disaster or mass violence.

White by Force and the Racialized State of Exception

White identity is forged through violence. The moment that whites aspired to be white, they set themselves up for immediate, inevitable failure: they try to inhabit an identity of superiority that cannot exist, and this sets them into a perpetual identity crisis, an existential emergency that threatens who they are and who they think they want to be. The ensuing identity formation—white by force—comprises an entire set of strategies, tactics, institutions, and structures meant to prop up an inherently failure-based identity and to do so through brutality, resentment, anger, contrived fear, and murder. Such an identity impacts everyone, including white people themselves, in devastating ways. In what following article, I will put forward a theoretical model called “White by Force and the Racialized State of Exception”, conceptualizing key aspects of this model to provide an emerging vocabulary for studying, discussing, and dismantling white identity, violence, authoritarianism, racism, and the existential crises that we are all facing. Our discourse around race and racism, since the Civil Rights Era, needs new language from which to diagnose an inherently violent identity formation that ultimately benefits no one, especially not people of color or white people from lower socioeconomic strata.

The role of White identity in anti‐racist allyship

AbstractAlthough White allies attempt to support racial justice movements, their behaviors can be interpreted as performative rather than genuine by racially minoritized individuals. In the current work, I discuss how White individuals' personal connection to their racial identity and the power it confers—White identity form—shapes their allyship behaviors. Specifically, moving beyond conceptualizations of White identity as centrality, I call for a study of White identity that incorporates power‐relevant ideologies, understanding how White individuals make meaning of their unearned privilege and incorporate it into their self‐concept. I suggest that a power‐cognizant identity form, which involves personally connecting the self to Whiteness and unearned power, is necessary for White individuals to engage in genuine anti‐racist allyship. I discuss White identity measurement issues as well as potential interventions for promoting a power‐cognizant identity form.

Racialising Refugees: The Global Colour Line in US Resettlement

Abstract Following the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were notable differences in access to resettlement and other pathways of humanitarian migration. Drawing on an analysis of statements by US policymakers, this article considers the global context and implications of the disparate language and approaches used in responses to Afghan and Ukrainian displacement. It shows how racialised and gendered narratives contributed to and were constituted within a broader international hierarchy and global colour line. The positioning of Ukrainians as possessing higher civilisational attributes deserving of solidarity and support, and their portrayal through prisms of strong agency, sovereignty, and kindred Western values, echoed across transnational constructions of collective white identity. In contrast, Afghan resettlement was rendered conditional on extensive security vetting and proof of loyal service to US and NATO missions in Afghanistan. Portrayals of Afghans as less assimilable, as potential terrorist infiltrators, as incapable of self-governance and unable to generate their own progress perpetuated features of the global colour line. Attending to the different logics used to construct refugee and parolee groups and policies broadens our understanding on how multilayered processes of Orientalism and racialisation shape resettlement and disparities in access to protection.

The relationship between distress tolerance and behavioral activation on anxiety and depression symptomatology in autistic youth: Leveraging self and caregiver perspectives.

Anxiety and depression are prevalent among autistic adolescents and may be difficult to accurately diagnose and treat given various factors (e.g., diagnostic overshadowing, heterogeneity). Therefore, efforts to examine transdiagnostic factors (i.e., distress tolerance, behavioral activation) may afford more parsimonious means for assessment and treatment. To our knowledge, there has been little research on distress tolerance, behavioral activation, and depressive and anxiety symptoms in autistic adolescents to guide diagnostic practices and treatment planning. In the current study, we examined the interrelationships between these transdiagnostic factors and depressive and anxiety symptoms using ratings from 100 verbally fluent autistic adolescents without intellectual disability (Mage = 13.70, SDage = 2.23, Range: 11:00-17:11 years) and 100 of their caregivers. Many adolescents reported male sex assigned at birth (61%), cisgender (87%), not Hispanic/Latinx (90%), and White (80%) identities. A series of correlational analyses were employed to examine associations between these constructs from youth and caregiver perspectives, and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to explore the mediating roles of distress tolerance and behavioral activation. Preliminary results show that low distress tolerance and behavioral activation were associated with more severe internalizing symptoms per self- and caregiver-report. Some differences by rater emerged, which highlight the importance of multi-informant ratings in autism. Results from mediation analyses may show that behavioral activation may be more salient to assessments and treatment planning for depression than distress tolerance, while distress tolerance may be important for both anxiety and depression; however, findings are preliminary given the cross-sectional nature of the data. Findings suggest that these transdiagnostic concepts may be important to individualizing treatment approaches, including the timing of certain approaches, for anxiety and/or depression in autistic adolescents.

Hero's Legacy: Martial Strength and Race in Republican Chile

This article examines the Roto Chileno war memorial in downtown Santiago as a complex site of Chilean identity making in the republican era. Conflating two separate nineteenth-century military victories over the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, the memorial was a physical manifestation of an intricate process of identity construction that celebrated the mestizo heritage of average citizen-soldiers while also emphasizing the idea that Chileans were racially superior compared to other South American nations. The memorial being dedicated specifically to the roto, a mutable racialized term that can be perceived as pejorative even in the present, is therefore an especially evocative example of how this conceptual combination was visually rendered to access elements of white identity. Using fine art media coverage, this article highlights the entangled relationship between memory, nationalism, and race in late nineteenth-century Latin America to consider the role that militarism and masculinity play in the construction of whiteness.

Postapartheid Anti-blackness in Kopano Matlwa's Coconut

ABSTRACT: This paper reads Kopano Matlwa's debut novel, Coconut , as a critical reflection on the incomplete work of social, economic, and juridical inclusion. It outlines inconclusive episodes in the lives of two young black women: Ofilwe, a member of a rarified upper middle class, and Fikile, ensnared in grinding poverty. Drawing on Denise Ferreira Da Silva and Calvin Warren, the paper shows how Matlwa addresses the uncritical embrace of this racist and historically oppressive discourse among nominally free blacks, both among enduringly destitute slum dwellers and the emergent nouveau riche. In the novel, social death comes in the form of internalized anti-blackness as the two young black women featured in the novel doggedly pursue white identities as a means for successful existence in postapartheid South Africa.

The Processes of Insertion and Sociability of Haitian Migrant Children in Early Childhood Education

The number of children, both accompanied and unaccompanied, currently crossing international borders in search of humanitarian refuge, has increased significantly in the last few decades of the Twenty-first Century. In Brazil, the presence of Haitian migrant children cannot be ignored, as, in addition to the lack of public policies, they are also victims of racism and xenophobia. Schools face a massive impact of migration, which alters their social structure. Often, the school community is not adequately prepared to cater for these children, as is the case with some schools in the Brazilian municipality of Balneário Camboriú. This research, which is linked to the Postgraduate Program in Education at the University of Vale do Itajaí, initially aims to investigate how Haitian migrant children interact with each other, and with Brazilian children, in two early childhood education schools in Balneário Camboriú. It also intends to investigate, based on the presence of Haitian migrant children, the processes of subjection or transgression of expressions of whiteness as a practice of power and representation of white identity, and to analyze the Municipality’s Curricular Proposal regarding Ethnic-Racial Education. The study is based on the Sociology of Childhood, Racial Studies, and Migration. The research is qualitative and is based on a literature review in two databases. The studies analyzed indicate that one reason for the lack of interest and knowledge about ethnic-racial diversity issues in schools is the existing gap in this theme in both initial and continuing teacher education.

From mestiço to white: refashioning racial identity in contemporary Brazil

ABSTRACT The question of who is Black in Brazil has sparked controversial debate over the past three decades. Less frequently discussed, however, is ‘who is white?.’ Recently, new meanings behind racial categories in census data, affirmative action laws, and the fields of Black Feminism and Critical Whiteness Studies have unsettled white Brazilians’ understanding of their own racial identity, up until now hidden by the national discourse of mestiçagem . I investigate this unsettling by analyzing the narratives of five white female Brazilian researchers who critically recognize their racial identity and privilege. Highlighting how the spaces they occupy are racialized differently, I argue that the process of ‘becoming white’ among Brazilians in all-white social circles differs from those brought up in mixed-raced (Black-white) families. I suggest that whites raised in predominately white families understand themselves as a racial norm from a young age and that their white identity strengthens their ties to family. Conversely, whites raised in predominately mixed families show more confusion as to their racial identity and muddle through mestiçagem discourse to reach ‘white,’ which can, in turn, threaten a sense of belonging to their families.

Harnessing the many facets of White identity to reduce feelings of threat and improve intergroup relations

Whiteness in the US is often conceptualized largely as the absence of a meaningful cultural identity. Research from my own lab suggests that overlooking the nuances inherent in White identity (e.g., differences between ethnic groups) can induce feelings of threat and backlash against multiculturalism among dominant group members. Based on this research, I argue that conceptualizing Whiteness as multifaceted—for example, by acknowledging not only interethnic but also religious and socioeconomic differences—may mitigate dominant group members’ threat perceptions and increase their comfort amidst growing discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion in institutions and organizations. Further, attending to the complexities of White identity may produce more positive intergroup outcomes, such as reduced racial/ethnic prejudice and greater perceived personal contributions to diversity, and may benefit groups that are classified as “White” on demographic forms but often do not perceive themselves as such (e.g., Middle Eastern and North African Americans, Hispanic/Latino[a] Americans).

The chronopolitics of the ‘Left Behind’: Presentism, populism, and Global Britain

This article examines the “Left Behind” as a temporal construct and its political uses. In the UK, the “Left Behind” is predominantly discussed as a group of people sharing a similar geographical locale, White identity, and deprivation. Political parties and commentators have been integral to constructing this White class as a deserving poor and voting bloc, who have not reaped the benefits of economic development. Instead of assessing the empirical validity of the “Left Behind” as a socio-economic category, this article explores how the politics associated with this construct is orchestrated by varied temporal frames. The first section draws upon François Hartog's notion of presentism and Hakki Taş's theorisation of populist temporal narratives to explore how the “Left Behind” is shaped as an object of moral and economic debt, with their prospects threatened by immigrants. The second section explores how Global Britain narratives shape the “Left Behind” as subjects of majority histories. In doing so, it also demonstrates how these imagined figures are cast as subjects who lag behind the demands of late capitalism. The article concludes by reaffirming how presentism is central to the making of the “Left Behind” as a governmental problematic.

Interest convergence and the maintenance of racial advantage: The case of diversity in higher education

AbstractOne of the major tenets of Critical Race Theory, the interest convergence hypothesis postulates that policies promising improvements for Black Americans are enacted only to the extent they advance White Americans’ interests. We elaborate and update Bell's argument by demonstrating that current diversity commitments in higher education are another example of interest convergence. First, we present empirical and theoretical evidence that ubiquitous approaches to diversity serve the psychological interests of White Americans more than those of Black Americans. Second, we advance a systemic framework for how social psychological processes intersect with normative ideologies in the law and in universities’ operations to facilitate the prioritization of White over Black interests. In so doing, our goal is to illuminate the primacy of White identity and power as fundamental to shaping American society's collective embrace of diversity.

Negotiations with whiteness in British Turkish Muslims’ encounters with Islamophobia

ABSTRACT In the post-9/11 and 7/7 era in Britain, Muslim subjects have been racially labelled as non-white, equated with a security threat. Similarly, within Turkey's secular public sphere, Muslims are portrayed as anti-modern and illiberal. This prompts some British Turkish Muslims, descendants of immigrant Turks, to strategically embrace white, European identities. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, this article reveals how 'whiteness' is a privileged category that certain Turkish Muslims adopt or align with to counter Islamophobia. Following Hall's racism framework and Gramsci's ideas, the paper underscores how British Turks sustain and propagate 'whiteness' to assimilate into society and evade racialisation challenges faced by other Muslims. Importantly, the article interprets the adoption of hegemonic white identities not just as a response to British Islamophobia but also as a manifestation of a secular Turkish Orientalism, depicting Islam as a backward, illiberal, and irrational religion.

Spanishness and Race in North American Monumental Architecture

The representation of Spain, and Spanishness in general, at sites of collective identity in the United States and Canada requires scholarly attention. Many monuments, which range from statues and museums to capitol buildings and national parks, continue to commemorate colonial times despite broader public awareness of the association between colonization and racialized violence, as well as the explicit movement toward decolonization. This commemorative material also demonstrates how non-Spanish settlers have appropriated historical moorings of Spain and its colonial past to reinforce and whitewash their identities in places such as New Mexico and Texas, and even in Newfoundland and Labrador. How monuments are funded and gain public support is another vector that points to the ways that identity—particularly, white identity—informs monumental architecture in ways that exclude people of colour, as well as women, who, when featured in monuments, are usually dehumanized as concepts rather than being the actors of settler-colonialism. This article explores these challenging topics with the aim of articulating a roadmap for future scholarship on this subject.

Impact of social determinants of health and individual characteristics on substance use disorder treatment utilization among emerging adults aged 18-25

Background Emerging adulthood (typically ages 18–25) is a developmental period associated with increased likelihood of developing substance use disorders (SUDs) resulting in life-altering negative consequences. While SUD treatment can be effective and diminish substance-related consequences, very few emerging adults with SUDs actually receive treatment and research is needed to identify potential determinants of receiving care. We examined associations between individual factors and social determinants of health (SDOH) with SUD treatment service utilization to inform treatment engagement strategies for emerging adults. Methods Using pooled cross-sectional data from the 2015–2019 years of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, we evaluated past-year treatment utilization among emerging adults (i.e. respondents aged 18–25 years-old) with a past-year SUD (N = 12,594). Logistic regression analyses evaluated sex, race, education level, lifetime arrest history and age of alcohol initiation in addition to mental illness, employment, food stamp utilization, poverty status, and frequency of housing relocation. Results Past-year mental illness, Non-Hispanic White identity, not having a college degree, lifetime arrest history, part-time employment or unemployment, and relocating for housing more than 2 times in the past year were significantly associated with greater likelihood of treatment utilization in adjusted analyses. Conclusions Findings from this nationally representative survey of emerging adults highlight the possible contribution of some SDOH associated with social disadvantage and/or criminal justice involvement on SUD treatment utilization. These results may guide providers in tailoring service delivery mode, community organizations to target populations, and implementation strategies that are effective in reducing SUD treatment service utilization inequity.

The Dividends of Democracy’s Destruction: Surplus, Ideology, and Militarism in the Turn to Empire in Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction

Abstract This paper offers an original reading of Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction that highlights how the knock down effects from Reconstruction’s failures contributed to the U.S. imperial trajectory. The coalition between the industrial North, Southern landowners, and white workers ended the promise of racial emancipation advanced by Black freedmen and the Freedmen’s Bureau. The gains from the resubjection of Black freedmen and women; the development of a national identity based racial hierarchy and an attachment to material wealth, and the racialized militarism of the South, Du Bois argues, underpinned the imperial pursuit of material wealth through violent means. The consolidation of white identity around technological ideals and militarism led Du Bois to revise his account of democratic education (redirecting it to critique capitalism and soulless technology) and to reach transnationally for emancipatory solidarity.

Producing whiteness through urban space: the socio-spatial construction of white identities in Amsterdam

ABSTRACT This article argues for an approach to the formation of whiteness that includes an explicit focus on urban neighbourhood spaces. Extending literature that mainly focuses on whiteness at the national scale, I propose an understanding of the construction of white identities as a co-constitutive process between space and race. My analysis is based on ethnographic research in a diverse neighbourhood in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that included observations as well as narrative and go-along interviews with people racialised as white and of colour. By identifying four socio-spatial practices, I show how the construction of white identities is a socio-spatial process.

Cultural Genocide, Mass Immigration, and the Kalergi Plan: Conceptualizations of Race in White Identity Politics Online

This study aims to clarify ambiguities surrounding the understanding of race in white identity politics and how these ambiguities are reflected in online discourse. Grounded in the framework of critical race studies, we constructed a comprehensive race typology that we used to unpack the multifaceted conceptions of race in digital discourse on Twitter. Using a combination of Tableau, NVivo, and manual coding, we examined the prevalence of four conceptualizations of race (Biological, Cultural, Nationalist, and Pan-Nationalist) in data collected from three Twitter hashtags (#whitegenocide, #kalergiplan, and #antiwhite). We conclude that race does not stand out as one coherent system in the analyzed data but as an amalgam of divergent racial interpretations. Notably, the Cultural conceptualization of race is the most predominant, followed closely by the Pan-Nationalist perspective of white identity. Our investigation also explores the palpable anxiety surrounding the perceived erosion of the white race within white identity politics. This apprehension is prominently articulated as "white grievances" and through a gendered understanding wherein white women assume a pivotal role in both propagating the white race and in acting as a vulnerable "access point" within the white racial framework.

Controlling (Mental) Images and the Aesthetic Perception of Racialized Bodies

Aesthetic evaluations of human bodies have important implications for moral recognition and for individuals’ access to social and material goods. Unfortunately, there is a widespread aesthetic disregard for non-white bodies. Aesthetic evaluations depend on the aesthetic properties we regard objects as having. And it is widely agreed that aesthetic properties are directly accessed in our experience of aesthetic objects. How, then, might we explain aesthetic evaluations that systematically favour features associated with white identity? Critical race philosophers, like Alia Al-Saji, Mariana Ortega, Paul C. Taylor, and George Yancy, argue that this is because the perception of racialized bodies is affected by the social structures in which they are appreciated. The aim of this paper is to propose how social structures can affect aesthetic perception. I argue that mental imagery acquired through the interaction with aesthetic phenomena structures the perception of non-aesthetic properties of bodies, so that aesthetic properties consistent with racist stereotypes are attributed to individuals.

The flood, the traitors, and the protectors: affect and white identity in the Internet Research Agency’s Islamophobic propaganda on Twitter

ABSTRACT Between 2015 and 2017, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) – a Kremlin-backed “troll farm” based in St. Petersburg – executed a propaganda campaign on Twitter to target US voters. Scholarship has expended relatively little effort to study the role of Islamophobia in the IRA’s propaganda campaign. Following critical disinformation research, this article demonstrates that Islamophobia, affect, and white identity played a crucial role in the IRA’s targeting of right-wing US voters. With an official release of tweets and associated visual content from Twitter, we use topic modeling and visual analysis to explore both how, and to what extent, the IRA used Islamophobia in its propaganda. To do so, we develop a multimodal distant reading technique to study how the IRA aligned users with contemporary far right social movements by deploying racial and emotional appeals that center on narrating a transnational white identity under threat from Islam and Muslims.