Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Drawing from Bourdieu's (1984) groundbreaking work, France Wind-dance Twine in
A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy
(2010) identi-
fies “the ways white members of interracial families in Britain negotiate race, racism
and racialization and acquire racial literacy” (4). Her longitudinal study illustrates how
various forms of capital (economic, cultural, social, symbolic, and ethnic) possessed by
whitemothersparentingchildrenfatheredbyblackmenstructuredtheirtransraciallives
and mediated their experiences of race, racism, and their whiteness. For white mothers,
whiteness was a form of embodied capital that could be traded for social, cultural, or
economic capital in specific contexts. In particular, Twine notes that white women who
were positioned as working class or poor were not able to leverage their whiteness in
ways that middle-class white women were able to do and were disciplined and subjec-
tedtovariousformsof“reboundracism.” Inotherwords,theysymbolically stoodinfor
their black partners.
Like Hartigan (1999) and McDermott (2005), Twine argues that locality is crucial in
thewaysthatwhitenessisinterpreted,managed,anddeployedstrategically.Inpostcolo-
nial and multicultural cities in the Midlands of England, “whiteness has multiple mean-
ingsanditsvaluecanvarydependingonthefamilydynamics,thelocalcommunity,and
the resources available to the family” (Twine 2010, 220). In particular, value of white-
nessforworking-classwhitewomenwhopossesslittleeconomic,social,orculturalcap-
ital and sexually partner with black men is diminished. Twine argues, “Their whiteness,
rather than becoming a source of status or social resources, can become a stigma, and in
some cases aliability” (Twine 2010,222).Similarly,white women whofindthemselves
welfare dependent (TAFDC or AFDC) may find the value of their whiteness enhanced
or diminished based upon the local context.
Today whiteness continues to be a resource that can be deployed to provide greater
access to desirable housing, even among the poorest families. While poverty and class
inequality restricts the type of housing that welfare-dependent white women can afford,
nevertheless, white women possess forms of embodied capital that black women and
brownskinnedLatinawomenlack.Theseformsofcapitalcanprovidethemwithmater-
ial,social,andpsychologicalprivilegesthatarenotavailabletowomenwhoarenotper-
ceived as white in the U.S. context (Du Bois [1935]1999; Roediger 1991; Frank 1998).
Inotherwords,racismandwhitesupremacycontinuestostructureaccesstothehousing
market at all income levels in the post-Civil Rights era.
Research Setting: The Greater Boston Area
McCormack (2005) expressed difficulty in locating white welfare recipients for her re-
search on welfare stigma management. McCormack theorized that, “white recipients
may have more at stake in protecting their identity and concealing their welfare status
