The Whiteness Project: White people talk about being white

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Filmmaker Whitney Dow launched a new PBS project entitled “The Whiteness Project: Inside the White Caucasian Box,” this week.

The new video series “is a multi-platform investigation into how Americans who identify as ‘white’ experience their ethnicity.”

There is no punchline. This is not satire. This project is serious.

The first video, which aired on Oct. 6, showcased 24 white Americans living in Buffalo, New York.

Project creator Dow said in a series of tweets that “The Whiteness Project” is not “directed at POC, rather at WP to get them to start thinking about their own race and the role it plays in their lives (i.e. its not passive) Regarding Dear White People one thing I have learned in 18 years of making films on race is that white people don’t hear black people when they speak. Thus #whitenessproject”

Dow hopes to interview 1,000 white people from around the country, from all walks of life, by the conclusion of the project.

Discussions on Twitter picked up after the first set of interviews were posted.

https://twitter.com/LAURENcynthia/status/522054286427951104

https://twitter.com/ShrillCosby/status/520631978773581824

As part of PBS Indies, “The Whiteness Project” is partially funded by The National Endowment of the Arts.

Dow’s full statement, according to The Gothamist, reads:

While many media projects have investigated the history, culture, and experiences of various American ethnic minorities, there has been much less examination of how white Americans think about and experience their whiteness and how white culture shapes our society. Most people take for granted that there is a “white” race in America, but rarely is the concept of whiteness itself investigated. What does it mean to be a “white”? Can it be genetically defined? Is it a cultural construct? A state of mind? How does one come to be deemed “white” in America and what privileges does being perceived as white bestow? The Whiteness Project is a multi-platform media project that examines both the concept of whiteness itself and how those who identify as “white” process their ethnic identity. The project’s goal is to engender debate about the role of whiteness in American society and encourage white Americans to become fully vested participants in the ongoing debate about the role of race in American society.

After almost two decades of making films with my black producing partner, Marco Williams, I have come to believe that most whites see themselves as outside the American racial paradigm and their race as a passive attribute. Subsequently, they feel that they do not have the same right to speak about race as non-whites. The Whiteness Project hopes to bring everyday white Americans, especially those who would not normally engage in a project about race, into the racial discussion—to help them understand the active role their race plays in every facet of their lives, to remove some of the confusion and guilt that many white people feel around the subject of race and to help white Americans learn to own their whiteness—and everything positive and negative it represents—in the same way that every other ethnicity owns its ethnic identity.

I recognize that the idea of whiteness, or white privilege, is an uncomfortable one. The term “white privilege” itself feels pejorative and like something whose very recognition demands an admission of some kind of guilt. As a white person, I reject this. I have found that honestly examining the role my ethnicity plays in my day-to-day life, and, in fact, how it has shaped my life’s entire arc, has been incredibly enriching and enhanced the quality of all my relationships, regardless of the ethnic make-up of those involved.

America, despite its history (or perhaps because of it), has been a leader in confronting issues of race. While deep racial fissures do exist in American society—as evidenced by recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and in reactions to the shooting of Trayvon Martin and to affirmative action court rulings—it is hard to imagine any other white-majority country embracing and celebrating the wide range of ethnicities and cultures that make up the nation and electing a biracial president to govern them all. I believe that the country is not just ready for a discussion on whiteness but is hungry for it. My experiences working on this project have repeatedly shown me that when white people honestly engage on this topic, it is incredibly freeing for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, and makes discussions about race more productive, ultimately helping to advance a culture of true equality.

Check out some of the short video interviews on “The Whiteness Project’s” website and let us know what you think of Dow’s series in the comments below.