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White Universal Identity as a “Sense of Group Position”
Author(s) -
Perry Pamela
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.2007.30.3.375
Subject(s) - identity (music) , prejudice (legal term) , white (mutation) , sociology , position (finance) , collective identity , group (periodic table) , ethnography , social psychology , gender studies , race (biology) , ideal (ethics) , epistemology , psychology , political science , aesthetics , anthropology , law , politics , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , organic chemistry , finance , economics , gene
This article seeks to expand upon Blumer's “Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position.” I argue that Blumer's group position model invites us to critically consider the role that dominant group identity and “threats” to identity play in reproducing racial inequalities. Identities seat both material and ideal concerns, and white identities, in particular, may provide “ontological security” that whites will defensively protect. I draw on ethnographic research conducted in 1994–96 in two demographically distinct high schools. Young whites in both schools expressed identities that positioned them as “universal,” and they responded reactively, even prejudicially, when their universal group position was threatened.