Winner of the 2019 AERA Division J Outstanding Publication Award and the 2019 ASHE Outstanding Book Award On April 22, 2015, Boston University professor Saida Grundy set off a Twitter storm with her provocative question: “Why is white America so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?” White Guys on Campus is a critical examination of race in higher education, centering Whiteness, in an effort to unveil the frequently unconscious habits of racism among White male undergraduates. Nolan L. Cabrera moves beyond the “few bad apples” frame of contemporary racism, and explores the structures, policies, ideologies, and experiences that allow racism to flourish. This book details many of the contours of contemporary, systemic racism, while engaging the possibility of White students to participate in anti-racism. Ultimately, White Guys on Campus calls upon institutions of higher education to be sites of social transformation instead of reinforcing systemic racism, while creating a platform to engage and challenge the public discourse of “post- racialism.”
NOLAN L. CABRERA is an associate professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction 1 The unbearable Whiteness of being: White male racial immunity in higher education 2 “Race just doesn’t matter that much”: White insulation, Occam’s Racial Razor, and willful racial ignorance 3 “The only discrimination left is that against White men”: The campus racial politics of “reverse racism” 4 “Why can’t Stevie Wonder read? Because he’s Black”: Whiteness and the social performance of racist joking 5 “I almost lost my spot to a less qualified minority”: Imagined v. Real affirmative action 6 “They’d never allow a White Student Union”: The Racial Politics of Campus Space and Racial Arrested Development 7 “Because it’s the right thing to do”: Racial awakening and (some) allyship development 8 Conclusion: White guys on campus, What is to be done? Appendix A Appendix B Acknowledgments References Index
