Just because the idea of distinct biological human races is not a valid scientific concept does not mean,  and should not be interpreted as implying, that “there is no such thing as race” or that “race isn’t real.”  Race is indeed real but it is a concept based on arbitrary social and cultural definitions rather than biology or science. Thus, racial categories such as “white” and “Black” are as real as categories of “American”  and “African.” Many things in the world are real but are not biological. So, while race does not reflect biological characteristics, it reflects socially constructed concepts defined subjectively by societies to reflect notions of division that are perceived to be significant. Some sociologists and anthropologists now use the term social races instead, seeking to emphasize their cultural and arbitrary roots.

Race is most accurately thought of as a socio-historical concept. Michael Omi and Howard Winant  noted that “Racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific  social relations and historical context in which they are embedded.”^[1] In other words, racial labels ultimately reflect a society’s social attitudes and cultural beliefs regarding notions of group differences. And since racial categories are culturally defined, they can vary from one society to another as well as change  over time within a society. Omi and Winant referred to this as racial formation—“the process by which  social, economic, and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories.”^[2]

9.4.1 Concepts of Whiteness

The process of racial formation is vividly illustrated by the idea of “whiteness” in the United States.  Over the course of U.S. history, the concept of “whiteness” expanded to include various immigrant  groups that once were targets of racist beliefs and discrimination. In the mid 1800s, for example, Irish Catholic immigrants faced intense hostility from America’s Anglo-Protestant mainstream society, and  anti-Irish politicians and journalists depicted the Irish as racially different and inferior. Newspaper  cartoons frequently portrayed Irish Catholics in apelike fashion: overweight, knuckle dragging, and  brutish. In the early twentieth century, Italian and Jewish immigrants were typically perceived as  racially distinct from America’s Anglo-Protestant “white” majority as well. They were said to belong  to the inferior “Mediterranean” and “Jewish” races. Today, Irish, Italian, and Jewish Americans are fully  considered “white,” and many people find it hard to believe that they once were perceived otherwise.  Racial categories as an aspect of culture are typically learned, internalized, and accepted without question or critical thought in a process not so different from children learning their native language as they  grow up.

A primary contributor to expansion of the definition of “whiteness” in the United States was the rise of many members of those immigrant groups in social status after World War II.^[3] Hundreds of suburban housing developments were constructed on the edge of the nation’s major cities during the 1940s  and 1950s to accommodate returning soldiers, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 offered a  series of benefits for military veterans, including free college education or technical training and cost of-living stipends funded by the federal government for veterans pursuing higher education. In addition, veterans could obtain guaranteed low-interest loans for homes and for starting their own farms or  businesses. The act was in effect from 1944 through 1956 and was theoretically available to all military  veterans who served at least four months in uniform and were honorably discharged, but the legislation did not contain anti-discrimination provisions and most African American veterans were denied  benefits because private banks refused to provide the loans and restrictive language by homeowners’  associations prohibited sales of homes to nonwhites. The male children and grandchildren of European  immigrant groups benefited tremendously from the act. They were able to obtain college educations,  formerly available only to the affluent, at no cost, leading to professional white-collar careers, and to  purchase low-cost suburban homes that increased substantially in value over time. The act has been  credited, more than anything else, with creating the modern middle class of U.S. society and transforming the majority of “white” Americans from renters and homeowners.^[4] As the children of Greek, Irish, Jewish,  Italian, and Eastern European parents grew up together in the suburbs, formed  friendships, and dated and married one another, the old social boundaries that defined “whiteness” were redefined.^[5]

Race is a socially constructed concept but it is not a trivial matter. On the contrary, one’s race often  has a dramatic impact on everyday life. In the United States, for example, people often use race—their  personal understanding of race—to predict “who” a person is and “what” a person is like in terms of  personality, behavior, and other qualities. Because of this tendency to characterize others and make  assumptions about them, people can be uncomfortable or defensive when they mistake someone’s background or cannot easily determine “what” someone is, as revealed in statements such as “You don’t look Black!” or “You talk like a white person.” Such statements reveal fixed notions about “Blackness” and  “whiteness” and what members of each race will be like, reflecting their socially constructed and seemingly “common sense” understanding of the world.

Since the 1990s, scholars and anti-racism activists have discussed “white privilege” as a basic feature of race as a lived experience in the United States. Peggy McIntosh coined the term in a famous 1988  essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” in which she identified more than two  dozen accumulated unearned benefits and advantages associated with being a “white” person in the  United States. The benefits ranged from relatively minor things, such as knowing that “flesh color”  Band-Aids would match her skin, to major determinants of life experiences and opportunities, such as  being assured that she would never be asked to speak on behalf of her entire race, being able to curse and  get angry in public without others assuming she was acting that way because of her race, and not having  to teach her children that police officers and the general public would view them as suspicious or criminal because of their race. In 2015, MTV aired a documentary on white privilege, simply titled White  People, to raise awareness of this issue among Millennials. In the documentary, young “white” Americans from various geographic, social, and class backgrounds discussed their experiences with race.

White privilege has gained significant attention and is an important tool for understanding how race  is often connected to everyday experiences and opportunities, but we must remember that no group  is homogenous or monolithic. “White” persons receive varying degrees of privilege and social advantage, and other important characteristics, such as social class, gender, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability,  shape individuals’ overall lives and how they experience society. John Hartigan, an urban anthropologist, has written extensively about these characteristics. His Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of  Whiteness in Detroit (1999) discusses the lives of “white” residents in three neighborhoods in Detroit,  Michigan, that vary significantly socio-economically—one impoverished, one working class, and one  upper middle class. Hartigan reveals that social class has played a major role in shaping strikingly different identities among these “white” residents and how, accordingly, social relations between whites and Blacks in the neighborhoods vary from camaraderie and companionship to conflict.