The contribution of critical whiteness studies to the understanding of racial prejudice in social psychology

Abstract

The goal of this article is to present the main approaches through which classical North American social psychology has theorized about racial prejudice, racism and antiracism, and on that basis present critical whiteness studies as possibilities to overcome the limits identified within these approaches, which presents us either with individuals outside the structure, or with a structure with no individuals. For that purpose, in this article we identify three main approaches in North American social psychology: implicit association test; intergroup contact theory and aversive racism; and specific emotions. On that basis we show how critical whiteness studies may be presented as a synthesis between these two extremes, which oscillates between the individual and the structure. In this perspective, the structure is manifested in the individual’s subjective experience in the world, and thus identifiable in one’s own experiential field.