Whiteness as a Visa Tuesday, September 30, 2014 | 4:00 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.

1114 Social Sciences

Mahadeo draws on existing ideas within critical studies of whiteness to make the concept more accessible to a general audience by helping us understand the ubiquity of whiteness in tastes, values, worldviews, institutions, and knowledge production. Operating as a passport for some, as well as a pass-port for racially ambiguous others, whiteness holds a transnational appeal allowing for its largely unquestioned acceptance across borders and facilitates the erosion of cultural traditions in favor of a white racial frame to which all are expected to comport. He concludes with some ideas on how to “just say no” to the specious allure of whiteness.