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WHITE

Bay wood. Naturally dried. Three coats of preservative. Two coats of white undercoat and one coat of eggshell.

Vital Statistics: Height 11 ¾” base diameter 6”.

Long, white, satin lady’s gloves lazing on the bay.

Paired

With light wood. Protected with three coats of preservative. Enhanced by three coats of eggshell.

Vital Statistics: Height 11” base diameter 6”.

Supported

By a wooden pedestal. Stripped, coated three times with wood preservative and dressed with three coats of white undercoat.

Vital Statistics: Height 29” base span 11”.

P.O.A.

 

WHITE

• is the lightest colour and is anachromatic (having no hue) because if fully reflects and scatters all the visible wavelengths of light. It is the colour of fresh snow.

White Synonyms. Silver, alabaster, blanched, bleached, clear, fair, ivory, light, neutral, pasty, wan, ashen, bloodless, chalky, hoary, milky, pallid, snowy, transparent, waxen.

White “as privalege is a new idea and it is difficult to avoid being defensive” (Audrey Thompson 2003, Whiteness Theory and Education).

Whiteness theories do not agree on a single methodology or theoretical claim like African American studies or Feminist Theory. Whiteness Theory is interdisciplinary. There are four major groups of Whiteness Theories (Audrey Thompson 2001).

• Material theories of whiteness ask how whites as a group come to enjoy privileged access to tangible goods. Although they do not ignore individual prejudice, material theories are more concerned with systemic racism – racism revealed in patterns and systems – rather than personal motives.

• Discursive Theories of Whiteness analyse the ways in which language, mass media, discourses and symbols organise meaning so that Whiteness is framed as both the preferred and the normal state of being.

• Institutional Theories. On one side, they are concerned with systems of privilege that have material outcomes because they are part of the organisation of institutions like banks, schools, hospitals, universities: on the other side, the main way in which white privilege is maintained in such cases is through formal or symbolic systems such as etiquette, policy, protocol or procedure.

• Personal/Relational (or psychological or identity) theories of Whiteness address the ways in which white privileging mechanisms find a home in our relationships, our sense of self, and our assumptions about growth, morality and decency.

It is argued that the patterns of Whiteness uncovered by Whiteness theories may in some cases include individuals who identify as / and are identified by others as brown or black. Whiteness does not refer to a biological but to a socially constructed category.