Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness (Perspectives on a Multiracial America) [Paperback]

Melanie E. L. Bush (Author), Joe R. Feagin (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0742528642 | ISBN-13: 978-0742528642 | Publication Date: June 19, 2004

Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness examines why most white people in the U.S. believe we have achieved racial equality though social and economic indicators suggest otherwise. The book draws on research conducted between 1998-2000 at a college within the largest urban public university in the nation, exploring white students' perceptions about identity, privilege, democracy, and intergroup relations. The book explores mechanisms that reinforce the adherence to dominant narratives (thereby functioning to maintain and reproduce racialized structures of inequality) and identifies 'cracks in the wall of whiteness,' circumstances that can foster understanding about systemic and racialized patterns of inequality. The author illuminates the connection between everyday thinking and the policies and programs that structure society. Framed within an analysis of economic and political transitions that have occurred within the United States and globally in the second half of the twentieth century, the author examines the shift in public opinion from a presumption of collective responsibility for the common good and toward a belief in the social survival of the fittest and explores the extent to which these transitions led to the acute sense of white victimization that is portrayed by the media. Concluding with recommendations for academia and society at large, this book asserts that the time is overdue for the dismantling of narratives that align ordinary whites with global elites and that the very future of humanity depends on challenging this long-time pattern.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dr. Bush has done a unique study that breaks new ground in the field of Whiteness Studies, yielding provocative as well as positive results. Her focus on the views of youth—in this case white students—suggests the future of U.S. racism and struggles to eliminate it. As revealed in almost a thousand interviews and other discussions with students, and Dr. Bush's analysis of them, what she calls 'cracks' exist in the wall of whiteness that may help liberate our entire society. She shows us that along with predictably racist assumptions of responsibility for inequality, for example, young people have strong beliefs in the ideal of democracy as well as an often realistic grasp of existing injustices. Dr. Bush's worldview is both scholarly and activist, as when she concludes that 'Individuals concerned with the future of our society have a chance to make a difference by providing alternative ways to interpret . . . events that are shaping people's lives today and to bring to light the many ways that everyday forms and extraordinary forms of challenge can be successful.' (Dr. Martinez, Elizabeth )

The field of whiteness studies is a complex domain laden with mines and misunderstandings. Melanie Bush has successfully traversed that field, bringing staightforward clarity and profound insight to the domain. Breaking the Code of Good Intentions provides rigorous empirical data, thick contextualization, and compelling interpretation to those who are interested in whiteness as a powerful cultural force. This book is necessary reading not only for those invested in whiteness studies but also for those attempting to understand the mutating nature of racism in the twenty-first century. Bush constructs a piece de resistance in the attempt to make sense of contemporary American culture. (Joe Kincheloe )

Breaking the Code of Good Intentions is a welcome addition to the new genre of whiteness studies that reverse the racial lens and make 'whiteness' the focal point of research and analysis. It is a notable departure from the scores of redundant surveys that merely document the existence and prevalence of racial stereotypes and beliefs. Through in-depth interviews with students at a racially diverse college, Melanie Bush probes deeper layers of cognition and feeling, replete as they are with ambiguity and contradiction. Despite their repudiation of racist stereotypes, and despite positive experiences across racial lines, these students still struggle with transcending whiteness. How could it be otherwise, in a society still driven by race? (Steinberg, Stephen )

U.S. society and higher education, as recent indicators show, has a long way to go in accepting and appreciating racial and ethnic diversity and equality. Many decades ago, W.E.B. Du Bois was critical that Blacks and other people of color were merely tolerated, rather than accepted fully in academic institutions and all sectors of society. This book provides a venue for understanding contemporary problems, and possibilities, related to race and race relations. Dr. Melanie Bush’s book will be considered one of the most important works highlighting possibilities for effective and positive change. (Jennings, James )

Breaking the Code of Good Intentions effectively deconstructs white racial identities, showing them to be fraught with uncertainty and contradiction, and explaining the peculiar perception of beleagueredness that many whites experience today. Since whites can no longer be unabashedly prejudiced and openly discriminatory, Bush suggests, they have become abashedly prejudiced and confused about what discrimination is. Showing how race is the 'default' explanation for the real pressures whites experience in today's America, and showing as well how whites both accept and resist pressures toward 'normal' racism, Bush probes the anxiety and confusion that shapes contemporary whiteness. This book goes mad deep into the inner workings of white racial identity. Highly recommended! (Winant, Howard )

In the rapidly growing field of studies interrogating the construction of whiteness, relatively few are grounded in ethnographic methods examining the everyday experiences of people in real time. Dr. Melanie Bush's Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness brilliantly explores the everyday dimensions of how white Americans maintain and reproduce the inequalities of race through common interaction. Well-written and effectively argued, this study provides critical new insights and makes an important contribution to the social science literature about race. (Leith Mullings )

In this informative, exciting, and well-theorized book, social scientist Melanie Bush probes deeply into understandings and rationalizations about racial and class matters held by many students at America's largest urban public university, the City University of New York (CUNY). (Feagin, Joe )

highly recommended text for any student, scholar, or community activist with an interest in the salient issues of race, whiteness, and social justice. (Journal Of Educational Thought )

Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness performs the important work of demonstrating the multiple ways in which people designated as "white" can- and often do- act upon ideas and attitudes that align them with the racist power relations that are essential to continuing capitalist hegemony, and hence make them complicit in their own oppression and exploitation. . . . Readers of Science and Society who are engaged in bringing critical consciousness to working-class students in institutions of higher education will especially benefit from Bush's careful anaylsis of what is on our students' minds-and perhaps our own as well. (Science And Society )

About the Author

Melanie E. L. Bush is assistant professor in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Adelphi University. She has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and presented at a range of national conferences particularly in the fields of sociology and anthropology. Active for three decades in community struggles and academic projects for full employment, education, women's rights, against racism and for peace and justice, in 2003 she was a prize winner of the Praxis Award, given by the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists for outstanding achievement in translating knowledge into action in addressing contemporary social problems.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (June 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742528642
• ISBN-13: 978-0742528642
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clearly written and enlightening, August 24, 2005

By 

AfroAmericanHeritage (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness (Perspectives on a Multiracial America) (Paperback)

This book caught my attention because I have several near and dear "Angry White Males" in my life that I just don't understand. To my way of thinking, life has given them everything - good educations, good jobs, nice homes, nice families, nice prospects - yet they invest an inordinate amount of energy being angry at and fearful of THEM. ("THEM" being pretty much anyone who is not white.) Why, I've wondered, are my near and dear so aggravated by THEM when in truth, the enemy more likely to undermine their peace and prosperity is a white CEO? Why do right-wing talk show hosts wax rabid on the topic of "welfare queens" yet turn a blind eye to (or worse, make excuses for) corporate looters?

Of course, the answer if far too complex to address here, but Melanie Bush provides interesting insights, not the least of which is the basic presumption of "white goodness." Bush spent five years collecting and documenting perspectives of white students on inequality and found their perceptions of and rationalizations about equality have little basis in reality. Simply put: despite indisputable evidence to the contrary, most white students believe that not only have other races achieved equality, they are now privileged at the expense of white people. (aka "reverse discrimination.")

The first part of the book analyses the ethnographical data collected through interviews and surveys with students at the City University of New York (CUNY) probing attitudes and perspectives about race and class. The final chapter explores "Cracks in the Wall of Whiteness" and presents some consciousness raising activities...a hopeful chapter without which the book would not be complete. The Afterword provides a post 9/11 perspective on notions of race, and had me vigorously nodding in agreement at every page.

This book is clearly written and enlightening.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coming to terms with cultural capital, May 13, 2007

By 

Tiffany Faith Seal "Seal" (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness (Perspectives on a Multiracial America) (Paperback)

This book is absolutely wonderful; it is engaging and at times difficult to swallow as we come to terms with whiteness and the issue of cultural capital. The lessons learned from this text are insurmountable. Coming to terms with individual philosophical perspective defaults is difficult, however finding the `cracks in the wall' make it worth while. This is a must read for all academic, especially educators who are working for the betterment of the student populations they serve!

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent analysis of whiteness, November 22, 2009

By 

JOHN LINDSAY (Lexington, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness (Perspectives on a Multiracial America) (Paperback)

Toby (NC):
White studies, what an interesting concept. Those who subscribe to White Studies are the first to tell you that there is Race is not a viable construct, except, of course-the White Race.

John L.: Toby's comments above ARE NOT TRUE.
"Whiteness" refers to a set of behaviors, beliefs, customs, and/or practices.
The term has NOTHING TO DO WITH BIOLOGY.


Toby: Hidden in this insanity is the popular trope that only white's can be racist (except the chosen white feminists.


John L.: The movie "Crash" did a great dis-service to efforts directed towards decreasing racism.
The movie displays how members of ALL groups can hold prejudices towards other people.

What "Crash" didn't show us is how White people benefit from institutional or systemic discrimination/racism....such as discrimination in employment, racial profiling, sub-prime loans aimed at "Communities of Color", the "racial" or ethnic disparity in "whom is given the death penalty, gerrymandering, low expectations for Students of Color held by White teachers, etc., etc., etc.

Unlike the individual examples shown in "Crash," the preceding examples involves policies and practices that disadvantage People of Color in large numbers.
Hence, "Crash" is whiteness at its best: projects the message that all people can harbor prejudices while concealing examples of systemic discrimination that advantages Whites over People of Color.

Toby: Though the white studies people claim that {race) is a social construct this construct appears only to white people. This can mean only one thing blacks, asians, hispanics and others are merely victims of their own biological nature.

John L.: Wrong, yet again.
"Races" of humans is indeed a social construct, and thus means only one thing: all humans are of the same species.

If ALL humans on the Earth today can....TRACE THEIR ANCESTRY BACK TO A WOMAN WHO LIVED IN AFRICA 80,000 years ago...this means that there was NOT a "multi-genesis of different races of human."
We all came from the same source.
Google California Newsreel and then search for "Race: The Power of An Illusion."

Two, "Whiteness" doesn't "appear to White people"...it is PRACTICED AND BLINDLY ACCEPTED by White people.

For example, Whites control ALL mainstream media, TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.
Only certain types of information...that does not contradict the dominant group's view of life....is regularly paraded before viewers, readers, or listeners.

For example, why do most Whites tend to believe that "most of the people receiving welfare in America are Black?!"
That's because Blacks are far, far more likely to be depicted in the media as receiving welfare.

In reality, Whites are the largest group receiving welfare.
Of the 180 million Whites in America, about 15% or 27 million are poor.

Of the 40 million Blacks in America, about 25% or 10 million live in poverty.
We can state based on the stats above that Blacks are disproportionately represented among people who receive welfare.

We also can just as accurately state that...numerically, Whites are the largest group receiving welfare.
The former statement (disproportionate) is more likely to be used by media outlets...than the numerical statement.

Another myth motivated by the practitioners of whiteness...is the belief that "a large percentage of Whites have lost jobs to Blacks because of affirmative action."

How can so many "Blacks be on welfare" (from research polls/surveys of Whites)...yet simultaneously be taking so many jobs away from Whites?!"
Just doesn't make statistical sense, does it?! Yet, many Whites hold these dueling beliefs simultaneously.
Where do these beliefs come from?

They come from the distorted ways White-controlled media broadcast or publish info about affirmative action.

Two, Blacks are NOT even the largest group benefiting from affirmative action. White women are the largest group. (e-mail me at [e-mail] for more info)

The overwhelming majority of people opposed to affirmative action have...NEVER even read the legislation....but instead rely on people like Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc. to interpret it for them.

The legislation very clearly conveys that "this legislation was enacted to counter problems of discrimination targeting women and minorities."

Three, in psychology there is a term known as "internalization of racism."
This refers to people that "accept the negative images they see of their group in the media, i.e. textbooks, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, etc.

How is this definition reflective of whiteness?
Well, there are 2 issues.
One, if people can internalize negative images and begin to believe that "they are inferior to others"....what is the opposite of that?!

Those who receive only positive images of themselves...tend to believe that "they are superior to other people."

Two, the definition puts the burden for change...on those who internalize the images rather than on those who PRODUCE the images.
Every time I raise this issue in psychology classes, traditional psychology professors always answer in the same way: "I never thought about that."

Of course they haven't...because you cannot start out with whiteness and arrive at such an analysis.
As Audre Lorde once said, "The master's tools...will never dismantle the master's house.


I wonder if whiteness will play a role in whether my review gets posted to this page.
I'll be glad to be proven wrong on this one. :>)