Gordon and Gerstle write about the tendency for those living in the United States to try to become more “white”, a phenomenon clearly still active in today’s world. Gordon lays out three theories of assimilation, one of them being “Anglo-conformity,” which describes this tendency well. It can be argued that in trying to conform to “whiteness”, blatant misrepresentation of those who are not white goes underreported because those who are not white desire to be more white anyway and ignore the misrepresentation to some degree.
A certain conformity to whiteness is certainly clear in today’s society. Often this so-called whiteness is conflated with the idea of being American, leading to conformity being twisted into some positive form of solidarity or nationalism. Although I have not experienced a great amount of pressure to become more “American”, there are times when I notice the pressure, however subtle it may be. For instance, in identifying my race, I’m generally perceived as white. My actual makeup is half Norwegian and half Puerto Rican, but largely because I have fairly light skin, it would be unusual for someone to identify the Puerto Rican side of me. This has created an interesting dynamic in which I can either choose to identify myself as white, ignoring the Puerto Rican side, or choose to identify as multiracial. In getting to my point, there are some situations in which I can clearly tell a group of people is more accepting of me when I only identify as white and I become more “othered” when I mention that I’m half Puerto Rican. Although this has only been a subtle, generally harmless, pressure to conform to American “whiteness”, it evidently exists.
Another area where a certain conformity to whiteness exists is in population television programming. It is difficult not to notice that in many TV shows, the majority of the characters are white. One show notably criticized for this was Friends, one of the most popular sitcoms of all time, whose cast was dominated by white actors. Furthermore, many of the TV shows with black characters or ethnic characters seem to be inherently designed that way, arguably reinforcing the division between white and nonwhite.
Although there is reason to believe we are moving into a society in which the concept of “whiteness” is fading, it still plays a powerful role in shaping our interactions with others and all aspects of our society.
– Chris Arroyo
