Whiteness FAQ: Responses and Tools for Confronting College Classroom Questions

Abstract

Instructors and students with a critical race perspective are frequently confronted and often marginalized by questions of whiteness in the college classroom. These questions work to reinforce and promote white norms and ultimately white supremacy. This theoretical article and pedagogical tool responds to some frequently asked questions (FAQs) that exude whiteness in the classroom directly, offering critical responses backed by literature, research, and theory. We also respond to the questions subcontextually, naming the assumptions that are embedded in these whiteness questions and deconstructing them. We offer pedagogical strategies for responding to and resisting whiteness in the classroom when whiteness FAQs arise.