John Storey discusses about how “whiteness” is known as a privileged race in the chapter 8. Richard Dyer ‘s article “matter of whiteness” is a good example to dissect this issue. Dyer discusses about the racial portrayal of white people in the media and popular culture. In popular culture, the term “race” is mostly related to the non-white people and whiteness is portrayed as a human norm therefore white people are not racially seen. As Dyer states: “ as long as race is something only applied to non-white people, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people”(1). We can see so many examples of these racist comments in old style comedian shows where the comedian associates each characters with their races like Japanese, black or Indian, however, there is no recognition of the white character as being white. Dyer strongly suggests that it’s important to recognize whiteness as a race and avoid acknowledging it as a normativity. One of the most problematic issues related to recognizing whiteness as a human norm is that it gives power and authority to the white people and makes them the dominant race while the other races suffer from inequality. As Dyer’s puts it: “ white people need to learn to see themselves as white, to see their particularity. In other words, whiteness needs to be made strange” (13). I believe once we stop identifying “whiteness” as “the normal human race”, we can start criticizing against racism and discriminations.
•Dyer, Richard. “ The matter of whiteness” in white privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism. Ed: Paula Rothenberg 2005.p1-14. Print.
•Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. 6th ed. Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2012. 183-184. Print.