Cheryl Matias, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Colorado Denver. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she personally experienced public schools that adhered to standardized curriculum and pedagogies devoid of any social analysis or recognition of race relations.
“As such, the daily lived racial experiences of students of color, as myself, were ignored and inherently deemed unimportant, thus forcing students of color to find development of their racial identity at alternative educational structures, i.e. on the streets of Los Angeles,” Matias writes.
As a former public school teacher in both Los Angeles Unified School District (South Los Angeles) and New York City Department of Education (Bedford-Stuyvesant), she observed the same phenomenon happening to her Black and Brown students. Notwithstanding the raceless effects of standardized curriculum, she designed a standards-based history curriculum on the evolution of race and racism in American society. She then documented the curriculum’s impact on the symbiotic development of racial identities of Black, White, Latino/Chicano, and Asian Pacific American high school students. By translating Critical Race Theory into K-12 pedagogical and curricular practices, Dr. Matias’ students had access to concepts to better analyze race in society and bridge that understanding to their positive development of their own racial identities. Her research uses frameworks from feminism of color and critical race theory.
In a Q&A with Colors of Influence, Dr. Matias shares how her scholarship in critical whiteness studies focuses on the emotionality of whiteness in urban teacher education to better ensure racially just education.
What is critical whiteness studies?
Whiteness has been studied for a long time, even in the time of W.E.B. DuBois who had a critique about how Whiteness has manifested in U.S. society. James Baldwin in the ‘60s has talked about it. Frantz Fanon, another Black male, has been talking about how Whiteness impacts the colonial relationship.
With that said, whiteness studies became popular around the ‘80s and ‘90s, particularly with the publication of Peggy McIntosh’s “Invisible Knapsack” essay. Beyond that, over the last 40 years, there’s been a lot of break off. A corollary is critical whiteness studies. Z Leonardo often phrases it like this: “There’s a white whiteness studies and a black whiteness studies." White whiteness studies often focus on racial epiphanies: being finally aware of whiteness. There’s a notion that whites are not aware of the impact of whiteness on their lives.
Critical whiteness studies focus deeper to say that “No, you are very aware, but you suppress it such that you can feign innocence and release yourself of culpability.” It takes a more critical disposition that goes beyond awareness. People are aware of the manifestations and impacts of whiteness, but they refuse to acknowledge it for reasons that serve their own interest.
What does your research say about why it’s difficult for white people to acknowledge whiteness and all its mechanisms?
A lot of my work digs into racial psychoanalysis. Oftentimes in diversity talk, whites who are interested in engaging in multicultural collaborations or racially just work are often at a loss with some of their emotions. There are feelings of defensiveness, guilt, anger and sadness. In my experience, a lot of diversity professionals will often say “Get over your emotions and join the coalition."
At the same time, what I do with Critical Whiteness Studies, particularly looking at the emotionality of Whiteness, is to acknowledge the visceral feelings and emotions that are brought up about race, in regards to why these feelings might be felt.
If someone claims to be “color-blind,” they claim to not see color. (I opt for the term “color-evasive” from the work of Subini Annamma). Yet, when people talk about whiteness, they react so emotionally towards it. Now, if I were to say “Unicorns are the best animals in the world. And I love talking about them.” White people don’t have an emotional attachment to the concept.
So, when it comes to Whiteness, something must be real in the context of these emotions that we need to understand. When I dove into psychoanalytics, one small aspect is possibly the defensiveness actually stems from a deeper feeling of white ethnic shame that Thandeka talks about in her book, “Learning to be White.” White people are actually raised as children to see race, to see differences in how people are racialized, and how people are treated. Based upon that, as white children, according to Thandeka, they are told not to see what they actually do see.
As a Christian reference, they are asked to bear “false witness.” And in bearing false witness to race and to develop and identity based off that false witness, eventually brings upon them a sense of guilt, of shame. Such that anything that is touched on to talk about that shame, they react very vehemently.
That’s why I typically focus on the emotionality of whiteness. Beyond getting to racial justice, there needs to be a deeper investigation into white emotions, white emotionality that undergirds those white emotions such that they can wholeheartedly engage in racially just projects.
How has the focus of your scholarship evolved through the years?
I came to the University of Colorado Denver, armed with hip hop pedagogy, culturally responsive teaching. I’m one of the few tenure-line faculty who has been a classroom teacher in L.A. Unified and New York City Department of Ed. I’d been a credentialed classroom teacher for many years. I thought I was going to come in to teach these many wonderful ways to engage students of color, because I was applying to be a tenure-line faculty in an urban teacher education program. When I got here, I indicated that I will bring in critical whiteness studies to urban education. I knew that if we were to engage in racially just pedagogy, we needed interrogate whiteness and how it’s manifested in teaching.
However, I couldn’t even get to the racially just aspects of teaching like hip hop pedagogy or critical race theory because the emotions of whiteness became so overbearing. They refused to hear. In teaching future teachers, some students used emotions as a way to shut down my expertise and even the learning of the course. They felt emboldened to question the scholarship, research and data about the presence and validity of race and racism in society.
I remember taking a course on neurons as an undergrad. It was incredibly difficult. I studied all the time. I met with the professor and the TA (teaching assistant). I stayed after class. I put in a lot of work to learn. It would’ve been ludicrous of me to use my emotions and say “I don’t want to learn this. It’s too hard,” or more ludicrous yet, say “I don’t believe in neurons.”
Similarly, I think it’s ludicrous for someone who’s taking a course in “Foundations of Cultural Diversity” or “Foundations of Urban Education” to let their emotions dictate the route of the course. That’s when I realized that I needed to investigate more deeply these emotions of whiteness.
I want to clarify that it’s not only white people who inhabit whiteness mentality, behaviors and emotions. People of color can inhabit these exact same ideologies, albeit through different names. Perhaps it’s needed for survival in a white supremacist society. It’s not about me teaching white; the teaching us about the ideology and how it impacts us all. In order to survive a white supremacist society, some folks of color have to make decisions about their identities, their behaviors, what they’re going to keep close and dear. It’s no different than what Albert Memmi discusses in his 1965 book “The Colonizer and the Colonized,” where he describes the portraiture of the colonized.
Colonized people have two choices: One is to rebel and to constantly be at odds with the entire state of colonization. Or, they can accept the state of being colonized and find ways to move up in it. You can’t fault a person of color who is struggling, surviving by any means necessary in this enterprise. They may act in microaggressive ways, but I will not play “oppression Olympics.” I will not go against other oppressed identities in a way that works against our solidarity. The real issue at hand is why is whiteness so pervasive that we’re willing to hate our own selves and engage in White supremacy just to get a piece of the pie.
As a woman of color doing work and research in this field, how do you take care of yourself to ensure that your own psyche is intact as you delve into these really difficult issues?
As a woman of color, I don’t think I’ve been doing a great job of self-care. I’ve learned how and where to draw the line when I started getting hate mail and there wasn’t much support. My husband and I had to go against our beliefs and purchase a gun. I had one particular stalker who was so fixated on my son, that it scared me. Purchasing the gun seemed like the best decision at the time, as I was very afraid that my son would be abducted.
To be honest, it’s been very hard. Especially in a state where whiteness runs free, as in the wild, wild west. It’s become very hard for me and my family to the point where it has made me think that I wanted to quit. I had to make some hard decisions and my family sacrificed a lot. I developed some medical conditions as a result of the threats. I’ve had to look for my network nationally to gain support for this work. I’ve had a mentor who’s a white female say to me that no one would look less of me if I decided to get out of this work. She said this in a kind way, because she knows the kind of vitriol that women of color particularly engage in. Anyone who goes into this work – white, male, female, person of color – we all get hate mail in this day and age. Yet, the type of vitriolic hate mail that I receive as a woman of color involves things like rape and threats of violence – these have really impacted my heart.
The most challenging thing for me is seeing good folks get so caught up in my mistreatment, that they will engage in the same politics. That has been the most hurtful. I’ve had some recent betrayals from folks that I would consider close to me. They engage in the same dehumanizing mechanisms of whiteness: not listening to my words as a woman of color, not giving me a chance to confront any allegations. I have the expertise, and I say my truth, but they refuse to believe me. Some people of color spaces have become so fanatic, so “groupthink” that they go against the very people that they love. The whole neurosis of whiteness has made us racially “cray-cray” – we’re turning on each other.
At the end of the day, as much as the hate comes toward me, I cannot, I will not, ever, lose my dignity and return the hate. I have tried to always remain focused on the task of educating others. That’s what I’m here to do.
What keeps you going?
What keeps me going is seeing that my children are safe. Knowing that I want a better world for them. I do this work for the hope of a better society. Knowing that I have an unbelievable forgiving part, despite all the indignities that are thrown my way. I continue to keep my head held high. At the end of the day, I still love humanity.