Do national majorities have a colour?
This paper examines the relevance of the category of whiteness to the sociology of racism in the West. This category, derived from Whiteness Studies, has the advantage of shedding light on the systemic mechanisms affording White people a privileged access to power and resources. I argue that the staunch opposition generated by the notion of systemic racism in Quebec points to a certain “White fragility”, the latter being typically activated when the part played by, and the interests of, “racializing” groups in the reproduction of race-based relations are named and made visible. However, no matter how valuable the notion of Whiteness is to the study of racism, it should be used with caution so as to avoid the essentializing and oversimplifying frameworks through which it is too often understood. Among other things, I argue that Whiteness cannot be properly grasped without reflecting simultaneously on how this category is closely intertwined with the process whereby the nation and its internal outsiders are socially produced. It is also pointed out that the experience of Whiteness varies depending on how “race” and other socially differentiating categories such as class and gender interact with each other.