Unveiling whiteness: an approach to expand equity and deepen Public Administration’s racial analysis

Figures & data

Table 1. The institutional Logics of Whiteness—racial capitalism and whiteness as property—and their principal elements.

Institution	Whiteness vis-à-vis citizenship
Institutional logics	Racial Capitalism	Whiteness as Property
Principle 1: Intertwined material and symbolic implications	White supremacy and capitalist accumulation fuze together to organize social systems Exclusion, exploitation, and violence against Black people through the institution of slavery are indispensable to capitalist accumulation in the U.S. and globally	Citizenship symbolizes legitimacy and belonging to a community or government Lays claims to material accumulation of property, status, state services, rights, protections, and influence in community or government decisions
Principle 2: Historically contingent	Conceptions of race and racial categorization travel over time and place to develop a racial hierarchy in the U.S. The U.S. racial hierarchy seeped in economic, social, and political sensibilities and practices stem from British colonial actions toward toward citizenship, the economy, and property	Shaped U.S. settler colonial ideas of citizenship and property White European, male, propertied people are viewed as full citizens to the exclusion of Indigenous, Black, and Asian peoples, and all women
Principle 3: Multilevel operation	Lived experiences are intertwined with the racialized hierarchy Power at one level may be drawn on to bolster or exercise power at another level	Legal principle has accorded “holders” of whiteness the same privileges, benefits, and rights accorded holders of other types of property (i.e., right of disposition, right to use and enjoyment, right to exclude, and reputation and property status) Rights may be enacted or prohibited by individual actors, organizational policies and practices, and institutional assumptions, norms, and values

Figure 1. An historical timeline depicting the logics of whiteness (racial capitalism solid arrow, and whiteness as property dotted arrow) as they shape conceptions of citizenship (large arrow).