Whiteness as property


Whiteness as property is a concept in critical race theory that holds that whiteness functions as a form of property in which white individuals have an asserted interest. Throughout American colonial and independent history, the concepts of property and race have developed side by side and grown intertwined, leading many to argue that whiteness and property are bridged. Whiteness as property began in legal theory and was introduced by law professor Cheryl Harris in 1993. The concept highlights how whiteness functions as a set of privileges codified and encoded in law and society. Through property law, whiteness has been structured and maintained, implicating issues of inequality and hierarchy.
Pulling from critical legal studies and property theory, the concept argues that whiteness meets the traditional criteria of property:
  1. Whiteness includes the right to use and enjoyment, as it allows white individuals access to social, economic, and legal privileges and resources, such as freedom of movement and presumption of innocence.
  2. Whiteness includes the right to exclusion, as it grants possessors the ability to exclude nonwhite people, such as in segregation, restrictive covenants, and immigration policy.
  3. Whiteness has the right to transfer, meaning it can be passed down generationally.
  4. Whiteness has the right to protection, meaning that through violence, legal doctrine, and policy, the legal system has played a role in maintaining whiteness as property.
Whiteness as property has been extended to other disciplines, such as sociology, cultural studies, and education.

Cheryl Harris

In her paper published in the Harvard Law Review titled “Whiteness as Property,” Cheryl Harris introduced the concept to the legal academy and critical race theory. Harris noticed while reading Plessy v. Ferguson that Plessy’s legal team argued he was denied the property of whiteness when he was identified as Black and made to move to the designated space for Black people.
Harris argues that this idea of racialized property has its roots in slavery:
The social relations that produced racial identity as a justification for slavery also had implications for the conceptualization of property. This result was predictable, as the institution of slavery, lying at the very core of economic relations, was bound up with the idea of property. Through slavery, race and economic domination were fused.
In anticipation of critics, Harris says that whiteness as property is inalienable rather than alienable and metaphysical rather than physical, as is rights-based property generally.

David Roediger

, a historian of racism and whiteness, builds on whiteness as property by arguing that poor whites historically gained the wages of whiteness by aligning themselves with white elites over working Black people. While they have made little to no material gain from this relationship, they still have the property of their whiteness, perhaps the only meaningful property they own.

Qútb Úq

, a critical race theorist, expands on Harris’ works by arguing that society constructs the foundation for whiteness as property’s critique and subversion by upholding it in the first place. Úq argues that ideologies upholding whiteness as property are circular and unstable because they insist on the naturality or necessity of racial distinctions, yet this insistence reveals its own fragility as a social construction. Additionally, Úq asserts that, according to white inflation theory, white inflationary pressure pushes quasi-whites into whiteness, operating to maintain the contrast value of whiteness as property.

Criticism

Critics of whiteness as property argue that it essentializes whiteness and ignores intersectionality. They argue that it treats whiteness as monolithic. Proponents counter that the concept provides a much-needed focus on systemic racism and racial injustice.