The Politics of Whiteness in Caryl Phillips’ Cambridge

Abstract

The race of white people shape the way they see as well as employ the world they live in. Whiteness is a socially constructed ideology through which they oppress and look down upon the people of color. Using this ideology into reality, they confer power and privilege on those identified as of whites. They imagine that they have inbuilt tendency of privileged in order to discriminate others. They are positioned in such a way that they are powered and privileged wherever they live in. Consciously or unconsciously, whites believe that they are racially superior and thus that it is okay to treat people of color as inferior. At the same time they proudly proclaim a racist identity proving white as complex and largely unconscious reality that has a far reaching impact. Black people are made to believe that racial as well as economic equality will never become a reality.