Skip to main content
Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

Rutgers University Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
book: White Guys on Campus
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

White Guys on Campus

Racism, White Immunity, and the Myth of "Post-Racial" Higher Education
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2019

About this book

Winner of the 2019 AERA Division J Outstanding Publication Award and the 2019 ASHE Outstanding Book Award

On April 22, 2015, Boston University professor Saida Grundy set off a Twitter storm with her provocative question: “Why is white America so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?” White Guys on Campus is a critical examination of race in higher education, centering Whiteness, in an effort to unveil the frequently unconscious habits of racism among White male undergraduates. Nolan L. Cabrera moves beyond the “few bad apples” frame of contemporary racism, and explores the structures, policies, ideologies, and experiences that allow racism to flourish. This book details many of the contours of contemporary, systemic racism, while engaging the possibility of White students to participate in anti-racism. Ultimately, White Guys on Campus calls upon institutions of higher education to be sites of social transformation instead of reinforcing systemic racism, while creating a platform to engage and challenge the public discourse of “post- racialism.” 

Author / Editor information

NOLAN L. CABRERA is an associate professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
 

Reviews


"In this era of educational resegregation, Nolan Cabrera’s White Guys on Campus examines how whiteness blocks paths toward truth, justice, and reconciliation. A timely, provocative, even hopeful book.”
— Jeff Chang, author of We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race & Resegregation


"One of the main takeaways of White Guys on Campus is that white people need to be facilitating their own racial development and pushing their friends, families, and peers to do the same."
— Education Review






"Cabrera unpacks decades of critical whiteness studies and provides encyclopedic coverage of how white supremacy has mutated and morphed."
— Education Review


"White Guys on Campus examines narratives of White males in order to reveal 'ecologies of Whiteness' that permit (and even empower) racism to persist. With sound scholarship and well-supported claims, this book is a unique and important contribution to the field."
— Susan Iverson, coeditor of Reconstructing Policy Analysis in Higher Education: Feminist Poststructural Perspectives

— Diverse Issues in Higher Education




"From racial jokes to affirmative action, Nolan L. Cabrera analyzes the persistent white mindset that obscures systemic racism on our college campuses. Read this book if you want a truthful and evidence-based explanation about the effects of racist discourse."
— Zeus Leonardo, author of Race Frameworks: A Multidimensional Theory of Racism and Education



"Overall, Cabrera’s book offers an important contribution to the literature. He blends existing terminology and scholarship...and masterfully weaves the why of racial attitudes of White men on campus; as the what—many of the narratives, ideals, and beliefs shared by participants—may be familiar to individuals who are seasoned in racial justice work or research in higher education or student affairs. Through concise and accessible writing with quotations from and references to Frederick Douglass, Hari Kondabolu, W. E. B. Du Bois, Geto Boys, and James Baldwin interspersed throughout, Cabrera is successful in his attempt to render the racial justice discourse more complete."
— Journal of College Student Development

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    ix
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Preface

    xi
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    1. The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: White Male Racial Immunity in Higher Education

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    2. “Race Just Doesn’t Matter That Much”: White Insulation, Occam’s Racial Razor, and Willful Racial Ignorance

    19
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    3. “The Only Discrimination Left Is That Against White Men”: The Campus Racial Politics of “Reverse Racism”

    39
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    4. “Why Can’t Stevie Wonder Read? Because He’s Black”: Whiteness and the Social Performance of Racist Joking

    55
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    5. “I Almost Lost My Spot to a Less Qualified Minority”: Imagined versus Real Affirmative Action

    67
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    6. “They’d Never Allow a White Student Union”: The Racial Politics of Campus Space and Racial Arrested Development

    81
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    7. “Because It’s the Right Thing to Do”: Racial Awakening and (Some) Allyship Development

    111
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    8. Conclusion: White Guys on Campus, What Is to Be Done?

    144
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix A: Questionnaire Results, Part I

    165
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix B: Questionnaire Results, Part II

    169
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Acknowledgments

    173
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    175
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    References

    179
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    191
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    About the Author

    201
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 2, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780813599106
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813599106
eBook ISBN: 9780813599106
Keywords for this book
education; campus; university; race; racism; white; post-racial; higher education; undergraduate; male; minority; men; anti-racism; white immunity; myth of post-racial higher education; college; race in higher education; whiteness; undergraduates; contemporary racism; structural racism in higher education; structural racism; racist policies; racist ideologies; systemic racism; social transformation; post-racialism; racial immunity; racial immunity in higher education; white insulation; racial ignorance; ignorance; reverse racism; racial politics; racial politics on campus; racist humor; racial awakening
Audience(s) for this book
For universities and colleges of further and higher education
Downloaded on 17.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.36019/9780813599106/html
Scroll to top button