Honky Blues

Abolish whiteness! say the advocates of white studies, academia's latest -- and most bewildering -- theory of race relations."

By Tim Duggan

Jul 3, 1997 | in his self-published book, "Bomb the Suburbs," William Upski Wimsat tells the story of his evolution as a "wigger" -- a white kid carving a niche for himself by listening to hip-hop and "acting black." "The wigger," he says, "can go a long way toward repairing the sickness of race in America." He was mocked by his peers, scorned by his elders and courted by trashy talk-show producers. Almost everyone had an opinion of him (usually less than favorable), and he rarely drew a mild reaction.

What do we make of someone like Wimsat? Ask a handful of experts and they'd probably have a hard time figuring out whether he's a poseur or a hero. Viewed through the lens of "whiteness studies" -- the trendiest and most perplexing new field in academia -- it could easily go either way. A mix of liberal anti-racism, muddled postmodern theory and embarrassing white guilt, the study of "whiteness" has opened the floodgates of a new scholarly market. And with over 70 books, hundreds of journal articles and two recent conferences on the subject, it has all the trappings of a bona fide movement. But how far it'll be moving -- and what it actually has to teach us about race -- is less than clear.

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