whiteness

From Middle English whitenesse, whitnesse, whytnesse, hwitnesse, from Old English hwītnes (“whiteness”), equivalent to white +‎ -ness.

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whiteness (countable and uncountable, plural whitenesses)

1. The state of being white (all senses).
2. (sociology, dysphemistic) The collective of White/Europid people and their historical heritage.
   • 2009, Terrance MacMullan, Habits of Whiteness: A Pragmatist Reconstruction (page 182)

     A pragmatist critique of whiteness seeks a middle ground between eliminativism and essentialism; […] Du Bois explained why the habits of whiteness are so toxic: they encourage violence, undermine the formation and and sustenance of community, put money before humanity, and leave white folk culturally undernourished and rootless.

• blackness

• whiteness studies