While efforts to reduce discrimination in society have been prominent for decades, there are often subconscious or “invisible” aspects of discrimination that are hard to spot unless one is aware of them. There are many forms of “covert racism” — microaggressions, fear or fetishization of people of color, token characters — but I want to discuss a form of racism that I’ve seen almost everywhere around me, yet haven’t heard people talk about enough: white normalism. I have observed this to be the case in countless books, movies, and even advertisements, where characters of color always have to be specified, or their race and culture made the most important facet of their identity. To my understanding, “white normalism” is not an official term, but I define it as the following: the phenomenon in which the white race is assumed to be the default when a character’s race is unspecified or irrelevant, often resulting in the implication that people of color deviate from standard expectations.
It has always come across to me that being white is treated like a blank in a person’s identity, leaving room for some other defining trait like a hobby or profession, whereas in people of color, race is something that actively takes up space, thus overshadowing other individual specialties. This mindset often leads to stereotypes and generalization, where members of the white race are defined by their personalities and people of color are defined by their races and cultures. Every person has the right to be recognized in the way they want to be, and focusing solely on personality and (more commonly for people of color) someone’s race and culture is disrespectful to the individual’s desires. It’s important to keep in mind that culture and personality have varying roles in each person regardless of race, and that there is no such thing as a “default” or “normal” because every culture and individual is unique and also constantly evolving over time.
The problem with white normalism is that it implies people of color aren’t normal and that they should be treated differently because of their race or culture. It creates subconscious feelings of exclusion, and a lack of representation in media where the main emotional message applies regardless of race or cultural identity. White normalism is most prominent in books where the reader is unable to visualize the appearance of a character without the author’s descriptions. Especially for white authors, assuming white characters don’t need their race to be specified can be an easy trap to fall into — as humans, we naturally consider our own appearance or the appearance of our surrounding community to be the default, often assuming that these default settings apply to everyone. While this isn’t completely our fault, media creators such as authors can unintentionally pressure their audiences to align with their individual default beliefs by specifying race only in cases where characters are people of color. This occurs in the shadow of racism, where characters of color are still treated differently by authors because of their subconscious biases or views. Although authors strive towards including diversity in their books, they tend to overemphasize the racial identity of characters of color by not mentioning race for white characters. This implies that white is the “standard race,” which is a problematic concept because there is no such thing as a standard human being. The notion of a standard identity comes with the notion of an abnormal identity. Even in my own case, where I grew up in a predominantly Chinese community, I would assume that a character was white if race wasn’t mentioned, because I read so many books by white authors that I began to internalize this view of a default white race.
As individuals, the best way we can approach this problem is to notice it and speak out. Once we transfer the concept of white normalism from a subconscious to a consciously acknowledged tendency that should be avoided, we are able to raise awareness and ultimately reduce its presence in the media and our minds. To the artists among us — the writers, filmmakers, illustrators, and any other creators of media — this article is especially important for you. As I previously mentioned, there is no “default” race or culture, and leaving a character’s race unspecified should be a stylistic decision and not a message for the audience to assume the character is white. Either specify the races or cultures of all of your characters, or don’t specify them at all. Treat all your characters the same.
Because white normalism is so deeply rooted in many people’s minds, it is hard for society to notice its impact. While we can’t blame others for it, we can inform them of this phenomenon and point it out when we see it. In my experience, once I was made aware of white normalism, I began to spot it all around me in situations that I would’ve previously considered as “normal.” The nature of covert racism is that it is covert — and in order to fight it, we must first bring it to light.
