“They didn’t really have key experiences that they thought they could bring to the table”: Perceptions of white racial absolution during cross-racial intergroup dialogues

Abstract

This article analyzes how White racial absolution, a form of White resistance to interrogating White racial identity through discourse, impedes cross-racial intergroup dialogs (IGDs) and impacts the IGD experience of Students of Color (SOC). Eleven undergraduate IGD students and six undergraduate IGD facilitators participated, and critical race discourse analysis (CRDA) was used for analysis. Findings showed that White students engaged in White racial absolution by avoiding White racial sharing (WRS), or side-stepping conversations regarding their Whiteness. The three themes around WRS included (a) Whiteness as a justification to not contribute to the IGD, (b) offering surface-level commentary regarding Whiteness, and (c) leaning on other social-identity-based marginalities or summoning the racial experiences of People of Color. Implications from this study illustrate that White racial absolution within cross-racial IGD alienates SOC, which stifles the overarching goal of resolving gaps between people of diverse social identity backgrounds.