Frideres

Frideres maintains on pg. 44 of The Great White North?:
"Whiteness is defined as part of the human condition and it defines normality"(44).

1. How do you interpret the meaning of the quote? How does its meaning expose a certain truth about the concept of whiteness? Does your definition of the concept prove or disprove (agree or disagree with) the perception of the chapter’s author, James Frideres?

There could be many ways of reading this line, but I would like to focus on the difference between and the difference implied by "is defined" and "defines." Whiteness "is defined" as part of the human condition yet it "defines" normality. That is, while whiteness is only one part or aspect, variation, piece, etc. of the greater "human condition," whiteness involves the position privileged enough to "define" what is considered the norm. I interpret Frideres to mean that while whiteness is on an equal footing with every other race when it comes to race being a factor in the human condition, for some reason whiteness has enjoyed the particular privilege of defining what is considered to be the normal standard.
I think that this is an interesting idea, but I would really like Frideres to ground his claims in real situations. It is one thing to assert that Whiteness has determined normality, but this leads to bigger questions such as if there is indeed one standard of "normality," what is it? I would like Frideres to tell us what "normality" is and then show explicitly how whiteness determines it. Instead he sticks to the region of the theory of Whiteness, where claims about race and the privileges a particular race confers on its members might tend towards proving a point but to me they fall short. Frideres' notion that Whiteness is determined as part of the human condition is interesting within the context of a racialized understanding of humanity--I wonder though if race has such an essentialized relation to who we are as people. I suppose it all comes down to how we define ourselves, whether by racial identities or by the "human condition."

2. Two open-ended questions for Frideres (I am still thinking about the answers):

1. As a teacher, am I occupying a particular place within the structure of systematized white privilege?

2. If so, can I transcend this particular position? Can I do so without identifying myself racially?