Draft:Whiteness as property

Whiteness as property is a theory in critical race theory positing that racial identity and property are deeply interrelated concepts and white racial identity in particular comes with allocations of societal advantages. The theory suggests that whiteness works similarly to property in that white people, who own their racial identity, receive benefits and rights from their ownership.

The theory was introduced in 1993 by legal scholar Cheryl I. Harris in her Harvard Law Review paper titled "Whiteness as Property". In the paper, Harris argues that the law has historically maintained racial inequality and the privileges of being white, allowing white identity to facilitate a property interest.

Whiteness as property theory highlights how the concept of race intersects with systems of power, perpetuating inequality. This system reinforces racial hierarchy across society, relegating people of color to the bottom. It challenges the notion of race as merely a biological category or an individual-level phenomenon and instead emphasizes its role in maintaining systems of dominance and subordination.

Property functions
According to education scholar Yosso, whiteness as property is characterized as exclusive, only being possessed and used by individuals who own a white identity. The functions of white property include rights of disposition, right to use and enjoyment, reputation and status property, and the absolute right to exclude.

White inflation theory
Coined by racial sociologist Daniel J. Gil De Lamadrid, white inflation theory emphasizes the role white inflation, or the gradual increase in ethnicities considered white, plays in maintaining whiteness as property. It argues that when an ethnic group transitions from non-white to quasi-white, the boundary between racial dominants and subordinates blurs, threatening the contrast value of whiteness as property. To preserve the value of racialized property, inflationary pressure pushes quasi-whites into whiteness.

White inflation works to maintain the property interest in whiteness by ensuring that the boundary between racial dominants and racial subordinates does not blur. Historically, quasi-whites chose whiteness as property over solidarity with people of color similar to how white working-class Americans chose the wages of whiteness.

Criticisms
Whiteness as property theory has been criticized for essentializing race, lacking intersectionality, and having a legalistic focus that may be hard to approach and understand for non-legal scholars.