White Washed

By: Grant Hilliard, Priya Gilbert, Cartier Conley IV, Ben Zapata
April, 19th 2016

1) Introduction:
People come from many different backgrounds and cultures but when they dont act the way
theyre supposed to based on their culture, theyre labeled/called white washed. What does white
washed mean exactly? Say a Mexican boy who comes from a heavy Mexican culture but that
boy doesnt act like a Mexican boy; he doesnt play soccer, he doesnt know much Spanish, or

even eat the same foods that Mexicans are supposed to eat, that boy will be told he is not
Mexican enough, or just white washed. The term Whitewashed has been tossed around a lot
and what has been institutionalized is things that only white people should do. People have
labeled certain things as being white people things, mainly because its for sophisticated people.
People will expect others to act a certain way, based whats on the outside. We are all the same,
all equal, no one should be judged on the way they do things. This problem is solvable, people
have to realize that people have different cultures and just because they do things any other
person does on the daily, doesnt mean they are whitewashed. They are just living their lives
doing the things they want to do.The next five following sections below will give you an idea of
what we are planning on doing for this project. It was also include the research we did and the
citations.
2) Motivation:
-1. According to Urban Dictionary the term Whitewashed means, A derogatory term used to
describe a minority who has assimilated with western society, which means a person of color is
acting too white. The "Whitewashed" person does not necessarily abandon his/her own culture
but rather embrace others beside his/her own. Some people take it as a compliment while others
take it as an insult. No one really knows when this term was created or who the first person was
to use this term. But over the years it has been something that has been used more and more to
label people. Even the media has been feeding into this problem in a sense, because we can see
how in TV or in films most protagonists are white. It lacks different cultures at times. There have
also been films where they want to portray a person from a different race but instead use a white
male and dress him as that person they want to depict. Instead of actually using a person of a
certain race they need, they use a white man/woman.
-2. We find this problem interesting because, it doesnt make sense why being yourself, makes
you white. Whenever someone is called Whitewashed its basically supports the white race. By
saying that, its like making them the dominant race, putting down other races.
-3. This problem usually occurs in school. When someone notices a different race,
stereotypically not acting like their race, they are called whitewashed. Some people are
ignorant and believe that we should act like our race.
-4. This problem hasn't been solved. People still label each other what they are suppose to be.
There are videos online to bring more awareness to this problem, but the only way it could get
resolved, is if people learned to grow up and get to know someone before they judge.
-5. This is very impactful to the community because, if we all did this, it would be hard to build
relationships with one another because we would already know how they would behave, by
using the stereotypes we labeled them.

3) Project SummaryThe social experiment that we are planning on executing is to go out in a diverse community and
asking what they think the definition of whitewashed is. We will also ask them if they have even
be categorized as white washed and how it feels to them. By doing this we will teach the
community that being called whitewashed is a racist comment that is used to suppress ethnic
communities. This phrase was made to categorise the races and if anyone strayed from that
category they were considered a sellout. We have not found any other experiments like the one
we are doing so this should be an original idea. Some videos we found were about movies being
whitewashed by Hollywood and how it is historically inaccurate. Another was about a girl who
didn't understand the concept of being whitewashed because she is part Caucasian and part
Asian. She didn't do a social experiment but she did give example from her life and how it
affected her. These videos could be improved by maybe asking others opinions on how they feel
about the subject. They should have gone into the community to raise awareness about the Term
white whitewashed. This means that we will have no other external idea to aid us in our social
experiment. I would like this video to empower people and understand that it is okay to stray
from their racial community. There is also a second part of this where we would like to get
people to understand that Hollywood also whitewashes Movies. An example is the movie
Exodus where predominantly Light Skinned actors play roles that darked skinned actors should
play.
4) Project Details:
Setting up the Environment
Our group is filming our video at a beach, we are interviewing both genders, different races and
all ages. We are willing to interview anyone because we want all different perspectives and to
show that everyone is affected by this issue. Our video is attened for any audience because we
would like everyone to be aware of this issue and to help solve it. One of our breakfree moments
is that one of our group members Priya, will be describing her hobbies are and what she likes to
do in her free time, then after we will ask the interviewee if they think the person Priya is
describing is white. After they reply, we will reveal that she was actually describing herself and
that shes actually Indian. We will then educate them on the term Whitewashed and ask them
again if they think Priya is white and hopefully they will change their minds and have a more
positive response. The materials that are required for this project are video camera, computer for
editing, editing software, actors real people, expert and a microphone.
Implementations Issues and Challenges
One of the challenges we will face is actually getting people to be interviewed. Another
challenge we will face is coming with up good questions and challenging peoples perspective on
the term white wash. There will probably be some trouble with the wind when we start filming
on the beach. To get people to be interviewed we will be the friendliest as possible and will wear
a smile on our face the whole time. When we start working on the questions, we will do a
generous amount of research to develop questions that will open and expand people's mind.
When we start filming our project we will try our best to pick spots where there is less wind, and

will be open minded if we need to change places. Our project is very different from others
because there hasnt been a lot of attention on white washed, it is one of those things that exists
but no one talks about it or tries to solve it. By us producing this video will bring more attention
to issue and hopefully people will be inspired by it and take action upon to make a difference.
When our video is finished some of us will post direct links to it on our social media, and hope
that our followers will share it with their peers and make a chain reaction.
Contacts
Psychologist:
Dr. Colangelo
(619) 807-5431
Dr. Futterman
(619) 297-3311
Dr. Hood
(619) 884 7523
Timeline
Our plan is to film our video on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, of next week so that we will
have enough film. We would then like the following week to edit and perfect our project. After
that week we are hoping get peer critiqued and perfect it more.

5) Deliverables
Throughout this project we were hoping to raise awareness about these whitewashed
stereotypes. In our video we will have three main points that will be focused on.
1) In this first phase we will be interviewing people and describing a person we
know who is of a different race than white. We will tell them what this person does, like
what they like doing,eating, and certain activities they do. We will be asking people what
ethnicity this person is. From this we are hoping that the person will say the person we
described was white when that person is actually a different race. Also we are hoping to
open up their mind on the definition of White Activities or Black Activities.
2) In the next phase we will reveal that person we told them about and reveal to them
who they really are. Breaking the stereotype that if you act or do certain things that
people say are things only white people do
3) Our call to action is to educate people on the word, what it means in the way
people use it and why its not correct to allow them to use this term because it will affect
them and make them feel like they have lost their culture.

6) Conclusion- Even though this is a problem in our community it is constantly overlook. Being
called white washed is another form of racism that makes people conform to their perceived
stereotype. This project is to help empower the ethnic community to be whoever they would like
to be. This video will will hopefully change some people's views on the term whitewashed.
Through this video we are trying to open people's minds. Hopefully this video achieves our goal
that we set for it.

References/Cited Research:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whitewashed
Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project RSS
Paul Taylor - Mark Lopez - Jessica Martnez - Gabriel Velasco http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/04/when-labels-dont-fit-hispanics-and-their-views-ofidentity/
Complex
Person - Tanya Ghahremani http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/04/25-minority-characters-that-hollywoodwhitewashed/
lip magazine
http://lipmag.com/opinion/white-washing-in-television-from-silencing-to-stereotypes/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTPbrWsLUcg