The White Racial Frame

In an article discussing the importance of frames to works of art, Emma Crichton-Miller characterizes them as the “Cinderellas of the art world” due to their multifaceted functions. As Crichton-Miller elaborates, frames

For instance, she observes how, when considering Raphael’s portrait of Lorenzo de Medici that was up for auction at Christie’s London, “The eye of the viewer was attuned to the exaggerated curves of the Duke’s costume by the lively sinuous pattern of scrolling vine and foliage carved on the frame’s frieze, which also echoed the leaf pattern on the duke’s torso.” Frames, in other words, create various forms of emphasis. Yet despite this work, “anomalously, to all but certain connoisseurs and collectors, museum curators and auctioneers and the artists and dealers who depend upon [frames], they are practically invisible” (Crichton-Miller). Thus, except perhaps to those with expertise, a frame’s function remains crucial—shaping the viewer’s relationship to the art work—yet largely imperceptible.

Despite their vastly different contexts, ideological frames function similarly, as illustrated by sociologist Joe R. Feagin’s concept of the “white racial frame.” Feagin moves away from sociological studies of race focusing on individual racial prejudices, instead examining a cultural system of racial meaning. Though people use multiple frames, the white racial frame is hegemonic and therefore “More than just one significant frame among many; it is one that has routinely defined a way of being, a broad perspective on life, and one that provides the language and interpretations that help structure, normalize, and make sense out of society” (Feagin 11).