“Kill ‘em with Kindness”: Midwest Nice as a Mechanism of Whiteness

Abstract

“Midwest Nice” is a phrase used to capture the Nice, friendly, and courteous demeanor often associated with people who live or were raised in the Midwest region of the United States. Though Midwest Nice is often presented as a beneficial and benevolent practice with positive connotations, the implementation and experience of Midwest Nice practices can also be characterized as problematic, engendering unhealthy and harmful behavior. Drawing upon autoethnographic methods, this study critically examines personal practices and experiences of Midwest Nice across spaces. Through this examination, this paper illuminates the ways in which Midwest Nice is a function of Whiteness that thwarts critical anti-racist dialogue, (un)learning, and action.

1. Introduction

“Midwest Nice” is a phrase used to encapsulate the Nice, friendly, and courteous demeanor that is often associated with people who live or were raised in the Midwest region of the United States (Rentfrow et al., 2013; Smolarek & Martinez Negrette, 2019). Studies have shown that people in the Midwest tend to be more extroverted, agreeable, and conscientious while also having very low levels of openness (Day & Drew, 2015; Rentfrow et al., 2013). Though Midwest Nice is often perceived and presented as a beneficial and benevolent regional practice with positive connotations, the implementation and experience of Midwest Nice practices can also be characterized as problematic, engendering unhealthy and even harmful behavior (Kix, 2015). The harmful behaviors characteristic of Midwest Nice include passive aggression, silence, avoidance, performances of politeness, disingenuousness, close-mindedness, and maintenance of the status quo (Jason & Flint, 2018; Kix, 2015; Meriwether, 2020; Weatherston, 2019). All of these behaviors serve as tools to sustain individual and collective ideologies of dominance by suppressing, distorting, disciplining, and minimizing the conversations and actions necessary for the disruption of hegemonic structures.

Ladson-Billings prompted exploration of the connection between Niceness, education, and racialized patterned inequity in “Just What Is Critical Race Theory and What’s it Doing in a Nice Field Like Education?” (Ladson-Billings, 1998). Education scholars have begun to explore this question of how “Nice behavior” and “good intentions” facilitate inequity in and beyond the context of schools (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Castagno, 2014, 2019; Lewis & Diamond, 2015; Marshall & Theoharis, 2007; Pollock, 2004).

In the Midwest, and across the United States, district education leaders have the challenge and pressure of attending to the needs of community members across their districts, including students, parents, families, teachers, administrators, and many more. Attending to the conflicting wants and needs of innumerable community members creates the perfect conditions for Nice culture to take hold among leaders who attempt to keep everyone in the district happy.

This challenge of education leaders has become increasingly apparent with the emergence of the conflict campaign, where politician and media inflammation of predominantly conservative White parent groups has led to ongoing legislation and district pressure to ban and censor books, curricula, instruction, professional development programs, and conversations that critically examine racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and White supremacy in schools (Pollock et al., 2022). Arguments in favor of these bans have wielded Niceness as a rationale for censoring conversations about race, citing that “children (White) are being treated poorly and made to feel bad about their skin color” (Pollock et al., 2022). Arguing that critical conversations about race and inequity are “divisive”, some White parents in school districts believe that talking about issues of race and inequality would “hurt” White children (Pollock et al., 2022, p. 21). Politicians, media commentators, and predominantly White parent groups have pressured educational leaders in school districts to abandon and sacrifice previously established commitments to equity work in the interest of maintaining the status quo (Pollock et al., 2022). This preservation of the status quo is where cultures of Niceness abound.

It is essential that these Nice behaviors, maintaining the status quo, be challenged by educational leaders across districts and within themselves. However, these challenges must be sustainable, as the accumulation of activism-related stress can be so overwhelming that it can compromise educators’ persistence in our work (Gorski, 2018). Continuation of necessary equity work requires the development of practices, tools, and methodologies that are sustainable, reflective, and connected to others. Educational leaders must be given opportunities to engage in critical self-reflection about the ways that they uphold systems of oppression through policy decisions, while also developing agency to make change. However, Niceness culture does not exist in isolation and severance from personal lives. This reflection must be carried out across personal and professional spaces, so that challenging Nice culture is not a performance within education spaces in isolation but embodied throughout one’s life.

Critical autoethnography is a research methodology that allows for just this. Autoethnography is a social sciences research methodology that allows the researcher to situate themselves at the center of social, cultural, and political analysis (Chang, 2008). This methodology requires that researchers engage in honest and critical self-reflection (Lake, 2015; Tilley-Lubbs, 2016). This method is unique in its necessity to broaden the scope of inquiry, allowing the researcher to critically reflect on intersecting experiences, identities, relationships, and spaces.

This autoethnographic study critically examines personal practices and experiences of Midwest Nice that serve as an instantiation and function of Whiteness that obstructs and silences critical anti-racist dialogue, (un)learning, and action. The findings of this project attend to three key questions: (1) As a White Midwesterner, what experiences am I avoiding by using Midwest Nice? (2) How am I using Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences? (3) Why am I using Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences?

This paper argues that Midwest Nice encapsulates a series of strategies of avoidance: avoidance of conflict, discomfort, and, ultimately, culpability in perpetuating White supremacy. These strategies include passive aggression, silence, performative Niceness, competitive Niceness, social compartmentalization, and relational distancing. To support this argument, I will review literature that conceptualizes Midwest Nice and its connection to Whiteness and White supremacy. Next, I will discuss the research methods of critical autoethnography and the significance of my positionality as a White Midwesterner as well as the paradox presented when critical autoethnography is used by a White person to discuss Whiteness. I will then discuss my findings as they attend to each research question. To illuminate what experiences I am avoiding by using Midwest Nice, I will consider the avoidance of conflict, discomfort, and vulnerability. As I describe how I use Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences, I will highlight the Midwest Nice tools of passive aggression, silence, performative Niceness, competitive Niceness, social compartmentalization, and relational disconnection. Finally, to consider why I am avoiding these experiences, I will discuss the ways that White people’s performance of Midwest Nice allows us to evade the anti-racist critical conversations that confront our culpability and responsibility to make the meaningful changes necessary to dismantle White supremacy. To close this paper, I will address the limitations, recommendations for further inquiry, and actionable steps to interrupt the Midwest Nice behaviors that maintain a White status quo.

2. Methods

2.1. Critical Autoethnographic Methods

A methodology grounded within social sciences research, autoethnography situates the researcher at the center of social, cultural, and political analysis (Boylorn & Orbe, 2021; Chang, 2008; Ellis, 2004). Autoethnographers make sense of their experiences and identities through the narratives and stories they construct, create, and analyze (Maynes et al., 2008). Autoethnography legitimizes and centers personal experiences and narratives as valid, meaningful, and truthful data. Using autoethnographic methods, researchers can engage in honest and critical self-reflection across spaces, relationships, identities, and contexts (Lake, 2015; Tilley-Lubbs, 2016). Through this practice of criticality, reflexivity, and honesty, researchers can understand and analyze our own experiences that allow new learning and awareness to take place. Critical autoethnography positions the researcher to interpret experiences while also recognizing that this interpretation is formed through subjective social, cultural, and political experiences. As explained by Tilley-Lubbs (2016), “the researcher, more than likely a member of the dominant culture in some categories, is able to understand herself as an oppressor” (p. 3).

Chang (2008) explains, “autoethnography shares the storytelling feature with other genres of self-narrative (including methods such as memoir, personal essay, autobiography, etc.) but transcends mere narration of self to engage in cultural analysis and interpretation” (p. 43). Critical autoethnography requires that researchers engage in honest, transparent, and critical self-reflection (Lake, 2015; Tilley-Lubbs, 2016). Through this criticality, reflexivity, and honesty, researchers can understand and analyze our own experiences, allowing for new learning and awareness to take place.

These methods are rooted in narrative inquiry, which honors and centers lived experiences (Clandinin, 2013). Clandinin (2013) explains, “the focus on narrative inquiry is not only the valorizing individuals’ experience, but is also an exploration of the social, cultural, familial, linguistic, and institutional narratives within which each individuals’ experiences were, and are, constituted, shaped, expressed, and enacted” (p. 18). In this conceptualization, narratives are understood, analyzed, and critiqued within context. Autoethnography offers a theoretical and narrative window into the lived experiences at intersections of race, class, ethnicity, gender, spirituality, age, sexuality, and (dis)ability (Boylorn & Orbe, 2021).

Chang (2008) argues that one of the greatest challenges in conducting autoethnography can be in narrowing the scope of examination and inquiry. This indeed was my experience. Binding my study by environment (e.g., K-12 schools, community-based spaces, academia, etc.) or by personal or professional context (e.g., teacher, coach, researcher, etc.) was far too constraining. Critical autoethnography necessitates the rejection of the notion that my intersecting spaces, roles, and identities can be compartmentalized and independent of one another. Each is inextricably connected and impossible to disentangle from another. So, for this autoethnographic project, I have chosen to analyze and critique a phenomenon: Midwest Nice.

Though critical autoethnography offers an opportunity for self-reflection, it is important that this process also be carried out in relationship with others. The self-reflective narratives of autoethnography offer a foundation for dialogue with others to engage in conscientización. Freire describes conscientización as a process where critical consciousness is developed through interrogation of the self in relationship to oppressive social, cultural, and political forces (Freire, 1970). Conscientización necessitates ongoing, honest, and nonhierarchical dialogue. This allows learners to co-construct their understandings of oppression so that collective efforts can be made for change. This autoethnography was facilitated by ongoing conversations with faculty and peers. In this project, the narratives and reflections served to ground new understandings generated through dialogue.

In this autoethnography, my stories and narratives are the units of collaborative analysis. I use them to critically examine my own experiences as they are historically, culturally, socially, and politically situated within and through the phenomenon of Midwest Nice. Through reflection and critical examination of personal memory data such as journal entries, written memos, artifacts, transcriptions of conversations, and transcriptions of self-interviews and voice memos, I demonstrate how Midwest Nice functions as an instantiation of Whiteness and White supremacy.

For this critical autoethnographic study, I drew upon a variety of tools for data collection, including journaling, memoing, chronicling, and collecting artifacts (previous journal entries, teaching artifacts, photographs, etc.) (Chang, 2008; Ellis et al., 2011). I also conducted auto-interviews, a method that allows for the recording of candid responses to interview questions (Boufoy-Bastick, 2004). All data were collected, examined, analyzed, and triangulated over seven months. Throughout this process, I engaged in ongoing dialogue with faculty and peers so that my learning would be continuously questioned and challenged.

Data were collected across contexts: personal, professional, and beyond. This was an intentional move to decompartmentalize spaces and examine patterns across intersecting contexts. Many of these spaces I occupied were predominantly composed of people who were Midwestern, White, and presumably liberal. Data collection and analysis took place in 2021 as I resided in the Midwest, where I had lived my entire life. However, later that same year I moved to the West Coast, where I live today.

The findings in this project emerged from an iterative process, where data were collected, inductively coded, and analyzed. The findings were organized into themes as a subset of my research questions: (1) As a White Midwesterner, what experiences am I avoiding by using Midwest Nice? (2) How am I using Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences? (3) Why am I using Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences?

2.2. Autoethnographic Positionality

This project necessitates a critical examination of my positionality as a White, Midwestern, middle-class, able-bodied, neurodivergent, queer woman whose work is conducted in the privileged space of higher education. As a White woman, it is crucial to iteratively and continuously reflect upon and change the belief systems that guide my thoughts, actions, and relationships that uphold White supremacy. With this being said, as I do this within the genre of academic writing, I further center my White narrative. This is an inherent limitation, as I am using my perspective and narratives as the units of analysis; the data collected are not reflective of, nor do they center, the voices and experiences of People of Color, and of particularly notable concern in the critical study of Whiteness, the voices of people who are Black and Indigenous.

Scholars have identified and named this White-centric focus in critical Whiteness Studies, where White narratives, racial epiphanies, and transformations are centered while ignoring the lived experiences of People of Color (Leonardo, 2013; Matias & Boucher, 2021). This separation of Whiteness from its impact on People of Color is a manifestation of Whiteness in and of itself (Jason & Flint, 2018; Leonardo, 2013; Said, 2000). Leonardo (2013) explains, “People of color bear the injury so that insofar as their voice is muted within a critical analysis of Whiteness, Whiteness Studies replicates the very problem it seeks to solve” (p. 97). Centering experiences of People of Color is central to the critical study of Whiteness. Further, research often presumes White racial ignorance in ways that minimize White people’s culpability in perpetuating White supremacy (Matias & Boucher, 2021). Through continuous centering of White racial epiphanies, presumptive of ignorance, the study of Whiteness risks becoming a source of indulgent, and even self-congratulatory, public self-flagellation (White, 2017). “Take accountability without an audience.” White (2017, para. 5) advises.

In this lies a paradox of this project. Autoethnographic research methods situate the researcher at the center of social, cultural, and political analysis (Chang, 2008). Yet, it is necessary to ground a critical study of Whiteness in the perspectives and experiences of People of Color. This critical autoethnography, however, perpetuates the centering of my own experiences as a White woman. It is not enough to acknowledge these critiques and calls to action from scholars of Color without also taking these actions in my work.

My intention for navigating, if perhaps not yet resolving, this paradox is to emphasize that White racial epiphanies are not novel. These narratives themselves are not groundbreaking, nor do they contribute meaningfully to the critical study of Whiteness. Instead, I use these stories to exemplify a larger cultural and systemic phenomenon, Midwest Nice, as it upholds White supremacy. By using these narratives to better understand White people’s active upholding of White supremacy through the practice of Midwest Nice, rather than focusing on the narratives themselves, this project aspires to support structural uprooting of Midwest Nice as a function of White supremacy.

Further, frameworks for systemic change have long been a central point of discussion by scholars of Color. Considering this, Discussion and Implications Sections will revolve around the ideas and recommendations of scholars of Color. As such, the critiques, perspectives, imaginings, and ideas of people and scholars of Color will be the only way to move toward a Black Whiteness Studies orientation that “acknowledges the historical, ideological, and political maneuvers Whites engage in to operationally feign racial ignorance and innocence” (Matias & Boucher, 2021, p. 5).

As a living, dynamic, and iterative project, I will continue to engage with the paradox of this critical analysis and action, recognizing that I am complicit in the preservation of ideologies and structures of dominance, and have a lifelong responsibility to make meaningful change.

3. Literature Review

3.1. Conceptualizing Midwest Nice

The phenomenon of Midwest Nice feels both ubiquitous and elusive. Having grown up in the Midwest, I have my own understanding of Midwest Nice that I have developed through practice and reflection. Through this project, I also wanted to see how it was understood by other Midwesterners as well. However, as I searched for a definition of Midwest Nice throughout the academic literature, I found very little that fully encapsulated my experience of Midwest Nice as an insider. Rather, it is the converging practices of multiple definitions together to create what I have come to know as Midwest Nice. Because of this, I draw upon both academic literature and popular press to characterize Midwest Nice.

Though Midwest Nice is widely recognized in cultural discourse by Midwesterners and even by people outside of the Midwest, it is a phenomenon that is undertheorized in academic discourse (Smolarek & Martinez Negrette, 2019). What the literature does say, however, is that it is a real cultural and political phenomenon (Rentfrow et al., 2013). Studies have shown that people in the Midwest tend to be more extroverted, agreeable, and conscientious, but they have very low levels of openness (Rentfrow et al., 2013). In a segment with WBEZ Chicago’s Curious City, Rentfrow et al. (2013) expands on this, “Someone high in extroversion and low in openness would be somebody who’s very sociable, talkative, but maybe isn’t particularly curious or open to new ideas. So, they might prefer interacting with people who are more likely to share their values” (Meriwether, 2020).

Different hypotheses examine how the cultural phenomenon of Midwest Nice came to be. In this segment with on WBEZ Chicago’s Curious City, Lauck explains that it is the agrarian nature of the region that necessitates a high level of cooperation and mutual reliance, otherwise known as “barn raising culture” (Meriwether, 2020). He hypothesizes that White settlers from Germany, Ireland, and Scandinavia colonized what is now considered Midwestern land, and established communities in the region (Meriwether, 2020). These European colonizers then engaged in social practices that would promote community cooperation among these diverse (though predominantly White) ethnic groups (Meriwether, 2020). Some scholars characterize the Midwest as “the great middle”, lacking extremes and racial, sociocultural diversity (Sisson et al., 2007, p. xxii). In short, European settler colonialism of the Midwest region of the United States necessitated cooperation and self-sacrifice among the colonizers, and this has shaped the White culture of the Midwest.

Additionally, in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, the authors explain that the Midwest is a “collection of disparate communities held together more or less by a civic culture that transcends (or at least ignores) differences, fashioned and buoyed by social engagement, and characterized by sustained public participation and philanthropic giving” (Sisson et al., 2007, p. xxiv). For example, the University of Wisconsin–Madison boasts of being among the top schools from which graduates volunteer for service in the Peace Corps (Morrissey, 2017).

I found many depictions of Midwest Nice in public spaces, popular literature, public discourse, and social media. Understanding, recognition, and application of Midwest Nice is so pervasive in the region that it is referenced throughout the region in a wide variety of public spaces. Figure 1 is a photograph of a bumper sticker taken in Madison, Wisconsin. The bumper sticker in the photo reads, “Wisconsin You’re Among Friends”. Here, the friendliness of the state is so recognizable that this individual chose to display it on the back of their vehicle. Figure 2 displays a store called, “Minnesota State of Nice” in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport in Saint Paul, Minnesota. With its presence in the largest international airport in the state, the decision to include this store is to create a lasting impression of Niceness for visitors from around the globe.

When trying to understand how the public makes sense of Midwest Nice, I also took to platforms and spaces where people can freely discuss experiences unique to the Midwest, online and across the Midwest: YouTube, Podcasts, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. In these online spaces, individuals can freely describe, discuss, debate, make sense of, and poke fun at the practice of Midwest Nice. In a YouTube video entitled Midwest Nice from YouTube influencer, comedian, and Midwesterner Charlie Berens, he satirizes the trope of the Nice Midwesterner (Berens, 2019). In this video, Berens depicts profuse apologies, excessive, even peculiar, generosity, and hesitancy to make even the simplest of requests. He says, “Excuse me, Miss? Sorry, would you mind, if it’s not too big of an ask, could you just, um, you’re stepping on my foot. It kind of hurts a little. Thank you. Thank you. And sorry again to ask. If I was wearing shoes, it would be no big deal, but you know, I’m wearing sandals”. The hesitance and excessive apologies and expressions of thanks marks Midwest Nice’s characteristic fawning. Though hyperbolic for comedic purposes, it is intended for the Midwestern audience because it is relatable and recognizable.

Further, in a news segment from WCCO Mid-Morning Minnesota (2018) entitled, Where did “Minnesota Nice” Come From?, news anchors discuss Minnesota Nice. One anchor says, “With that cold weather comes some warm hearts. At least that’s what we heard from Superbowl visitors: how friendly people are here in Minnesota. By being helpful, we certainly lived up to our tradition of Minnesota Nice”. He goes onto say, “My opinion is it’s a total sham and a lie. As a transplant, I don’t believe it”. Minnesota Nice is another term that is used somewhat analogously to Midwest Nice. While “Midwest Nice” is a descriptor used across the United States, there are varying levels of interpersonal geniality within the Midwest itself, with “Minnesota Nice” supposedly being the zenith. For the purposes of this paper, I will not dissect the differences, if any, between Minnesota Nice and Midwest Nice. Relative to White culture more broadly, the differences between the two are subtle and perhaps indistinguishable for non-Midwesterners, though it is possible that my Minnesotan brother-in-law would be willing to go to the mat on it. Instead, I am defining Midwest Nice as inclusive of Wisconsin (my home state), Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri (Meriwether, 2020). While academic literature and research have proven to be helpful in conceptualizing Midwest Nice as a broad cultural phenomenon, in this autoethnographic study I draw heavily on my own experiences as well as popular literature and discourse to make sense of what it means to engage in the practice of Midwest Nice as a direct instantiation and function of Whiteness.

3.2. The Whiteness in Midwest Niceness

For this autoethnographic study, I draw upon the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s definition of Whiteness as “refer[ring] to the way that White people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all groups are compared” (2021, para. 3). Through this conceptualization of Whiteness, the White racial identity is normalized and centered, and a binary is constructed as White and non-White. Whiteness is standardized, normalized, and made invisible by and for White people. In this comparative and dichotomous way of thinking, anyone who is not White and any cultural, social, political, or practice that is not aligned with White dominant norms are othered and considered interchangeable, inferior, and abnormal (National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2021).

This is the way in which Whiteness upholds White supremacy. The National Museum of African History and Culture (2021) defines White supremacy as “an ideology where White people are believed to be superior to non-White people” (para. 13). White supremacy has been wielded to construct fallacies and pseudo-scientific theories to justify the racial projects of enslavement, imperialism, colonialism, genocide, and innumerable atrocities throughout human history (National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2021; Omi & Winant, 1994). The language of White supremacy must be used rather than racism because it allows for structural analysis of how White supremacy interlocks with other systems of domination such as capitalism, patriarchy, colonization, and imperialism to create nuanced, intersectional forms of oppression based upon identity (Hooks, 1997; Crenshaw, 1995).

White supremacy is both obvious and covert. Often, White supremacy is understood to be demonstrated through the ideologies of White power or White nationalist organizations. However, White supremacy must also be understood to be perpetuated in our everyday societal norms and as embedded in our belief systems (Bonilla-Silva, 2006).

Structures and ideologies of domination and White supremacy are preserved through Whiteness: White customs, cultures, and beliefs. Preserving cultures and ideologies that are in alignment with and in service to structures of power that most benefit White people become the dominant social norm. This preservation is carried out through our everyday relational practices, with Midwest Nice being among them. Castagno (2019) explains:

Niceness is one mechanism for reifying structural arrangements and ideologies of dominance across lines of race, gender, and social class. It functions not only as a shield to protect (White, female) educators from having to do the hard work of dis mantling inequity but also as a disciplining agent for those who attempt or even con sider disrupting structures and ideologies of dominance. This distinction is important. We can, and should, think about Niceness as embodied by those in more powerful and privileged positions; but we should also think about it as the demand to act Nice among those challenging power

(p. xiv)

Niceness is historicized as a functional feature of Whiteness to preserve the ideological and cultural norms that uphold systems and structures of power that benefit White people.

This paper contends with White supremacy in its covert form, in its distinct practice by White people, experienced and perpetuated through silence, discomfort, and avoidance (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; DiAngelo, 2018). In this autoethnographic study, I describe, analyze, and critique the ways in which my practice and experience of Midwest Nice stymies my anti-racist (un)learning (such as that which can occur via critical conversations), reifies Whiteness, and ultimately upholds Whiteness and White supremacy.

4. Results

As I iteratively collected, interpreted, and analyzed my data, my findings showed several characteristics of Midwest Nice that both instantiated Whiteness and White culture, while also stifling critical dialogue about issues of race. These findings are organized into the following three key thematic questions: (1) As a White Midwesterner, what experiences am I avoiding by using Midwest Nice? (2) How am I using Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences? (3) Why am I using Midwest Nice to avoid these experiences?

In the section where I discuss what experiences are avoided, I will examine the ways that Midwest Nice serves to facilitate the avoidance of conflict, discomfort, and vulnerability. Next, as I consider how these experiences are avoided, I will explore the nuanced ways that White Midwesterners use passive aggression, silence, performative Niceness, competitive Niceness, social compartmentalization, and relational distancing to avoid the critical, albeit uncomfortable, conversations about race. “Finally, as I discuss why White Midwesterners use Midwest Nice practices to avoid critical conversations, I will illuminate the ways that White Midwesterners’ discomfort and avoidance are rooted in our unwillingness to contend with our culpability in the perpetuation of White supremacy and the responsibility to make meaningful and ongoing change in our beliefs and actions.

As I discuss the findings of this critical autoethnographic project, I will provide supporting data from journal entries, transcribed audio memos, and transcribed auto-interviews. To illuminate the ways that Midwest Nice culture appears even in the briefest of moments, I will also provide colloquialisms and everyday phrases that are used across the Midwest, including examples such as the following: “Kill ‘em with kindness”, “If you can’t say something Nice, don’t say anything at all”, and “Midwesterners will give you directions to anywhere, except to their house for dinner”. These phrases are examples of the casual and seemingly benign ways that Midwest Nice is embedded in Midwest culture.

In this Results Section, I will discuss each of the themes, provide examples, and explain the ways that these examples instantiate Whiteness, stifle or thwart critical conversations about systemic oppression, and reinforce White supremacy.

4.1. What Experiences Am I Avoiding by Using Midwest Nice?

“Keep the Peace”. Midwest Nice is often used to keep conversations light, avoiding the discomfort of discussion that could potentially lead to conflict. There is an unspoken social contract of “keeping the peace”. However, conflict, discomfort, and displeasure are all part of what is necessary to learn and transform (Mezirow, 2009). The discomfort of being confronted with information that challenges previously held beliefs, described as both disorienting dilemmas and cognitive dissonance, is necessary for learning and (un)learning (Mezirow, 2009; Olszewski & Hansman, 2021).

In the Midwest, it can sometimes feel as if discomfort, conflict, and unpleasant emotions are to be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of relationships. In my own experience, I have sometimes gone as far as disengaging or distancing myself in relationships with people, simply because I did not want to break the Midwestern social boundaries and move into uncomfortable conversation, where I might feel this discomfort of communicating a concern. This avoidance cuts off connections in the interest of preserving the status quo. I am not proud of this, but through this critical autoethnographic process, it has been helpful for me to take a structural lens to understand, analyze, and critique my own thoughts and behavior. I found that practices of Midwest Nice can be used to deviate away from conflict, discomfort, and even heightened displays of vulnerability.

4.1.1. Avoidance of Conflict

“Let’s change the subject”. Conflict avoidance is present across the practices of Midwest Nice. When topics emerge in conversation that might lead to any sort of disagreement or conflict, there are efforts to pivot the conversation to a new subject. In the Midwest, agreeability is commendable and favored. As part of a broader tapestry of Niceness, Castagno (2019) explains, “A Nice person is not someone who creates a lot of disturbance, conflict, controversy, or discomfort. Nice people avoid potentially uncomfortable or upsetting experiences, knowledge, and interactions” (p. x). Conflict avoidance becomes integral to the process of maintaining the status quo, and participation in this maintenance is an unspoken agreement among Midwesterners.

This conflict avoidance manifested in my process of writing this critical autoethnography. In the voice memo excerpt transcript below, I talk about how my drive to avoid conflict impacted how I went about narrowing my topic for this autoethnography:

[…] as I was trying to push through with topics that I experienced in schools or experienced with other teachers, this idea of Midwestern Nice, kept popping up in my head because I kept experiencing [internal] conflicts with friends. As I was making sense of what I was learning about race and racialization and systems of oppression, and how this manifested in schools and in social situations, […] that was the thing that I was struggling with. That was what I was really having a hard time navigating in my personal life. But I didn’t want to go there for a lot of reasons […] I had this ungodly fear of, “Oh my God, […] what if I do talk about this? Or talk about what I experienced with my friends? What I experienced with my families? What I experienced in all these different spaces? And I do write about it, and it ends up being really important to me, and then my friends want to read it and, [Laughs] and then they’re going to see all the things that I’ve been really struggling with?” And I’m just terrified of it […] I still have this fear in the back of my mind of, “Can I say this? Can I do this?” And I’m still trying to work through, “[…] how do I talk about this?” Because I want to. In writing this autoethnography, I am trying to avoid conflict of showing people what I think about different situations that I’m encountering. And even though I’m trying to focus on myself, some of it is focusing on myself in relationship to other people, avoiding conflict or displaying Midwestern Niceness […] I’ve been really afraid of this [Nervous Laugh] […]

(Self-Interview #3, 25 April 2021)

In this example, I described how nervous I was that a friend, family member, colleague, or any other person in one of my social circles would see what I wrote about in this autoethnography and that I would have conflict with them. Because of this, I had a great deal of trouble getting started on this project because I wanted to talk about Midwest Nice with other Midwesterners, but I also wanted to avoid any conflicts that it might cause among those who are part of the stories and examples I share, even if I am analyzing my actions.

In even the briefest of conversations with other White Midwesterners about the topic of this autoethnographic project, I could sense the discomfort, even if it was only my own. No one I know would want to be implicated in the practice of using Midwest Nice to avoid critical conversations about race, Whiteness, and White supremacy. Constrained by and through Midwest Nice, and the unwillingness to discuss the topic with the White Midwesterners around me, I avoided the discussion entirely. Much like the idiom presented here, “Let’s change the subject”, I even considered changing the focus of my autoethnographic project so as not to make friends and family feel uncomfortable with the topic.

This Midwest Nice practice of anticipation, hypervigilance, and avoidance of conflict thwarts opportunities to engage in anti-racist critical conversations. Rather than thinking about this autoethnography as an opportunity to open up spaces where challenging, yet trusting, conversations with friends and family members can take place, I discuss it as an experience to be avoided. By avoiding experiences where anti-racist conversations can take place, I prohibit opportunities for myself and others to engage in my own critical self-reflection that could deepen my understanding.

4.1.2. Avoidance of Discomfort and Vulnerability

“Don’t worry about it. It all comes out in the wash”. It is not just conflict that is being avoided as people practice Midwest Nice. Sometimes, it can be as simple as avoiding any sort of discomfort. When any sort of uncomfortable topic emerges, often there is an effort to pivot to “lighter” conversation. For example, when a Midwesterner wants to pivot the topic of conversation to avoid belaboring an uncomfortable topic that is causing unease or discord, they may say, “It all comes out in the wash”. By using this metaphor of washing stained clothes, the Midwesterner shares that there is no need to spend time feeling anxious or disagreeable because “everything will work itself out”. This dismissal of uncomfortable conversations and emotions reflects the resolute optimism of Midwesterners, even at the risk of false reassurances or invalidation of negative emotions or experiences.

During a segment on WBEZ Chicago’s Curious City, Vega illuminates that this is particularly significant regarding how White Midwestern people engage in race politics (Meriwether, 2020). She explains that many Midwestern White people simply did not know how to behave around people from different cultures, “But they had the sense of ‘I’m afraid of what I might say. I’m uncomfortable with your presence because you’re different.’ Right? And I think that plays into the Midwestern Nice because people want to be Nice, but there’s also a lot of awkwardness when it has to do with race politics”. This discomfort is avoided at all costs, with White Midwesterners scrambling, often awkwardly, to find the words that will move the conversation in a different direction.

Discomfort and potential awkwardness are to be avoided, particularly when it comes to issues of race. Bonilla-Silva reiterates this in discussing the rhetorical incoherence that emerges when White people discuss issues of race, “Because the new racial climate in America forbids the open expression of racially based feelings, views, and positions when Whites discuss issues that make them feel uncomfortable, they become almost incomprehensible” (Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p. 68). A characteristic of Niceness is the hesitance to talk about issues of oppression (Castagno, 2008; Pollock, 2004).

In addition to avoiding conflict and discomfort, I also noticed a theme of avoiding expressing vulnerability or avoiding provocation of vulnerability from others. Brown (2017) explains, “The definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure” (p. 154). People who practice Midwest Nice often attempt to maintain the status quo through pleasantries, lightness, and avoidance of emotional discomfort or vulnerability. There is a great deal of effort made to avoid expressions of vulnerability or heightened emotion, as it may cause potential discomfort.

In the voice memo transcript below, I describe experiences that I had as a graduate student as I began to have conversations about race in spaces where there were many People of Color.

Many of my social circles are White. And it wasn’t really until I got into teaching, until I got into education, where I did a lot more work with People of Color. And I think that what was interesting is that I remember feeling a lot of nerves. I wouldn’t call it fear, but more of just discomfort of feeling like “I’m going to say something wrong, and I don’t want to offend anybody, and I don’t want to hurt anybody or cause any harm. So, I’m just not going to say anything”. And then resisting being vulnerable or being willing to […] work through things that I have been really needing to work on. And being able to be transparent with other people because it’s kind of one of those things where they know you’re working, people know you’re working through these things as a White person […] we’re all working through these things. I mean not everyone is. But we were born into these, […] White dominant structures of society, but I remember in grad school, especially the first year, I was just, I would not say a lot of things in class. […] We were talking about race and racialization and how this manifested in schools. And particularly in my class called […] The Problem of the Color Line. We were talking about these issues so much, and they were in spaces where granted, we’re not as racially diverse as maybe other universities might be-, but for me, there were much more racially diverse because I had been in a lot of majority White spaces. And I found myself not saying or not asking questions and not wanting to […] look like I didn’t know. And just being uncomfortable with it, “Oh, what am I going to sound like?” And I just wonder: […] what was causing it? Is it that I cared […] about not harming people? Or that I cared about not looking stupid? There’s a lot of things, but I think I just wanted to kind of avoid the […] discomfort of being wrong or discomfort of being offensive or revealing the racism that I know I grew up with. And I know that is inside of me. I know it’s there because that’s what I’m working on. That’s what all of us need to work on.

(Self-Interview #6, 14 July 2021)

Here, I avoid the discomfort that often accompanies the risk of making mistakes or revealing my misunderstandings in front of others. Instead of thinking about these moments as opportunities for clarification, illumination, and growth, actively engaging with the ideas that students and educators of Color are sharing, I am preoccupied with the ways that these spaces may expose my flaws. I have sensed that among White Midwesterners, there can be a fixation on moral perfectionism. Midwest Nice dictates that one must be a Nice person, a good person. By acknowledging practices of and participation in behaviors that preserve Whiteness and perpetuate White supremacy, White Midwesterners would have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. Vulnerability and willingness to engage in critical self-reflection with others is necessary for the development of understanding, action, and necessary reparations.

Discomfort, vulnerability, authenticity, and honesty are necessary for anti-racist change. By denying people the space to express themselves fully, we cannot interrogate and change the intricate meanings and experiences that are behind behavior. People must be allowed to be human. To be human is to experience and process emotion. This critical examination of authentic and vulnerable moments is what can inform change.

4.2. How Am I Using Midwest Nice to Avoid These Experiences?

In the context of Midwest Nice, many tools can be used to avoid conflict, discomfort, and expressions of vulnerability. As I analyzed my data and juxtaposed them with popular and academic literature, I noticed four key mechanisms that are used to maintain the status quo of Whiteness and avoid conflict: passive aggression, performative Niceness, competitive Niceness, social compartmentalization, and relational distancing. Midwesterners wield Midwest Nice to maintain polite social compromise, stymieing necessary conflict and critical conversation.

4.2.1. Avoidance Through Passive Aggression and Silence

“If you can’t say something Nice, don’t say anything at all”. One way in which conflict is avoided in the practice of Midwest Nice is through passive aggression. Based on my collected and analyzed data, this seems to be the strategy that I use very often to avoid conflict or discomfort. A phrase that I used to hear throughout my childhood is, “If you can’t say something Nice, don’t say anything at all”. On the surface, this sentiment appears to be reasonable and even a kindness or an act of humility. In his article for Thrillist, Kix (2015) explains, “humility permeates everything, helping to create the most remarkable facet of Midwestern Nice: the restraint from speaking ill of others, even if others should probably be ill-spoken of” (para. 11). Upon closer analysis, this sentiment implies an encouragement to repress emotion or unpleasant conversation in the interest of preserving a Nice, pleasant relationship.

The meaning of this practice in the Midwestern context is that it is preferable to be silent, and potentially repressive and resentful, than to express oneself directly and risk conflict or discomfort. Kix (2015) explains that Midwesterners’ even feel “guilt over our lame attempts at bluntness; even our passivity pains us” (para. 21). Attempts at direct communication and expression can be challenging for Midwesterners; it is more important to maintain the comfort of those around us than to express how we feel, whatever the cost. This silence operates as a hidden language that is difficult to parse for honesty and meaning. Sommers (2005) illustrates, “To be nice means to silence ourselves in some way, and in doing so, we compromise our authenticity and give up freedom to act and speak. On the other hand, niceness may facilitate the shedding of responsibility” (pp. 11–12). Without direct acknowledgment of the problem, there can be no responsibility to work toward change.

One of the most constraining characteristics of the practice of Midwest Nice for me has been the relentless hypervigilance of politeness and not wanting to risk creating discomfort or offense for anyone else. In a segment with Curious City, Kix shares, “It’s not that Midwesterners don’t have any negative feelings or thoughts, it’s just that they don’t say them directly” (Meriwether, 2020). To avoid conflict and discomfort, politeness and good manners are enacted in Midwest Nice culture. These polite practices are not simply a manner of conducting oneself; they serve to maintain or promote a particular image that is aligned with White dominant expectations about relationships, environments, and behavior.

This verbal restraint, however, does not mean that the emotions do not emerge in other ways. Though it is difficult for me to admit, I have used, and sometimes even continue to use, passive aggression to avoid conflict in many ways. Although passive aggression is certainly not unique to the Midwest, it has a unique presence here. In his segment, Kix (2015) explains, “Midwesterners have a really hard time speaking bluntly or honestly about anything; we are taught to be Nice. we are taught to think of others. These are great things. At the same time, because we are always trying to couch everything, there is a sort of hidden language that emerges making it so we can’t speak to each other in ways how we honestly feel” (Meriwether, 2020). It certainly feels like a hidden language.

I have experienced and practiced this silence and repression of emotion throughout my life, and because of this, it was present throughout my journals and auto-interviews. However, I also saw it frequently paired with the hidden language of passive aggression. In this excerpt from a self-interview below, I describe an experience I had while working as a supervisor for pre-service teachers:

I work with a bunch of pre-service teachers right now, and I have seen on so many occasions, things happening in the classroom that I see as harmful or at least in need of critique. Whether it be in the videos that they show to students, […] the way that they interacted with a student, or the way I saw their [cooperating teacher (CT)] interact with a student. There’ve been so many moments where I’ve wanted to say something. And then I just feel like I can’t. And so, I will say it in the notes. I’ll write it down. I’m able to write it. However, I don’t know that people even read those things. […] I am hopeful that they’ll read it. I think I’m hopeful that they’ll read it. […] In one situation where I specifically said to a pre-service teacher, “Hey, […] I’ve got some feedback for you in the notes, just read through it. I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to push a little bit harder this round because I feel like you’re, ready to […] move into that critical space”. That’s how I framed it. And then they came back and they’re like, “Whoa. Yeah, that was a little…that was a lot”. Then in other [situations] I just don’t get responses at all. So, if I know I’m not going to get a response, why do I write it? Why don’t I just say it out loud? And I just think that I’m so afraid of critiquing a CT in front of a pre-service teacher or saying something to pre-service teacher and have a CT lash out on me. I think I’m definitely more afraid of CTs lashing out because I think a lot of the lessons are connected to something they’ve built. And I think that [SIGH] based on a lot of previous experience, people are very defensive-, teachers are very defensive around, having critical conversations about race, very defensive. And that’s another thing that I wanted to talk about my autoethnography was just the competitiveness of it all and the defensiveness of it all.

(Self-Interview #10, 29 April 2021)

In this example, I explain how I actively use silence to avoid necessary and critical conversations with preservice teachers; however, my thoughts still emerge in written assessments. Though I share that I added comments, I know that there was a possibility, and even a likelihood, that the preservice teachers might not see these comments unless I explicitly point them out and ask the preservice teacher to engage with them. I chose to take the easier route of not having the conversation at all rather than risk discomfort and even conflict with a preservice teacher or their cooperating teacher.

I talk about the passive aggression of Midwest Nice as a language to be learned; however, it is important to note that the subtleties of this language can be very evasive, confusing, difficult to read, and they can create social dynamics that are very challenging to navigate. The subtleties of passive aggression in Midwest Nice can also lead to relational issues that are more difficult to work through because nothing has ever been said out loud. Rather, communication is made through passive-aggressive action. In their podcast Third Coast Cast, Jason explains about the Midwest, “Everybody puts on an air or a presentation of politeness and kindness, but actually, there’s a lot of passive-aggressive stuff happening. People say one thing but truly mean a different thing” (Jason & Flint, 2018).

The distinguishing characteristic of passive aggression is that concerns are not expressed directly. It is important to think about silence as action rather than inaction. Ladson-Billings explains how silence is wielded as a weapon to maintain the status quo. It is a choice: a choice to uphold the status quo, repress emotions or ideas, to “keep the peace” (Ladson-Billings, 1996). Silence is a tool that I have not only seen in my data but also reflected in academic discourse. Castagno (2008) explains that her data reflect, “pervasive silences around issues of race and patterns that resulted in the legitimation—rather than the dismantling—of whiteness” (p. 316). Silence serves as a constraint to the open and honest conversations necessary for movements in critical consciousness.

Practices that maintain “pleasant” environments or stymy conflict and discomfort function to preserve the status quo, which in White dominant culture means preserving Whiteness. Niceness creates a mechanism that maintains Whiteness as the status quo (Castagno, 2014). It is in the interest of White people to engage in social and cultural practices that uphold Whiteness as the status quo. In examining my data, where Midwest Nice was practiced in situations where critical conversations could have taken place, passivity, and conflict avoidance almost always emerged. For White people, challenging the status quo, or Whiteness, and moving toward a critical space of anti-racism and abolition is an inherently uncomfortable and conflicting process. (Un)learning is an uncomfortable and potentially conflicting process. It is imperative that White people can hold this tension, even in discomfort and conflict, to engage in the critical self-reflection, learning, and (un)learning that disrupts the status quo (Sierk, 2019).

Passive aggression and silence certainly hinder anti-racism because they prevent critical conversations that can lead to growth and deepened understanding. Being silent in moments where critical conversations can and should take place prevents potential opportunities to uncover misunderstandings and deepen learning.

4.2.2. Avoidance Through Performative Niceness

“Be so Nice that when people say mean things behind your back, no one believes them”. Midwest Nice is not only characterized by enacted passive aggression and silence, but also by obsequious performances of Niceness. Weatherston (2019) explains, “Niceness is a performance; it is not an authentic human characteristic and comes saddled with virtue and social conventions” (p. 119). Midwest Nice is about perception, projection, and the maintenance of image. Niceness is a practice to be performed, to convince others of goodness, thoughtfulness, and benevolence. The Midwestern colloquialism, “Be so nice that when people say mean things behind your back, no one believes them” instantiates this protection of image. Several social conventions exist within Midwest Nice that can be characterized as performed Niceness. This can be represented by excessive politeness, apologies, exuberance, and more. This colloquialism is of particular significance in addressing White people’s racist and xenophobic aggressions and microaggressions. When White people’s aggressions and microaggressions are named by People of Color, White aggressors’ performances of Niceness can cloud and invalidate experiences and demands for acknowledgement and action.

Excessive apologies are certainly characteristic to the White Midwestern performances of Niceness. When asking friends and family how they define Midwest Nice, many respond by saying that Midwest Nice is “apologizing to inanimate objects when you run into them”. Jason explains, “When you invade someone else’s space, you feel like it’s a tragedy here” (Jason & Flint, 2018). Even when I walk on the sidewalk, I find myself apologizing to my neighbors as I walk past, just apologizing for my existence there. Midwest Nice can be a potential identifier of maintaining an image or perception of “goodness”.

Another example of performed Niceness is something called “smarm” or, as many Midwesterners call it, “gushing”. It can be described as overly Nice, exuberant, or positive language and behavior. The Midwest is characterized by the notion of being curious, friendly, and easygoing (Sierk, 2019), though this may not necessarily be true. In a segment with Curious City, Shining Li explains that as a first-generation Chinese immigrant, living in a White suburb, people appeared to be welcoming, but she was never sure if it was genuine. She suspected that this might have been racially motivated (Meriwether, 2020). The excessive performance of Niceness or gushing may or may not be authentic, but it is certainly worth examining how these performances of Niceness are experienced, practiced, and used to maintain the rigid boundaries of White supremacy.

I can particularly identify with practice of excessive apologies. I often find myself apologizing profusely, even annoyingly, when I hurt or harm someone with my speech. In the interest of practicing vulnerability, below is an excerpt from a journal entry where I describe a situation where I said something harmful, in my recollection, to a friend who is Indigenous to land now commonly known as Canada and was excessively apologetic.

[…] We were toward the end of the camping trip, and it was really rainy and crappy outside. Nathan1, Erin, Patrick, and I were all huddled under our tent, and we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner. All of our chairs were wet, and I said, “Where are we going to sit?” Nathan responded, “Well we could just sit on the ground around the fire”. Without thinking, I just responded, “We can’t sit on the ground like savages!” Everyone stopped and looked at me. I turned to Nathan and apologized. I could not believe I had just said that to him. What did that reveal about how I thought about Indigenous people? What did that reveal about what I thought about Nathan? I was mortified. I just kept apologizing, so much, too much. Nathan just said, “It’s okay! It’s okay!” But I couldn’t stand the idea that he would think that I thought that way about him. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. And even though I knew that Nathan had accepted my apology, I still find myself wanting to reach out to apologize to him again, even two years later. Was I thinking more about how I caused harm to him? Or was I more worried about maintaining my own image? I realize now that I made that moment about me. Instead of focusing on Nathan’s experience, my excessive apologies made Nathan responsible for my comfort.

(Journal Entry: 3 June 2021)

In this example, my apologizing not only felt excessive, but eventually, it turned the interaction to center me, rather than centering the impact on my friend. Instead of following the direction of my friend, whether that meant diving into a deeper conversation about the impact of these beliefs about Indigenous peoples or just moving on by his volition, the conversation pivoted to his reassurance that it was okay. With this excessive apology, there was very little space for him to say otherwise. This is an example of the ways that Midwest Nice is used to decenter the experiences of People of Color, or in this case, someone who is Indigenous.

Using excessive apologies is part of a broader performance of Niceness. Performative Niceness prevents the conversations necessary to learn from this experience. There was no opportunity for a more meaningful conversation to even emerge, as the conversation pivoted quickly to the excessive apology. The opportunity for learning and (un)learning was lost at that moment.

4.2.3. Avoidance Through Competitive Niceness

“Kill ‘em with kindness”. At the intersection of passive aggression and performative Niceness, I found one of the more interesting manifestations of Midwest Nice: competitive Niceness. This competitive Niceness is as it sounds; it occurs when Midwesterners engage in performances to prove how Nice, good, benevolent, and socially conscious we are when compared with others. The expression above, “kill ‘em with kindness”, represents this comparative display of kindness. This advice was given to me throughout my childhood by adults and teachers. The idea is that if someone has wronged you, you must display overt kindness toward them. Some may call it “rising above”, but this idea has distinguished itself, at least in my own observation, as an encouragement to demonstrate exaggerated Niceness to make the other look wrong or mean by comparison.

I noticed moments where Niceness became competitive, especially in my White liberal city context in Wisconsin. This competitive Niceness most often emerged when liberal-identifying White individuals engaged in conversations about social justice issues. In these conversations, I sensed this competition about how much the White people involved knew about social justice issues. There was also competitiveness in the commitment to these issues, and actions taken to make social change. In the voice memo transcript excerpt below, I explain how this manifested in my relationships with teachers:

So, something that I’ve been really interested in looking at has been around the idea of competition in White groups, around awareness or wokeness, or knowledge of different social justice movements. I’ve seen this in a lot of White spaces or predominantly White spaces, particularly in schools where they’re often liberal White spaces, but also in friend groups where it’s predominantly White. And I’ve just noticed that sometimes people can be a little competitive about how much they know, and sometimes I’m also drawn into that competition. […] I’m embarrassed to admit it, but it’s definitely something that I have seen and experienced in a lot of different places. So, an example of this is I was working at a local school district, and [it] was a little bit more suburban. It was predominantly White, though it had a growing population that brought in students from […] different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. So that was emerging. And I remember that there was this teacher that I worked with, who was interested in social justice, […] we had had lots of conversations and […] she just kind of gave me the impression that she really wanted me to know that she knew more about it. She was more experienced with it. She’d kind of give little digs here and there about, you know, it being my first year. So, they didn’t really expect much out of me in terms of being critically conscious or just being a good teacher at all [Laughs], which I found really interesting. And then I kind of felt myself kind of getting defensive about it because I wanted to be able to practice those things too. And the whole reason I got into education was because I wanted to explore social justice issues with students. […] I wanted to do that work. And I mean, of course I was very much in the shallow end of the pool trying to [Laughs] learns and figure it out, [and] I’ve still got a long way to go, to grow, and to move in that. But I just remember those little digs all the time. And then eventually I started to respond and say things like, “Well, I’m coming from a district that is, you know, more diverse” because I had worked at a different school just the year prior. “So, this is not really how we do it”. And somehow exerting some sort of […] hierarchy, “well, I know better because I’ve worked with students of color” or “more students of color” which obviously, is problematic. It’s problematic to think about it that way. And it’s really problematic to try to create hierarchy in movements that are supposed to be […] movement based. […] Or even when I was in the School of Education, I remember as we were learning things, I remember there would be some competitiveness among White people […] of wanting to share how much they knew before they entered the School of Ed. And I was a little bit less inclined then because I was pretty confident in the fact that I didn’t know a lot and that I was willing to learn. And so, I didn’t get pulled into it as easily until toward the end of the program, when we were supposed to be representative of what we’re doing by getting jobs. And so, we were competitive against each other. And so sometimes that competitive wokeness and being “the most woke” in the program, kind of led into that.

(Self-Interview #7, 14 July 2021)

In this excerpt, I explain how I engaged in competitive Niceness about knowledge of social justice issues. Rather than confronting the perceived competitiveness by asking colleagues and peers what they meant by different statements, a dialogue necessary for social change, I began to engage in the competition myself. Through this engagement, I would respond to “digs” and with my own couched snubs, creating a hierarchal and competitive environment of unacknowledged hostility and animosity.

Though it is important for White individuals to engage in dialogue, learn, transform, and take action, I would not describe this competitive Niceness as the political consciousness it attempts to display. The very act of creating hostile competition and hierarchy around this anti-racist work is counterintuitive to the movements that are being made by critical activists and scholars. This idea is comparable to Bonilla-Silva’s (2006) description of racial showboating, where White individuals declare dedication to anti-racism but do not take any real action toward eliminating systems that produce racial inequality.

Though competitive Niceness may not be unique to the Midwest, when accompanying the other themes of Midwest Nice, competitive Niceness becomes another tool to limit opportunities for the uncomfortable and vulnerable critical conversations necessary for learning and (un)learning. Competitive Niceness can certainly create a hindrance as White people work toward anti-racism. In this example, rather than being honest about what we were struggling with in our classrooms, sharing resources, engaging in critical dialogue, and co-creating ideas or solutions that were embedded in anti-racism, we chose to compete. I certainly was not being honest about what I was struggling with in my classroom space, and had I been invested in authenticity and honesty rather than competition and hierarchy, I might have been able to mitigate harm and make changes that are in alignment with anti-racist practices.

4.2.4. Avoidance Through Social Compartmentalization and Relational Disconnection

“Midwesterners will give you directions to anywhere, except to their house for dinner”. One of the more elusive and insidious ways that Midwest Nice is used to avoid conflict or potentially uncomfortable positions is through social compartmentalization and relational distancing. When I describe social compartmentalization, I mean the rigid construction and separation of social worlds: professional, personal, learning, etc. In this social compartmentalization, there are often inflexible boundaries between different groups of people.

The colloquialism above, “Midwesterners will give you directions to anywhere, except to their house for dinner” describes this experience for me. This refers to the friendliness of Midwesterners, and our willingness to make superficial connections, without investing the time and vulnerability necessary to deeply get to know someone new. A friend who had moved to another Midwestern city from the East Coast told me that they were having a very hard time making friends in their new home. This friend could not understand it. They were engaging in friendly conversations every day with new people, and they would even exchange phone numbers, but when texting these individuals to further get to know each other, the native Midwesterner would not respond.

For acquaintances, I can be friendly and outgoing, but it can still be very difficult for me to develop meaningful relationships because I tend to resist the vulnerability and openness that can move a relationship of acquaintances to a friendship. This can create a superficiality of relationships. In his segment with Curious City, Rentfrow explains, “The results from our analyses identified a unique psychological profile [about Midwesterners] which was marked by high levels of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and low levels of neuroticism and very low levels of openness” (Meriwether, 2020). I tend to gravitate more toward people who are like myself because it allows me to avoid discomfort. This lack of openness can prevent connection with new people. Rentfrow continues “Someone high in extroversion and low in openness would be somebody who’s very sociable, talkative, but maybe isn’t particularly curious or open to new ideas. So, they might prefer interacting with people who are more likely to share their values” (Meriwether, 2020). It is easy to make a superficial connection but can feel almost impossible to create sustained and meaningful relationships where vulnerability, discomfort, and conflict are part of the relational experience. Jason explains, “We can make a good connection with somebody probably because we are being so polite and kind and not bringing up the difficult problems” (Jason & Flint, 2018).

In the excerpt from a self-interview below, I describe the ways I compartmentalized my professional and personal environments. This compartmentalization made it difficult to form the relationships necessary for authenticity and vulnerability. This excerpt explores what this looked like in a private corporate setting:

[…] So, when I worked for this company, I found it really easy to join things and make friends. I really genuinely like people a lot. And so, I like to be able to spend as much time doing as many cool things as I can. I’m a big joiner. And I found that I was able to make some-, I would probably say more acquaintances because when I left the private sector, none of those friendships, or acquaintances, or whatever they are, stayed. I found that I was so well-networked, but I was not well-, I was not engaging in authentic, vulnerable relationships. […] It just felt like connection with people was so utilitarian. It wasn’t for the purpose of connecting. It was for the purpose of serving this capitalist purpose, and that’s really disappointing because sometimes I wonder how many of my friendships don’t serve those purposes.

(Self-Interview #12, 29 April 2021)

Though I describe how my relationships in a private sector setting are kept at an arm’s-length distance, this is not unique to the private sector for me. There are a lot of relationships across spaces that I keep my distance from, maintaining pleasantries and avoiding connections where authentic expressions of vulnerability and openness may exist. Sometimes it feels as if I do not know how to deepen these relationships beyond superficiality. There is sometimes even a fear there. There are many people with whom I am friendly, but very few people I would describe as close friends.

This example does not explicitly address the ways White Midwesterners discuss race; however, it was taken from a broader conversation about the ways that compartmentalized superficiality of work relationships can prevent the development of trust necessary to have critical, honest, and vulnerable conversations about race.

We crave authentic connection. We want to witness and be witnessed, love and be loved, and be in community with one another. The superficiality and lack of openness in the practice of Midwest Nice can be incredibly painful, particularly if you have very few relationships in which you can practice vulnerability and relational intimacy. In the excerpt from the self-interview below, I describe what this experience is like:

I have very few people where I feel like I can be totally myself with, where I don’t have to display this exuberance or overwhelming generosity or whatever, but people that I can tell me secrets to, that I can share things that have really sucked about my life too. […] It’s amazing, there are people that were in my wedding that don’t know about even the most defining moments of my life, like trauma that I’ve experienced in the past. People that were actually there while it was happening and only knew little bits and details. And we will not talk about it now. And I think that there is some social rule that we don’t talk about those things. […] That has been the Midwestern Niceness piece is not wanting to go there and not wanting to be vulnerable and not wanting to talk about things that are icky. Um, and I say icky because they’re, they’re hard for me, not because they’re icky to talk about. I think that those are the pieces that actually create real lasting friendships: being able to share the most fucked up parts of ourselves with. There are so few people that I do that with, so few. And in fact, I think, I don’t know, it takes me a really long time to get there. And I think it’s because I just sit on this facade of friendliness constantly, […] and I think that also plays in a Midwest Nice, is don’t talk about yourself, be humble. […] Nothing’s about you. […] You can’t express any sort of preference. You can’t express anything that you want. And it seems benign, but it’s not. And you’re just hiding yourself constantly. It’s just hiding yourself and it’s ugly. Um, yeah. And it’s sad. It’s actually really sad.

(Self-Interview #4, 29 April 2021)

In this denial of connectivity, we are also denied our own humanity. Social rules and pleasantries are upheld over human connection and authenticity. Within the rigid confines of Midwest Nice, I feel as though I am not able to bring my whole self into different spaces. I must deny different pieces of who I am in every space to maintain the status quo or social norm. This also creates confusion about my own identity, as different pieces of myself show up in different spaces. And some of these pieces feel contradictory to each other. Through Midwest Nice, denial of connection with others and with the self can be dehumanizing.

White Midwesterners’ engagement in critical self-reflection necessary for growth requires relationships that offer safety. Honest critical self-reflection requires emotional exposure and a willingness to admit and interrogate the ways that we are complicit in the perpetuation of White supremacy. To move beyond superficial displays of Niceness and performances of benevolence, there must be a willingness to also develop the relationships necessary to open up and be honest.

4.3. Why Am I Using Midwest Nice to Avoid These Experiences?

These mechanisms of Midwest Nice that have emerged from the data require a reexamination of the purposes of using Midwest Nice to avoid discomfort. It is not enough to acknowledge that White people are avoiding discomfort; this comfort must be traced to its root. Why do these critical conversations make me, a White Midwesterner, uncomfortable? Why do these conversations cause my anticipation of conflict? What is the real conflict?

I, as a White Midwesterner, avoid critical dialogue not only by thwarting critical conversations about Whiteness and White supremacy, but also by instantiating and preserving them. These social and cultural tools of Midwest Nice serve to preserve the hegemonic status quo, a state that is comfortable and beneficial to White people. By engaging in critical conversations about race, Whiteness, and White supremacy, we as White Midwesterners would need to confront our culpability and participation in these structures, even through our everyday actions like Midwest Nice. Engaging in these discussions often requires confronting uncomfortable truths about the ways that history lives in our everyday interactions and experiences.

Midwest Nice is not harmless. Rather, Midwest Nice not only instantiates Whiteness, but it is a key tool used to obstruct critical dialogue and maintain White-benefitting structures of power. White dominant structures of power maintain themselves not simply through the overt displays of White nationalism and White power movements, but through seemingly innocuous and “Nice” interactions of the Midwest. Midwest Nice has a further reach, permeating every interaction and relationship, from uncomfortable experiences to seemingly wholesome and passive expressions, clichés, and colloquialisms. It is through everyday experiences that White supremacy is upheld and maintained, in plain sight.

5. Discussion

By conducting this autoethnographic project, I have come to understand just how much my practice of Midwest Nice impacts my engagement in critical conversations about issues of oppression or injustice with other people. While my practice of Midwest Nice upholds social rules that center Whiteness through passive aggression, silence, performative Niceness, competitive Niceness, social compartmentalization, and relational distancing, it is important to shift my thinking from an individual analysis to a structural one. With a structural analysis of Midwest Nice, I can better understand what Midwest Nice is, how it is practiced and used, and to what end. With this structural analysis, I have seen how Midwest Nice is an expression of Whiteness that is used to uphold Whiteness and White-benefitting culture as the dominant norm.

Though this project focuses on the Midwest region of the United States, it is of salience for anyone interested in examining the ways their own culture, or intersections of culture, perpetuates and preserves hegemonic systems and structures. Culture is global, national, regional, linguistic, familial, racialized, classed, gendered, and beyond. Structures and practices that perpetuate hegemony exist everywhere, across cultures. This project does not argue that White supremacy is perpetuated in greater measure in or in isolation to the Midwest alone. Rather, it is intended to provide a path for how one may turn critical examination upon themselves, investigating the ways that White supremacy, and hegemonic structures more broadly, exists in their own culture, whether that be in their household, region, or beyond.

This project has allowed me to engage in the dialogic critical self-reflection necessary to expand my own critical consciousness (Freire, 1970). Though my evidence reflects an avoidance of critical conversations among other Midwestern people, I am also able to better recognize the environments and relationships where I can engage in conversations that challenge ideologies and practices that uphold racialized structures of dominance. I can better recognize moments and opportunities for critical conversations as they are happening. Though this shift may seem slight, this is significant for me as I often struggle to be present with myself when these moments of conflict emerge in environments where disruption and discomfort are discouraged.

This project energizes me to move toward the spaces of imagining what the abolition of Midwest Nice looks like, in education spaces and across my life. As I continue to engage in critical reflection of all these facets of Midwest Nice, I also envision what it would look like to rid ourselves of all of these rigid practices to work toward communal liberation. Many theorists have imagined liberation long before I have. I will not state anything new or novel, but rather, I will share how I have begun to conceptualize from theorists, scholars, and activists of Color, what it would look like to challenge and authentically engage in vulnerable conversations that affirm all the complexities of our humanity. I do not believe that these ideas are linear steps to take; rather, they are continuously growing, sprouting, connecting, moving, and multiplying.

It is essential to embrace discomfort. Learning and unlearning is an uncomfortable process, particularly if it is learning and unlearning norms that I not only uphold but also benefit from. In a segment with Curious City, Vega explains, “I think that the next step for the Midwest is to say we’re gonna volunteer to have that conversation, we want to embrace our differences, embrace the fact that we’re not all comfortable with each other, and then move forward in that conversation rather than keep avoiding it because it’s not comfortable” (Meriwether, 2020). Meriwether contributes, “To do that would require confronting discomfort, and be more open and direct, in other words, redefining Midwest Nice” (Meriwether, 2020). Willingness to engage in critical conversations and embrace discomfort is central to the work of moving into critical consciousness (Leonardo & Porter, 2010; Pollock, 2004), particularly for White people who are unpacking the complexity and effects of sociocultural practices like Midwest Nice (Castagno, 2014; Smolarek & Martinez Negrette, 2019).

Similarly, there must be a willingness to practice critical self-reflection, drawing awareness to the self, with the purpose of learning and unlearning. It is essential for White individuals to center the experiences of People of Color while also examining the ways that they actively operationalize whiteness and white supremacy in their everyday lives. This not only requires criticality and exploration of the self in relation to systems of oppression, but it also necessitates vulnerability and grace for oneself. This critical self-reflection requires exploration and questioning of thoughts, beliefs, and emotions while creating new ways of thinking that are humanizing to others and ourselves. This includes enacting grace and humanization of ourselves, not as isolated individuals, but as intertwined and interdependent within our communities.

Though this critical self-reflection may often be carried out individually, it is also necessary to be in dialogue with others with the intention of co-developing critical consciousness (Freire, 1970). This must be a collaborative process, for intervention or interruption of thought requires non-hierarchical collaboration to transform actions (Sannino et al., 2012). These conversations necessitate our honest and courageous vulnerability, and we must invite others into their expressions of vulnerability as well. Without bringing our oppressive belief systems and feelings of shame and guilt to the surface, we cannot work toward mutual freedom from structural oppression. Dialogue, community, vulnerability, and honesty are all necessary. This also requires decompartmentalization, where we can show up as our full selves across spaces. We need to dismantle beliefs that there are professional worlds, personal worlds, and educational worlds, and smoothen these spaces so that we can bring to light the issues that exist across spaces. Bonilla-Silva (2006) explains that “Whiteness must be challenged wherever it exists” (p. 308). This means across spaces, relationships, time, and contexts.

White people must also center the visions of People of Color and take action toward dismantling structures of power. There are myriad theorists, scholars, and activists of Color that have offered, and continue to offer, guidance for White people to strive toward co-conspiratorship. In terms of identifying where to begin, this may start with Midwest Nice, but it cannot end there. Smolarek and Martinez Negrette (2019) explain, “It is time to move this concept beyond our living rooms and Thanksgiving dinner conversations to engage in constructing a notion that involves addressing injustice and naming social realities as part of that Niceness” (p. 233). Dialogue is certainly part of this process, but it is agency and action that creates change. It is not enough to simply engage in the dialogue, there must be a political praxis for divestment in systems of oppression (Bonilla-Silva, 2006). Bonilla-Silva (2006) explains, “The most important strategy for fighting ‘new racism’ practices and the ideology of color blindness is to become militant once again” (p. 308). This is not a metaphor; it is an assertion that action must extend beyond dialogue, into ways that will not be palatable to the oppressor. Changes in systems of domination and their accompanying ideologies are never accomplished by racial dialogues—the notion of ‘Can we all just get along?’ or racism workshops. Action, in its many shapes and forms, must be prioritized in the lives of White people. Scholars, activists, and theorists of Color have been doing this work for centuries.

Finally, it is imperative to address the paradox presented by my positionality in this project. As I, a White woman, engage in critical autoethnography to discuss instantiations and perpetuations of Whiteness, I contribute to the ongoing White-centric literature that centers White racial epiphanies and marginalizes the experiences of People of Color (Leonardo, 2013; Matias & Boucher, 2021). Whiteness is still centered in this project, as I maintain my focus on White supremacist cultural practices, separated from its impact on People of Color (Leonardo, 2013; Matias & Boucher, 2021; Said, 2000). I have not yet resolved this paradox, and I am not yet answering this call by scholars of Color.

My thinking through this paradox is somewhat of a letter to my future self. Living, evolving, and welcoming criticism, my rationale for continuing to move forward with this project lies in my attempts to maintain vulnerability, even when it is imperfect and likely subject to my self-scrutiny in the future. If this is to happen, I know that this project will have served its purpose, as it will have given me a touchstone for further reflection.

Critical autoethnography offers a methodology through which educational leaders and educators may engage in critical self-reflection to understand the ways that their everyday practices and experiences instantiate and maintain systems and structures of power, namely the ways that power preserves Whiteness and White supremacy in schools. Educational leaders need to examine the ways that Nice culture, in its many forms, functions to thwart learning opportunities.

In this conflict campaign moment, school district leaders are pressured by predominantly conservative White politicians, media commentators, and parents to ban and censor books, curricula, instructions, professional development, and conversations that critically examine racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and White supremacy in schools (Pollock et al., 2022). It is essential that education leaders not only examine these issues in their districts but also across spaces in their lives. Critical reflection across the intersections of roles and identities that we hold allows each of us to examine how we, too, are equally bounded in mutual efforts toward liberation.

Citing a motto born of fellow Aboriginal activists, at the United Nations Decade for Women Conference, Watson and Aboriginal activists group (1985) said, “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together”. As a White woman, I too have a vested interest in dismantling White supremacy, starting, though certainly not ending, with divesting myself of Midwest Nice. The dismantling of hegemonic structures of power happens through our everyday interactions. Through divestment of Midwest Nice, we may choose engagement in vulnerability, conflict, discomfort, directness, imperfection, honesty, authenticity, self-reflection, connection, and movement towards the depth of relationships necessary to free ourselves in our work alongside those with whom we are bound.

This should be carried out with gratitude for these scholars, activists, and theorists of Color who have created the tools for our collective and communal liberation. It is through ongoing practice, critical self-reflection, critical dialogue, and the centering of People of Color that educators will work toward abolishing rigid and stifling practices of Midwest Nice and move into the complex, complicated, uncomfortable, and vulnerable spaces of anti-racism.