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Skin color and other phenotypical characteristics are useful dividing lines, but they aren't the only dividing lines, and they aren't always used as dividing lines.

Then how useful is a course on "whiteness" in the UK? Just call it "introduction to racism" and be done with this sloppy, divisive terminology.
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As I understand it, the notion of whiteness as a point of study is understanding how societies have conceptualized race, what constituted being white over time, and whatever status/privileges went along with it - namely in the United States. 
And American society hasn't actually been shy on the topic either for quite some time. Statehouses and courts have proven to be happy to weigh in on the matter. Its been not only a matter of social and cultural importance, but even legal. If the topic wasn't taboo for legislatures and courts for centuries, universities should be fine. 
Anyway, the problematic parts you're talking about aren't all that different than any other student being obnoxious after learning something in school. Psych students think they've got the human condition figured out, guy reads Das Kapital and suddenly knows more than modern economists. That doesn't mean its a net negative to try and understand these topics more. 
Where these people are going wrong is they're taking a field of study meant to explore cultural phenomena over decades and pointing fingers at individuals. Not good. 
Anyway as far as social constructs go, it's been pretty damn influential throughout history.  I think it's fair to at least explore the concept as a matter or inquiry. >

I don't think terms like white and black are very productive. Skin color is simply an adaptation to varying degrees of UV exposure in different parts of the world. A person from India, Africa, and South America may have the same skin tone, but are they all "black?" No, only the African is considered black. Ok, then why not just call that person a Ugandan or Moroccan or wherever else they originate from? We should be grouping people based on ethnic and cultural decent.
The thing is, there are inherent morphologic differences between humans depending on which region of the world they originate from, and skin color is just one of those features. We don't really talk about all the other ways that human beings differ in terms of appearance. Why? Because skin color is easiest to identify and describe. But thats about it...its purely out of convenience. At the end of the day skin tone is a crude and fairly useless way to categorize people.
Black and white are terms that stem from racist ideology and should be rooted out. >

Myself, growing up in South Boston... I learned racism from white folks. I was the only kid in town that had brown skin. I was beaten daily at school from the 1st-6th grade by white kids. I was called 'nigger,' 'tar-baby,' and hundreds of hateful other words that make a colour distinction. People with a colour of skin (other than white) should be aware of the whiteness of the whites, especially if you're immigrating to the USA from a country that dominantly has every skin colour except white, that, you put yourself, 'in the know' and know what to expect, should it happen. If it never happens, then let the sleeping colour conflict be, let it sleep. >


Using the term casually promotes colourism; I find 'whiteness' as problematic as 'blackness'. Now of course, there may be instances where it's beneficial to talk about it, such as if those with black skin are suffering from more discrimination in the US. But fundamentally these are simply skin tones. There are a huge range of cultures and ethnicities that have white skin: this ranges from people from America, to those with Jewish heritage and people from Eastern European countries. I think many would agree that referring to blackness is an insult to hundreds of different cultures and backgrounds this entails, so why is this okay for those with white skin? 

“Simply skin tones” is false. Having paler skin does not automatically make you white. Pale skin is a feature seen in pretty much every racial group. It also does not change the fact that race is a very important factor in a lot of aspects of culture. 
In the United States specifically whiteness refers to people of European descent. Not anybody on planet earth who happens to be pale. 
Furthermore, seeing blackness is not inherently an insult. Even Black people use blackness to refer to other Black people. Black is a socially recognized racial group. I don’t really understand why you are of the believe that this is something people only do towards white people. 

It's US-centric. I am not from the US and neither are the people I am talking about - we are from the UK. I can't speak for the statistics in the US, but the UK prime minister is not white and neither are the highest earning income group or those who are most likely to own a home. Do I think racism exists in the UK? For sure, but 'whiteness studies' primarily focuses on US-specific race issues, but the ideas are currently being imported across the globe when they are not necessarily relevant. 

I mean, I don’t know. I’m not American but this is a sentiment I hear all the time when it comes to racism when people pretend like certain aspects of racism is uniquely American. It’s really not, Americans just talk about it more. But that’s just my personal experience.

I am not pretending the world is completely colourblind, but I view a colourblind world as the ultimate goal. It would never be acceptable to use 'blackness' with negative connotations today and we shouldn't be creating a society where we can talk negatively about one race and not the other. 

The reason why being colorblind largely doesn’t work sometimes is because race can be socially ingrained in whatever you’re talking about. For example, you can talk about the race relations in a specific area. But if you come out of nowhere and start talking about how you’re colorblind I mean, cool, but that doesn’t erase the very real prevalence of race relations in the area. You’re not really helping anybody by just not seeing race. Racial tension, race relations, treatment of races, etc. etc. doesn’t go away because you specifically live your life colorblind.
I am mixed race. I grew up in an east Asian country where some citizens have never seen a black person before. Some of my constituents growing up hated me pretty bad. Some people within east Asian countries are very hostile towards people who are of a darker complexion/black. If you come out of the woodwork saying that you’re colorblind and also lived in these particular areas. The existence of people who treat me lesser than because of my skin color don’t all of a sudden stop being a problem. You have to recognize that race relation is a problem to actively fix it. Unfortunately, just ignoring race doesn’t really fix stuff sometimes. >

I believe the politically correct term for whiteness to be Caucasian. It certainly feels less provocative to say. More like a genuine label should sound. >

That's interesting. We don't use the word on the census in the UK, just White British or White, the word just feels ugly to me now. It meant nothing to me growing up but now it is obviously often used as a derogatory term (not by everyone ofc!) and I had just heard it used interchangeably with caucasian during my childhood but now my brain sees the word White and goes oh they mean racist, which my brain then says means white supremacist and that's not something someone should go around casually saying about people in polite society.
I'll definitely check out the Wikipedia page about caucasian though, thanks for the info! >

Wow that’s super interesting to me as well! I’m not actually from the USA im from Australia, and filled out the census for myself for the first time last year. They make an interesting choice of word and ask not for your race or ethnicity, but instead, “ancestry”. I’m not sure whether this is a better option though, while it allows for nuance for someone whose ethnicity kind of sits at the fringe of “whiteness” like, for example Cyprus or Lebanon, you also get lots of Anglo descended people putting “Australian” as their ancestry which doesn’t really make sense 😆 but I like that it doesn’t treat the classification of race which is used in the USA as the default. While racist pseudoscience is definitely a legacy of colonialism here as well, definitions of “whiteness” were a lot narrower for a lot longer which leads to some people still being a lot touchier about the term as an identifier. >

Perhaps it would be a good balance to ask what culture a person identifies with, which would be very broad (American, western, Australian, British, English etc) but then also ask where they descend from, like where were you born, where were your parents and then grandparents born. To try and separate culture and country from biology. I suppose you'd hope the census would know to account for the difference between someone who is Australian (of the state) vs native or indigenous to Australia (having ancestors who were in Australia before the Europeans arrived), so some people could be both or only one or the other. What do you think?
Also when it comes to the census, I wrote that I was a jedi in 2011 as a joke. It's still funny to me that I wrote it but it does mean I have to take everything in the census with a pinch of salt now haha. Speaking of, isn't Australia where more people wrote that than anywhere else? >


Using the term casually promotes colourism; I find 'whiteness' as problematic as 'blackness'.

That's kind of the point. Most white people don't think about their whiteness. They recognize racism and problems how we treat POC but they never question how this effects them. Whole point of these studies to show that "whiteness" is as problematic as "blackness". That they are opposite sides of same racist systems. When you oppress one population you are always giving a free pass for other. You can't do one without the other. >

So we're going to fix problems by also being oppressive and racist to white people? I'm really struggling to see how that a good idea. Even if you think so, surely you can see that might massively backfire >


So we're going to fix problems by also being oppressive and racist to white people?

No. We fix the problems by talking about all sides of the issue. Not just blackness and racism but also analyze whiteness and how they benefit for the system even when you personally are not being racist.
It's about establishing dialog and making sure that both sides of discussion is using the same terms. Basically we cannot talk about "blackness" and racism without talking about "whiteness" as well. >


but also analyze whiteness and how they benefit for the system 

Define "whiteness" vis-à-vis the intersectionality of Scottish, Irish and English people in the UK system. >

Generally speakin', whoever's at the top of the totem pole.
This is also how you get folks being racist against Irish immigrants coming to the States a century and some change ago, despite the skin colors being rather similar. >


whoever's at the top of the totem pole.

So... "whiteness" = English?
Is it like an Orwell thing - "All white people are white, but some white people are whiter than others"? >

If you look at racism throughout history, you'll see some very interesting things about who was considered "white" and who wasn't. See the example of Irish people not always being considered white in the US. Or how Jews often aren't considered white even if they have the right skintone, by virtue of their religion.
I wouldn't say that "whiteness" always means whoever's at the top of the totem pole in every society. That's obviously not the case in Japan.
But Japan actually does give an illustrative example of something approaching your "All white people are white, but some white people are whiter than others"? - Anyone who doesn't appear Japanese is gaijin (roughly translated, "outside person"). But among those who do, you're more Japanese if you were born in Japan compared to Korea or China, and those born to Korean/Chinese parents in Japan are in the middle, but still not the most Japanese of Japanese.
Basically, racism assembles a hierarchy. Skin color and other phenotypical characteristics are useful dividing lines, but they aren't the only dividing lines, and they aren't always used as dividing lines.