Caring for White Supremacy: The Case of Kyle Rittenhouse

Abstract

In August 2020, then 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot three White men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during protests that followed the police murder of Jacob Blake. After the shooting, myriad forms of care unfolded in support of Kyle Rittenhouse. In recent years, scholarship on care and care ethics has sought to “trouble” care, pushing beyond the traditional boundaries of care, considering forms of care that lie outside of traditional caring relationships, and bringing into view care that does not result in a universal good. In this article I add to this recent engagement by calling for greater attention to the ways in which care (re)produces systems of violence. Namely, using the events surrounding the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, I document the networks of support and resource flows that cared for Kyle Rittenhouse before, during, and following his trial. Ultimately, I argue that care, although often framed as a transformative force, plays a role in the ongoing production of White supremacy.