Intellectualizing whiteness as a response to campus racism: some concerns

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper is rooted in the reactions of our university community to a racist poster that appeared on our campus. It presents a critique of tendencies to intellectualize whiteness in depoliticized forms as a response to acts of racism, tendencies that work to centre “good whiteness” in unconscious ways, obstructing opportunities for a more robust and determined politics of anti-racism. We structure the paper around three concerns: the first, a conceptual concern, contests the notion that an ethically admirable or desirable response to racism can ever be sought through an appeal to intellectualization aimed at passively healing the intellectualizer; the second, a speculative concern, considers how particular modes of intellectualizing whiteness can seduce people into thinking they have taken a stand against racism where no such stand exists; the third, a practical concern, considers what a more worthwhile response to acts of racism might entail given the criticisms we identify.