James Baldwin’s curricular voice: Interrogating whiteness as curriculum

Abstract

I begin in this article with an examination of James Baldwin as a distinct curricular voice whose work opens a dialogue interrogating whiteness as curriculum. In a series of essays, “The White Problem,” “On Being White … And Other Lies,” “The White Man’s Guilt,” and “White Racism or World Community,” Baldwin directly addressed white people on the question of whiteness in four ways: addressing historic denial, amnesia, and mythologizing; the psychosocial conceptualization of white identity; whiteness as a system; and whiteness as a false system of reality. Baldwin’s approach was one of specificity, a curricular approach to interrogating whiteness centered in bold truth-telling. Specificity stands in contrast to abstraction, a curricular approach to interrogating racism that decenters practices of whiteness as a curriculum, emphasizing broader, less direct discussions of whiteness. In this article, I contend that abstraction dominates many current approaches to antiracist pedagogy in the academy. This abstract approach avoids naming whiteness specifically and instead involves performative engagements with race and racism. To counteract white curricular discourses, Baldwin proposed the important role of accusation and confession as a dialogic necessity. I use Baldwin’s framing in response to recent critiques from critical whiteness studies scholars on confessional approaches in antiracist education. In examining the specificity of whiteness as curriculum and invoking pedagogical strategies of accusation and confession, Baldwin’s work offers new opportunities for advancing racial justice and antiracist pedagogical strategies for today’s educators.