The Color of Transcendence: Whiteness, Sovereignty, and the Theologico-Political

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay reads Jacques Derrida’s analysis of the death penalty – which he interprets as the most fundamental instantiation of sovereign, theologico-political power over life and death – in relation to the “whiteness” that structures US carcerality. Elaborating upon Derrida’s conception of the theologico-political, I theorize whiteness as a mode of theologico-political transcendence: whiteness both comes to be conceptually via theological reasoning and materially mimics aspects of the worldordering traits of divine power. The world that whiteness ultimately orders is a carceral one that secures its supremacy by way of mechanisms – death penalties – of captivity, dispossession, and control. Extending Derrida’s theorization beyond capital punishment and its strictly sovereign configurations, I suggest that carceral death penalties more broadly conceived should be understood not just as a matter of isolatable sovereign decision on life and death but as the (white) power to arrange the world in ways that determine proximity to life and death.