Abstract
AbstractThis article uses Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of suspicion, an interpretive strategy directed to the hidden or repressed meanings behind texts, to examine the origins of white privilege pedagogy, in particular their foundational technique, “unpacking the invisible knapsack.” This article’s chief finding is that this pedagogy, though designed to fight racism, has the unintended effect of supporting white privilege. Teaching whites to “unpack their invisible knapsack” does not make them more willing to take action against racial inequality. On the contrary, it makes them more complacent, more at home in an unjust world, and more comfortable with their whiteness. White privilege pedagogy does this by focusing on personal identity (whites’ personal identity) over institutional structures, by paying more attention to whites’ experiences than to blacks’, by falsely claiming that the confession of white privileges leads to social action beneficial to blacks, and by restoring and expanding whites’ sense of mor...
Highlights
Ricoeur (1970) coined the phrase hermeneutics of suspicion to delineate a style of interpretation that seeks out disguised, repressed, and disavowed meanings, an approach often used in studies of literature, theory, and intellectual history, but hardly ever in applied fields such as education (Berman, 2001; Stewart, 1989; Thiele, 1991)
This paper examines the ways racism and antiracism are taught in American schools, and concludes that teachers who subscribe to white privilege pedagogy might unknowingly support the racial status quo
What does all this mean for the project of ending racism? If white privilege pedagogy constitutes antiracism through deception, by falsely insisting that racism can be lessened by focusing on personal identity over institutional structure, by paying more attention to whites’ experience than to blacks’, and by falsely claiming that the confession of white privileges leads to social action beneficial to blacks, whites, in participating in those deceptions, are caught in their machinery just as much as people of color
Summary
Ricoeur (1970) coined the phrase hermeneutics of suspicion to delineate a style of interpretation that seeks out disguised, repressed, and disavowed meanings, an approach often used in studies of literature, theory, and intellectual history, but hardly ever in applied fields such as education (Berman, 2001; Stewart, 1989; Thiele, 1991). The reason, no doubt, is that its adversarial posture can appear condescending and disrespectful, especially the assumption that authors are unaware of the meanings and purposes of their own texts. Leslie Margolin is a professor of rhetoric and counseling at the University of Iowa. This paper builds on some of his earlier publications. It is no coincidence that the subtitle to Leslie Margolin’s paper, “Unpacking the invisible knapsack: the invention of white privilege pedagogy,” resembles the titles to some of his earlier publications (A Pedagogy of Privilege, from 1996 and Under the Cover of Kindness: The Invention of Social Work, from 1997) since he has always been interested in the ways privilege and inequality might be unknowingly supported by educational and counseling practices. That is the theme of his new novel Reborn Again (2015) where he examines how a psychiatrist exploits a patient, and what he hopes to discover over the few years in his research on marriage and family counseling
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
