Repairing Harm By Interrogating Whiteness
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In this class we will take apart and examine the often-invisible myth of whiteness in an attempt to begin to unravel it.
In February, Black History Month, the Portland Underground Graduate School is hosting a course called Interrogating Whiteness: An American Unstory. In this Q&A with instructor Sarah DeYoreo, we explore the idea of whiteness, why and how we are unpacking it, and what happens next.
Q1: Why is it important to interrogate the story of whiteness?
The United States is a country founded on the myth of white supremacy. It is a myth that required, first of all, the invention of “whiteness” as a racial category (the complex acrobatics of which can be seen in a variety of legal, scientific, and cultural practices, from the 17th century onward, that worked to define who qualified as “white,” to draw boundaries and consolidate power around whiteness, and to incentivize white people to internalize that identity—they were rewarded socially, financially, and politically for doing so), and was used to justify, among other things, the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of Indigenous people, and the theft of their land.
It is a myth that has profoundly shaped the social, political, and economic fabric of this country, from the lasting impacts of housing policies like redlining to the rise of mass incarceration in the last half-century to the current widespread detention of largely “non-white” immigrants by institutions such as ICE, and all kinds of things in between. We live in a country that is profoundly shaped by the ideology of white supremacy, and the policies and practices (past and present) associated with that, and yet, in conversations about racism and racial equity, whiteness is rarely mentioned. Instead, it is treated as a kind of default, neutral category: as innocent, invisible, as though white people are exempt from the problems, questions, and effects of race.
The truth is, white people (and remember, I am defining whiteness as a kind of fictional identity founded on processes of exclusion that people are conditioned into, but that they can also refuse to comply with; it is worth pointing out, also: I am a white person) continue to benefit from our whiteness in all kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, and we are asked to accept, to not question, these benefits. These benefits, and our default acceptance of them, keep systems of racism—systems of domination and exploitation, systems of defining who matters, who we should care about, who counts as “human”—in place. We must actively reject them, and doing that requires looking at the category of whiteness, and also looking internally, at ourselves.
“Portlanders who consider themselves “progressive” or committed to social justice must own and examine these facts, and begin to dismantle their underlying causes”
I have said that white people benefit from buying into or participating in the myth of whiteness—and it is undeniable that we receive certain kinds of social, economic, and political rewards for doing so—but I feel certain that participating in systems of injustice, systems that cause real harm to real people, leaves deep psychological, relational, intergenerational wounds on those who appear to benefit from them. In this sense, we ALL stand to benefit—socially/politically, psychologically, relationally, spiritually, materially, etc.—from dismantling whiteness. I hope that this course will aid in that process.
Q2: You've chosen to use literary and other readings to illustrate and unpack these concepts. Why is writing such a powerful teaching tool?
As a writer and writing teacher with a master’s in English literature, I’m clearly biased on this topic. But I find reading and writing to be really powerful tools for opening up careful, honest reflection and dialogue on challenging topics like race and whiteness. A lot of the readings I’ve chosen for this course tend, in different ways, to critique existing institutions of racism and white supremacy while also imagining or at least pointing us toward the possibility of alternatives. The scholar and activist Angela Davis, someone I really admire for both her fierceness and her hopefulness, has said, "Whatever we are doing, wherever we are, it is imperative that we believe in the possibility of change. We cannot be ensconced in the present, so the very first step is to actively imagine possible futures." I think writing and reading help us do this.
Q3: What can people expect to take away from your class?
People can expect to come away from this class with a deeper or deeply affirmed sense of the ways in which ideologies of racism and white supremacy have shaped their lives and the lives of those they love. This might be uncomfortable for many people, particularly white people. I am interested in discomfort and find it a much more hopeful and potentially revolutionary affect than the kind of numb, mindless comfort and daily obliviousness white people are expected and encouraged to exist in. I think discomfort might be the first step toward change.
Q4: How can a better understanding of the whiteness myth change our city for the better?
One thing we will talk about toward the end of this course is the idea of reparative justice and reparations. How do you go about repairing the harms of whiteness - harms committed over the last 4+ centuries - so that real connection between people, between people who have historically been the perpetrators of racial terror and violence and people who have been the victims and survivors of that violence, is possible?
I am still figuring out the answer to this question, but I know that you don’t do it by closing your eyes, refusing to look at aspects of your world or yourself that might make you uncomfortable, and pretending the problem doesn’t exist. Portland is such a strange city because, on the one hand, it is often talked about and perceived as a kind of progressive utopia, a place where “all” are welcome and cared for and encouraged to be their weird, quirky selves, and yet: it is constantly ranked one of the whitest cities in America (a partial result of the fact that Oregon was established as a “whites-only” state, from which black people were legally excluded until 1926, and once black people and other people of color did manage to live here they were confined to small, neglected, sometimes hazardous areas of town, including the wartime town of Vanport in NE Portland, which was subject to a massive flood in 1948). The small number of people of color who do exist in Portland today are either in prison, detained in the ICE building just south of downtown, or gradually being pushed out of the city by processes of gentrification.
None of this is a coincidence, and all Portlanders who consider themselves "progressive" or committed to social justice must own and examine these facts, and begin to dismantle their underlying causes. As I said above, whatever might be lost in such a process (personal comfort, security; massive disparities in wealth, health, and living conditions) is absolutely minuscule compared to what we all have to gain: a profound sense of connection with others and with ourselves that is not based on exclusion, repression, and erasure. These, I suggest, are the underlying effects of whiteness, and they are killing us all.
My hope for this course is that it will help to stop and repair some of that harm.
Interrogating Whiteness: An American Unstory is a four-week course held on Tuesday nights, starting February 4. Let us know what questions you have or join us.