renouncing whiteness

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Sun Nov 26 10:15:02 PST 2000


James Heartfield:
> ...
> You need to put the demand in its context. The overwhelming attitude of
> the middle class intelligentsia is precisely one of apologetics. In that
> context the demand for the renunciation of whiteness could not be
> anything but apology. And after all, isn't that what 'renunciation'
> means - just as the church demands that one renounces sin.
> ...

Renouncing sin is very different from feeling guilty about it. The second might be a step toward the first, or it might just be pissing in bed. The purpose of a profession of guilt is often precisely to avoid doing anything substantial about the issue in question.

I think the way one would get White people to renounce Whiteness would be show them that there was something better than Whiteness. The only way I can think of doing this is to go to the underlying class war, which I think resonates and drives the construction of Whiteness. Some less fundamental remedies are objectively possible, I suppose, but there don't seem to be enough White people interested in them to get anything done; and in any case the energy of the class war will simply produce other social pathologies.



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