"Whiteness and the Historical Imagination" - 30 November - NY

[James Heartfield]

In message <p0510030eb81e0b70e414@[192.168.1.100]>, Doug Henwood 
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>James Heartfield wrote:
>
>>
>>I have this uncomfortable feeling that the natural trajectory of the 
>>academic discourse on 'whiteness' is that someone will start to argue 
>>that the white identity was not all bad, and that it ought to be 
>>recuperated. White guilt, white persecution complex, white megalomania 
>>... it's just one long slippery slope.
>>
>>Better to insist upon the universalist goal of an all-embracing 
>>humanism, I say.
>
>Do you object to the study of the emergence of whiteness? Its 
>maintenance? Of whiteness at all? Of the creation and maintenance of 
>race in general?

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am in favour of all study. The sooner these 
things get clarified out, the better.

But my instincts say that the concept of 'whiteness' (as opposed to say 
'racism') will tend to make whiteness into a virtue, where it starts out 
to criticise it. In this country the British National Party (far-right 
cranks) already are trying to re-package their racism as a concern for 
cultural identity.

I guess I do disapprove of whiteness per se, in so far as I want to see 
rid of the racialisation of people's lives.

-- 
James Heartfield