Confession as a Frame for Understanding White Queer Engagement With Racism

• In Event: Bridging the Rainbow Gap: Exploring Tensions and Possibilities in Queer Studies in K–12 and Higher Education

Abstract

We observe in the form and process of how people engage in conversations about racism, even and perhaps especially in queer spaces, something of the archetype of confession. We observe patterned behavior that takes the same basic form over and over again: The topic of racism and anti-Blackness is brought up. White people recite a litany of penitence: they confess the historical harms that have been inflicted, the ways that fields and organizations are involved, and, importantly, confess their own privilege and their sorrow at experiencing that privilege. It’s a familiar form. “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we have from time to time most greviously committed… provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us… forgive us all that is past.” There is a performance (in the sense of performativity as non-referential speech acts) of grief, of sorrow - and importantly, a statement of the burden this sin imposes on the sinner. “The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us.” In the religious rite of confession or penitence, the confessor offers absolution on behalf of the divine. Who, in academic settings, is being asked to absolve, and on behalf of whom? This structured and repeated speech act is a particular cultural signifier, and one that imposes the expectation of absolution on those present. But, not on everyone present. In fact, the speech act usually includes a recognition of the fact that the other white people in attendance are not positioned to offer absolution. In fact, what this does is impose on people of Color hearing the confession an expectation that they will react with absolution. In other words, it makes people of Color the confessors, and other white people in attendance spectators. Who, then, are the confessors offering absolution on behalf of? They are asked, and in fact required, to offer absolution on behalf of all oppressed people. And notably, they are asked to relieve the burden and pain that white people experience and express at their own privilege and racism. This imposition of an expectation of absolution is, in a sense, a very real act of violence. It is one that is so scripted and so deeply engrained in societal forms of relation that people do it without much thought or reflection. It is not that they do so unconsciously or without realizing. Further, there is an orthodoxy to our Queer discourses in education spaces that potentially mire us—without critical examination—in UnQueer progress. We attempt to unpack these orthodox approaches as “liturgies” in educational discourse and offer ways to push on and Queer such “heterodoxy.”

Authors

• A Longoria, Western Washington University
  Presenting Author

• Kamden Strunk, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author

• Kachine S. Kulick, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Non-Presenting Author