"So what if you didn’t intend to?”: How Critical Race Hermeneutics Reinterprets the Racist Ish People Say and Do

• In Event: Ain’t You Tired: Critical Race Hermeneutics as Clap Back

Abstract

Objectives
Often employed when identifying enactments of racism is the “I didn’t intend to” justification. Though seemingly minute, it is, with regards to a critical study of whiteness (see Zembylas & Matias, 2023), a precise maneuver of whiteness which was historically and legally employed to thwart culpability of one’s participation in racism. It is as if simply saying “I didn’t intend to” is enough to assuage one’s participation in racist acts. This maneuver, although seemingly benign, is indeed tactful and legally rooted because never in U.S. legal history is intent the sole factor in convicting cases. Rather, proving intent in court proceedings, determines the severity of punishment; not necessarily a component when determining one’s wrongdoing. Clearly, intent does not matter in legally determining someone broke the law.

However, intent is a vital factor in racial discrimination cases. That is, in order to be convicted for wrongdoing of racism, prosecution must prove that such actions or discourse were intended to be racist. Herein, lies the problem. All one needs to do to be scot free of their racist behaviors is to claim “I didn’t intend to” which makes this phraseology a strategic maneuver of whiteness because its utterance legally absolves them of their racism. This theoretical paper takes to task this phraseology and how it reifies whiteness, and its superior mechanism, white supremacy in education and society. Using this phraseology as a gross exemplar, this paper ultimately answers, “What is the role of intention in the work towards racial justice?”

Theoretical Framework
To answer this research inquiry this paper theoretically applies a critical study of whiteness (see Matias & Boucher, 2022) whereby one of its founding principles is to acknowledge the impact of expressed whiteness on Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). This approach is befitting to this particular case because as one engages in the phraseology of “I didn’t intend to” the paper can then reinterpret how that said utterance impacts BIPOC and attempts towards racial justice. Thus, as Matias & Boucher (2022) notes, applying a critical study of whiteness to this particular case will reveal the interconnectivity of enacted white racial power and its impact on the oppression of people of color.

Methods
Because this reinterpretation needs a methodological analytic tool that can reveal the oft subtle, moreover subconscious, ways whiteness operates I employ Allen’s (2021) critical race hermeneutics (CRH) because it “reveal[s] how white supremacist ideology shapes the unconscious” (p. 22). For this particular study, investigating this phraseology (its naturalization) helps us understand how it ultimately reinforces whiteness ideology. Thus, CRH is fortuitous because it ferrets out the subconscious ideologies of whiteness that is often taken for granted.

Conclusion
Per the conference theme, to repair and remedy for racial justice, it becomes necessary to investigate mechanisms that, despite their well meaning intentions, still counters the goals of racially just education; lest succumb to the normalcy of whiteness. Regardless of whether one intended to or not, educators still need to recognize the racist ish people do.

Author

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of San Diego