Under the Edifice of Whiteness. Power, Knowledge, and the Tradition of Perceptual Pathology: or, On Being Willfully Deceitful

• In Event: Race, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Education

Abstract

This paper engages in historical traveling to examine the socio-political and epistemological project of whiteness. Starting with the current assaults on critical race theory (CRT), this paper traces the longue durée of “epistemicide.” Focusing on various historical periods, I illuminate the patterned practice of knowledge suppression and the instigation of culture and ideological wars by practitioners of white dominance. By historicizing the current attacks on CRT, I lay bare an aspect of the political project of whiteness and argue that such a project, at base, is not only about “ideas,” but also the conserving, maintenance, and reproduction of white supremacy and social hierarchies.

Author

• Kevin Lawrence Henry, University of Wisconsin-Madison