Colorblindness and Epistemological Mechanisms of White Ignorance

• In Event: 050 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Paper Session. The Mechanisms of Color-Blind Racism

Abstract

Prevailing theories suggest colorblindness works by ideologically rationalizing racism and white supremacy in everyday white discourse; and because of this whites’ tend to perform acts of (or remain passive bystanders to) everyday racism, even when they are well-meaning and intend to be “non-racist”. Thus, to the extent that white people, when they are “not knowing,” continue to socially reproduce systemic racism through their micro-level behaviors, white ignorance is a central theoretical and practical concern. I argue that a more central problem than white ignorance is whites’ epistemological commitment and active cultural role in themselves producing not knowing. Specifically, I contend that everyday whites engage in processes of active social-cognitive work that foreclose (if possible) and (when foreclosure is unavailable) distort the outcomes of knowledge production to bypass racial awareness. Furthermore, my data suggest that on some occasions when whites “accidentally” know that which they typically are able to avoid knowing, they will at times do nothing less than explicitly plan to disregard or forget. This willful ignorance is fundamentally connected to whites’ desires to maintain the material benefits that attach to whiteness. My data suggest that while whites may prefer to secure the material benefits of whiteness with psychic covers that mystify the work of racial domination and oppression embedded in their actions, some may take up everyday racism without psychic protections if need be.

Author

• Jennifer C. Mueller, Skidmore College