BELL HOOKS

Representations
of Whiteness in
the Black
Imagination
KILLING RAGE. ENDING RACISM (1995)
THE BOOK
23 ESSAYS
TITLE: ANGER FOR THE EVERYDAY
PRACTICES OF RACISM
BLACK FEMINISM PERSPECTIVE

Topics: Psychological trauma among

African Americans; interacial friendship,
anti-Semitism and racism; internalized
racism in movies and the media.
"Disquieting and uncomfortable at
others" (IBR 1996)
THIS STILL HAPPENS

"They believe that all ways of looking that

highlights difference subverts the
LIBERAL conviction that it is the assertion
of universal subjectivity (we are all just
people)" (p. 32)
The dangers of the myth of <<sameness>>
Topics of the essay

NOTION OF WHITNESS How to theorize about it? Experience vs

knowledge.

INVISBILITY Objectification: lack of capacity to see,

observe, gaze as affirmation of subjectiviy.

REMAIN Whiteness as the norm, the goodness,

superiority
UNREPRESENTED

TRUE IMAGES Terrorizing, stereotypical, terrorist,

colonizer, Other, trauma/imprint (historical
research)
THE JOURNEY TOPOI
THE BURDEN OF MEMORY, THE DEBRIS OF HISTORY -
LINKS WITH "POLITICS OF LOCATION"

Theorizing black experience: "We seek to uncover, restore, as well as

to deconstruct, os that new paths, different journeys are possibe"
(p.34)
Denounces the ignorace of their history, culture, etc.. (Itabari Njeri)
Conservative reluctance to move from fixed locations
Escape from history (Baldwin)
US - THEM
A MATTER OF UNDERSTADING?

Repudiating "us and them" dichotomies

Process of repositioning as a way of
dissociating the negative cultural
background
Decolonize our minds and imaginatiosn
(splitting whiteness from terror)
 Homogenoeus notion of
whiteness: In whom it is
embodied? Class, gender,

QUESTIONS
sexuality issues

AND White privilege vs

advantage (Rose and Roedinger,
white

COMENTS 2018) How to deal with it without

recentering those who do have
both?
PROPHETIC VOICE?
Is it actually possible to
overcome the category of race?
Or what are the risks of the
"sameness paradigm"?
THANKS FOR YOUR
ATTENTION
[ADDITIONAL] SOURCES

"Whiteness in the times of Trump"

by Tricia Rose and David Roedinger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96m8FzPkUIc&t=2917s

"Wages of whiteness"
by David Roediger , 1991

Killing rage
bell hooks , 1995