Writers and thinkers from Lauren Berlant to Jeff Chang explore the
power structures, the "neutrality" and the frailty of whiteness
Cofounded in 2017 by authors Claudia Rankine and Beth Loffreda, the
Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII) is an interdisciplinary collective of
artists, writers, knowledge-producers and activists. The institute's
historic 2018 symposium "On Whiteness" convened a dazzling array of
thinkers, artists and activists. The essays that resulted from the
event, collected here, seek to examine whiteness as a source of often
unquestioned or even unobserved power, and make visible variations of
this dangerous ideology that has been intentionally positioned as
neutral.
In our current moment, whiteness is freshly articulated: as a source of
unquestioned power, and as a "bloc," it feels itself endangered even as
it retains its hold on power. Given that the concept of racial hierarchy
is a strategy employed to support white dominance, whiteness is an
important aspect of any conversation about race.
The essays in On Whiteness make visible what has been intentionally
presented as inevitable to help the move forward into more revelatory
conversations about race. They question what can be made when we
investigate, evade, beset and call out "bloc whiteness."
Contributors include: Linda Alcoff Martín, Lauren Berlant, Sadhana
Bery, Daniel Borzutzky, Jane Caflisch, Jeff Chang, Aruna D'Souza, Lori
Gruen, Saidiya Hartman, Nell Painter and Doreen St Félix.
