1nc vdebate--afropess

8/18/2019 1nc vDebate--afropess

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1nc


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I grew up in the south, specifcally, Cabot, Arkansas. This not

only shaped but distorted my sociocultural understanding o

the world, as my hometown has and will continue to exude

whiteness, its historical oundation were constituted rom a

white!ight suburb ormulated rom the !eet o whites

attempting to distance themsel"es rom the impending

segregation in the #ittle $ock %chool &istrict. The population

o '(,))) people is comprised o *+.+- Caucasian people,

and has the rd highest median income in Arkansas. /y town

continues to be one o racial and gender plight, wherein

people who de"iate rom normalcy are lost in the cracks o the

social order. I belie"e that I am pri"ileged to not be condemned

by ci"il society, to be interpellated as part and parcel with the

ma0ority. I am pri"ileged to ha"e been brought up in such a

rich county, one that can aord to subsidi2e my extracurricularendea"ors, e"en when I go at a fnals bid tournament. I am

pri"ileged to be able to debate, to not ha"e to work ) hours a

week to pro"ide or my amily while simultaneously attempting

to pass high school. I am pri"ileged. This is a reali2ation that

has come to my attention, that my understanding o this world

and its surrounding counterparts are distorted and ormulated

through a lens o white settler pri"ilege made possible by an

insidious concoction o settler colonialism and whiteness. It3s

something that I ha"e to remain cogni2ant o, that when myparents exclaim that the political let makes up the sissies o

the population that people need to 0ust toughen up, that their

oppression isn3t real, that we li"e in a postracial society, that

4All#i"es/atter. I ha"e to remember that racism and pri"ilege

permeate e"ery aspect o my existence, that 0ust or being

born a straight white male that I will ne"er experience

atrocities that red, black, brown, trans, 5ueer or eminine

bodies ha"e to experience on a daily basis. That not only am I

pri"ileged o"er people but that I experience the world

dierently. That I will ne"er know what it is like to be looked at

like your body is intimately a concealed weapon, to know what

it eels like to be racially profled, because all I know is

whiteness. Collin and I belie"e that conrontation o pri"ilege

is crucial to dismantling structures o oppression because

institutions are inormed by the people, our daily complicity to


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contingencies that reproduce pri"ilege makes us not only

complicit but willingully able to sub0ugate entire populations

in order to taste the wonders o pri"ilege. It3s why a6rm a

more locali2ed politics 7 call it body politics. 8e think that

debate should be moti"ated by a 5uestioning o your social

location and how your indi"idual positioning within society

gi"es way to larger structures that make lie so miserable or

so many. 8e also belie"e that9

Their :xternali2ation o "iolence onto an alternate actor

abdicates our culpability with maniestations o "iolence.;A


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part o! the circumstances 5and by whom98% hus in the case o! se#ual o*enders, there is a routine search - on thepart o! the tabloid press or pro!essionals o! violence - !or e#periences o! violence in the o*ender%s own past, anunderstanding which is rapidly solidi!ying in scienti/c model o! a $cycle o! violence%& hat is, the relevant !actors aresought in the distant past and in other conte#ts o! action, e a crucial !actor in the present conte#t is ignored,namely the agent%s decision to act as he did& ven politically oppositional groups are not immune to thismainstream sociologi(ing& Some le!t groups have tried to e#plain men%s se#ual violence as the result o! classoppression, while some 'lack theoreticians have e#plained the violence o! 'lack men as the result o! racist

oppression& he ostensible aim o! these arguments may be to draw attention to thepervasive and structural violence o! classism and racism, yet they not only ail tocombat such ine5uality, they acti"ely contribute to it & ;lthough such oppression is a

very real part o! an agent%s li!e conte#t, these $e#planations% ignore the !act that not everyonee#periencing the same oppression uses violence, that is, that these circumstancesdo not $cause% violent behaviour& hey overlook , in other words, that the perpetratorhas decided to violate , even i! this decision was made in circumstances o! limitedchoice& o overlook this decision , however, is itsel! a political decision, serving particularinterests& n the /rst instance it serves to e#onerate the perpetrators, whose responsibility isthus trans!erred to circumstances and a history !or which other people 5who remainbeyond reach9 are responsible &

8hiteness is a social location o pri"ilege that maintains its

regime by controlling means o resistance 7 positing racism as

structural neglects that it was made structural by the people 7

resistance that begins without 5uestioning ones social location

ensures perpetual ailure and entrenches whiteness.

>lagg +


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White identities within non-White racial groups& Whiteness constructs itsel!& +ohn powell e#plores theresilient, adaptively persistent character o! Whiteness& 'eginning with the observation that racial boundaries are so /rmlyconstructed that we rarely go beyond them even in our dreams, he traces the history o! the delineation o! Whiteness and the racialother, emphasi(ing the ways in which Whiteness continually realigns and sustains itsel!& powell concludes with the suggestion thatt is clear that the solution to whiteness will not arise within a worldview or a sel! view based on separation& Qudy Scales-rent alsoe#plores the boundaries that Whiteness erects around itsel!& She describes the practice o! cousinage in Senegal, which, byconstructing /ctive blood relationships, creates communities and de!uses potential conLict among otherwise distinct ethnic groups&

his practice treats as related those who really are not& Scales-rent compares it to the situation in ;merica& When White ;merica

had to decide how to de/ne children with both 'lack and White parents, it decided that they would be 'lack & & & not White, and notboth& hus, as she notes hauntingly, white ;merica & & & made a very di*erent political decision the decision to create war!arebetween the black and white groups by making believe that real !amilies do not e#ist& Whiteness also determines who is 'lack,=atino, ;sian, or Native& Oebecca sosie asks who owns Native identity8 and e#plores the role the concept o! indigeneity plays incontestations over Native ownership o! political and cultural rights, land, ancestral human remains, and genetic resources& .eranalyses reveal that indigeneity itsel! !re2uently is co-opted by those with discursive authority, a group that rarely i! ever includesNative people themselves& hus, sosie remarks, he term %indigenous% has become a trope to argue !or a broader entitlement torights among various groups in society&What is missing in all o! this is an ethic o! respect !or Native values, identities andnarratives, and the core concepts within Native epistemologies& 'eyond racial categories themselves, Whiteness deeply impactsthe content o! non-White racial identities& Qohn 6almore describes the demands Whiteness makes on him, a 'lack man&

3nderstanding 'lack identity as per!ormance, 6almore notes that white per!ormance was [and is] the 2uidpro 2uo !or white privilege& hough !ew people o! color can insulate themselves !rom[the] inLuence [o! dominant Whiteness], 6almore advocates a transgressive per!ormance people o!color must not rein!orce white privilege through our attachment to it & Rerald orres e#ploresthe ways in which 6hicana !eminists challenge 6hicano machismo as a reinscription o! racism& n this analysis, resistance to male

supremacy within the 6hicana community is theori(ed, as a strategic matter, as the same as resistance to White supremacy& romthis perspective, Whiteness in/ltrates the construction o! the 6hicano male within the 6hicano community" it there!ore must beinterrogated& Whiteness and Oesources?ubr ?P ; second metaprivilege o! Whiteness enables it to set the terms on which valuableresources are allocated& .elen Boore e#plores the problem o! testing while 'lack Whiteness controls who tests, what is tested,and how tests are administered and interpreted& Standardi(ed tests are well known to be Lawed they produce mutable scores,reLect cultural biases, and are invalid markers o! learning" moreover, test taking itsel! is a culturally speci/c process& he invalidscience o! assessment currently in wide use inscribes Whiteness as the standard o! educational success" it is embedded in and

rein!orced by and through the No 6hild =e!t 'ehind legislation& Whiteness and 6ultural Narrative Whiteness generatesuni2uely White narratives that become de/nitive cultural stories& 7avid Ooediger e#aminessel!-representation practices o! historically white colleges and universities that appropriate images o! persons o! color to advanceWhite ob+ectives& ;t the 3niversity o! Wisconsin, !or e#ample, an image o! a 'lack student was superimposed on an otherwise all-White scene, in an attempt to portray racial diversity& .ere the authoritative narrative o! sel!-representation obscures thee#clusionary past and present o! such institutions& hus diversity itsel! serves the hidden interests o! Whiteness& om Oosse#plores the Whiteness o! the cultural narrative concerning September 11, >1, as it has developed in the presence o! a decliningWhite population and against the backdrop o! racially-laden nationalist narratives associated with Qohn .arlan and heodoreOoosevelt& .e observes that the essential !ace o! the victims was White, and notes that in conse2uence the su*ering o! thoseoutside the narrative o! H?11 has receded even !urther !rom the public consciousness& he story o! September 11--the attack onus--is one that reLects 2uintessentially White an#ieties and uncertainties& Whiteness and Trivilege?ubr ?P Stephanie Wildmaninterrogates the persistence and resilience o! White privilege& n addition to material !orces that both constitute and shore up White

privilege, Wildman identi/es !our sociocultural !actors that help account !or the continuede#istence o! White privilege& hey include the ability o! Whites to control the cultural discourse o! racial e2uality--colorblindness rhetoric and individual-group sleight o! hand--as well as Whites% sociali(ation to, and insistence upon, social

preeminence& Whites operate within a com!ort (one that renders Whiteness normal & ;ndwhen displaced, Whites o!ten employ strategies that reinstate Whiteness at the center& .ere the metaprivilege o!Whiteness resides in the absence o! awareness o! White privilege that Wildman notes&Whiteness does not acknowledge either its own privilege or the material andsociocultural mechanisms by which that privilege is protected & White privilege itsel!becomes invisible & Whiteness as Betaprivilege?bbr ?P Whiteness is not only an identity, but the power to name and shapeidentities& Whiteness not only has control o! valuable resources, but has the ability to limit access to those resources to those who

reLect its own image& Whiteness not only constitutes a distinct perspective on events, but has the authority to generate de/nitivecultural narratives& ;nd Whiteness not only is a set o! unearned privileges, but the capacity to disguise those privileges behindstructures o! silence, obs!ucation, and denial& Whiteness creates, and e#ists within, a conceptual !ramework in which human agencyis presented as absolute, the individual is the constitutive unit o! agency, and White antiracist work is understood to be optional&Seemingly creating a space !or meaning!ul trans!ormation o! White race consciousness, these a#ioms o! Whiteness constitute coremetaprivileges o! Whiteness, and they provide a /nal layer o! de!ense in the maintenance o! White supremacy& Whiteness Tresents.uman ;gency as ;bsolute?ubr ?P n one sense, this is so& .uman action is not !ully determined by conditions e#ternal to the actor&.owever, agency e*ectuates itsel! within sets o! conditions that constrain, o!ten severely, even i! they do not entirely control& husagency is a comple# amalgam o! possibilities and constraints, material and ideological conditions and conse2uences& ;gency is aLuid phenomenon, con!orming like hot glass to !orms impressed upon it by societal structures& n its congealed !orm, agency is at

once determined by and determinative o! dominance and subordination& Whiteness Tosits the ndividual as the3nit o! .uman ;gency?ubr ?P So understood, the individual is not responsible !or what he or


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she has not brought into being , and thus systemic dominance and subordination arebeyond the scope o! 5individual9 moral obligation& .owever, the notion o! responsibility envisioned byWhite privilege is 2uite a shallow one& ;s Qoyce rebilcot has e#plained, one can adopt a larger notion o! responsibility, e#empli/edby the phrase to take responsibility !or Notice /rst that to take responsibility !or a state o! a*airs is not to claim responsibility !orhaving caused it& So, !or e#ample, i! take responsibility !or cleaning up the kitchen am not thereby admitting to any role increating the mess" the state o! the kitchen may be the conse2uence o! actions 2uite independent o! me& & & & n taking responsibilitya woman chooses to make a commitment about a speci/c state o! a*airs& Similarly, Whites can take responsibility !or the systemicmaintenance o! White supremacy& Whiteness Sees White ;ntiracist Work as Mptional?ubr ?P ! the individual human agent isabsolutely !ree to act or not, and to choose the !orms o! action that are to be undertaken, no particular act is inevitable& n thissense, White people can elect whether or not to engage in action that contributes to the dismantling o! White supremacy& .owever,because choice is socially structured, meanings attributed to action by any particular actor are not dispositive, nor areinterpretations ascribed by White privilege& he social signi/cance o! choices made by Whites is socially given, so that neither thematerial or ideological conse2uences o! chosen acts are !ully determined by Whiteness& Whites do not absolutely control the

character o! antiracist work& he ;#ioms o! Whiteness 6ontribute to the Baintenance o! White Supremacy?ubr ?P heconception o! individuali(ed responsibility adopted by Whiteness enables Whites to evade engagement with systemic structures o!

racial in+ustice& irst, Whites can claim not to be responsible !or systemic oppression & or e#ample,the rhetoric o! White innocence that is !eatured prominently in the debate over a:rmative action presupposes thatthere is no individual responsibility !or the societal conditions and normative choicesthat e#clude all but a disproportionately small number o! people o! color !rominstitutions such as contracting and higher education&

This process o upholding particular sub0ects maniests itsel in

debate 7 this acti"ity is constituted on the basis o the liberal

eacing o particular sub0ects, it3s historical success is

ounded on the exclusion o minorities and the sacrali2ation o

the pri"ileged.

$eid?rinkley 1'< 57r& Shanara < /rst black woman director o! debate, smarter than u, pro!essor o!communications at Tittsburg 3niversity, interview conducted by Scott Mdekirk, >?1G?1>,

http??puttingthekindebate&wordpress&com?>1>?4?>?the-dr-shanara-reid-brinkley9??kbuck

6ause had a bunch o! white !riends in debate& So, all these white people were like coming at me UShanara, donVtlike it, Vm sure you arenVt gonna like itV they were +ust indignant& ;nd, so, was like Awhat then8 why all these whitepeople indignant8C hat was my reaction& By reaction was not Athey canVt say that about black debatersC my

reaction was like Awhy are all these white people tripping8C So came to a tournament, and watcheda little bit o! the a!ter =i( and anya =ouisville show, and 7even was really young at this point, but at owson& ;nd

started looking at it, and went back and looked at some o! the =oiusville !ootage, and was like, Uoh its veryobvious o! whats happening here& 'lack people are talking about race, white peopleare uncom!ortable& ;nd what was very interesting to me, is that the liberal white people werethe most uncom!ortable& hese are people that considered allies, right8 ;nd !or them to be having thisreaction to these students, was like Usomething is going on here&V ;nd so, as looked at the situation what began

to reali(e was how, in terms o! whiteness, and masculinity, and class privilege !unctions

in debate, is that we have an ideal& Oight, an ideal debater that has to do with speed ,and ability to argue, and very !ast and e:cient line-by-line debating& 'ut, itVs more than that&'ecause all o! those technologies that we identi!y as success in our community areattached to certain bodies& Oight8 So i! our history o! success looks like white men with money, right8 hen the very ideal o! what success!ul debate looks like is white men with money &


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8e begin with a 5uestioning o the topic@a criticism o how we

ormulate and flter in relations o power through externali2ed

sur"eillance@this ga2e neglects the act that sur"eillance is no

longer institutional because power is exerted "ia cultural

empowerment@the internali2ation o powers ga2e and the

adherence to normati"e interpretations o the acceptable

western lay the groundwork or a process o selsur"eillance,

the policing o your de"iations rom powers notion o the white

sub0ect.

a2 and ?runo 5Taulo )a( < siting Scholar at the 7epartment o! 6ommunication at the 3niversity o! llinois at6hicago and ernanda 'runo < nstitute o! Tsychology at the ederal 3niversity o! Oio de Qaneiro, 5>G9 ypes o! Sel!-Surveillance!rom abnormality to individuals Uat riskV pgs& >>->I19??kbuck

n the vast literature on new techni2ues and practices o! surveillance, the panoptic tower looms large& t emerges asa central point o! comparison !rom which the singularities and social e*ects o! techni2ues as diverse as databases,virtual reality and 6losed 6ircuit elevision are evaluated 5'ogard, 1HH@" Randy, 1HHG" =yon, 1HH4, >1, >G"Norris and ;rmstrong, 1HHH9& We believe, however, that, besides the description o! the Tanopticon, other theoretical

propositions o! oucaultVs are help!ul in the study o! new practices and technologies o! surveillance& he snewsurveillance literatureVs !ocus on the Tanopticon may overestimate technological !eatures in the e#planation o!historical changes and e#cessively emphasi(e the surveillance o! UthemV upon UusV& Mne central tenet o! oucaultVs

conception o! power is that it cannot be located" it is e"erywhere and there!ore also inside us 5oucault,1HHb 1I9& Tower relations produce the sub+ect or, to be more precise, they instill in the individuals a historically determined relation with themsel"es 5Oose, 1HHH >4G9& n !act, any practice o!sur"eillance entails selsur"eillance as its historical counterpart and it is this simultaneity thataccounts !or the acceptance and legitimi(ation o! power relations& his article proposes anenlargement o! the concept o! sel!-surveillance& Sel!-surveillance is usually understood as the attention onepays to oneVs behavior when !acing the actuality or virtuality o! an immediate or mediated observation by otherswhose opinion he or she [they] deems as relevant < usually, observers o! the same or superior social position& 'ut

we propose to open the concept to include individualsV attention to their actions and

thoughts when constituting themselves as sub+ects o! their conduct& he enlargement o!the concept o! sel!-surveillance implies associating it with practices o! the care o!the sel! & hese practices re2uire the stipulation o! the part o! the individuals that must be cared !or and workedupon, a movement which corresponds to the production o! an ethical substance 5oucault, 1HIJ9& n other words ,

selsur"eillance is also based on the cultural postulation that certain

thoughts and actions are dangerous or unwholesome to the constitution o

the indi"idual as a sub0ect& rom the point o! view o! the practices o! the sel!, amenace is innocuous unless accompanied by cultural recommendations about themeans through which individuals are to con!ront and sub+ect the problematic part o! themselves& he delimitation o! an ethical substance comprises both constituting an internal danger andde/ning the practices !or containing it& .istorically, di*erent ethical substances are also related to distincte#pectations o! what one could be i! one acts as one should& ;s we shall see, an individual could hope to be a

normal citi(en in modernity or aim at a long and pleasurable li!e in our contemporary society& nlarging the concepto! sel!-surveillance also entails assuming that there is no neat line distinguishing power !rom care& he crucial point

is that individuals usually problemati2e their thoughts and behaviors through belie!s held as true intheir historical conte#t& .ence, those who e#ercise power attain legitimacy by presentingthemselves as helping us in caring or this part o oursel"es that threatensour constitution as sub0ects & ;!ter all, they only intend to prevent us !romstraying away !rom the UcorrectV path 5oucault, 1HHd9& Boreover, as the part o! the sel! thatdemands care is UproblematicV, oneVs constitution as a sub+ect entails an adversarial relation&ndividuals must struggle against themselves in order to act according to UtruthV


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5Niet(sche, 1H@I 4I-4I>9& Mnce again, i! belie!s depend upon the conte#t in which they aregenerated, struggling against the UproblematicV portion o! the sel! in order to actaccording to UtruthV can be viewed as behaving as a given culture e#pects one tobehave& his assumption o! the historicity o! the sub+ect e#plains the choice o! health-related contemporarypractices o! surveillance as our ob+ect o! investigation& Mur ma+or concern is in2uiring into the kind o! sub+ectivityproduced today by new practices o! surveillance& We will !ocus on the widespread practices o! sel!-surveillance

induced by the concept o! risk !actor, a concept constitutive o! contemporary medicine& Mur argumentation beginsby highlighting a theoretical di:culty !ound in the usual reading o! oucaultVs description o! the Tanopticon& hedi:culty lies in how to conceive the nature o! sel!-surveillance induced by the panoptic tower& We contend that sel!-surveillance does not depend only on an Ainvisible but unveri/ableC power 5oucault, 1HH p& >19, but also onnormali(ing +udgment& n the second section o! this article, centered on a discussion o! normali(ing power, we willstress a sparsely discussed element o! oucaultVs conception o! a UproductiveV power that o! the production in

reality o! an impersonated ethical negativity such as the delin2uent, the madman or the se#ual pervert& heseUdividing practicesV 5oucault, 1HHe G>@9 de/ne the part o! modern individuals that mustbe cared !or& Mur historical !ramework is the passage !rom norm to risk as the basic concept with whichwestern human beings problemati(e what they are and what they might be& he third section o! this article,Uli!estyle and sel!-controlV, provides evidence to sustain our diagnosis o! this historical change& t also situates ourperspective on the relevance o! risk in contemporary society in relation to the works o! 'eck, 7ouglas andoucauldian scholars discussing new practices o! government& n the !ourth section, Upidemiological riskV, wesuggest some historical lines o! development that account !or the relevance and sub+ective e*ects o! the concept o!

risk !actors in contemporary medicine& his section !ocuses on the creation o! a temporal gap between thediagnostic o! an illness?disease and its sub+ective symptoms& his gap opens up a space !or individualsV action in theshaping o! their !utures& he modern e#perience o! health-care implied that individuals started to care !or theirhealth only once they !elt sick& ;s this !eeling was the sub+ective aspect o! an impairment o! vital norms, individualsbecame patients and readily accepted restrictions in their behaviors in order to recover& oday, on the contrary,individuals accept restricting their behavior in order to care !or their health even and principally when theye#perience well-being& 6ontemporary medicine is producing the strange status o! individuals Uat riskV 5=upton, 1HHJ"Mgden, 1HHJ, Novas and Oose, >" Tetersen and 'unton, >>9, who can be viewed in !act as Upatients be!oretheir timeV 5Qacob, 1HHI 1>9& We will thus argue that the alleged ampli/cation o! individual capacity to determinethe shape o! their !uture constitutes, in !act, a limitation to our !reedom& n the concluding section, we will brieLyaddress the problem o! adopting a critical stance in which care and power are inseparable& ;ssuming the historicityo! care, we contend that a critical stance is made possible by acknowledging, /rst, that there are numerous ways inwhich human beings inhabit time and, second, that the !uture as risk undermines the !utureVs status as an alterityto the present, as a reserve !or imagination and hope& he Tanopticon and sel!-surveillance n order to argue !or theine#tricability o! power relations and care, it is use!ul to begin by 2uestioning a dystopic reading o! oucaultVs

depiction o! the Tanopticon& n this dystopic reading, it is possible to locate a separation between surveillance andindividual identity, a separation that is responsible both !or the emphasis on surveillance o! others and !or theradical separation between care and power& his dystopian reading suggests, !or instance, a pro#imity between thepanoptic tower and Reorge MrwellVs U'ig 'rotherC 5=yon, >1" Norris and ;rmstrong, 1HHH9& 'oth would supposedlybe watching over us all the time& 'ut what is the reason !or this persecutory apprehension o! the Tanopticon8 =etus, once again, present the architectural principles o! the Tanopticon& hrough an arrangement o! light and shadow,'entham conceived a semi-circular prison in which each inmate was placed in an individual lit cell visible !rom atower located at the center o! the semicircle& he high tower had windows !rom which a possible surveillant couldwatch every cell& hanks to an ingenious design o! these windows, no prisoner was able to ascertain i! he or shewas actually being observed or even i! there was anyone in the tower 5oucault, 1HH >9& he prisoners in thecells knew that they were always sub+ected to virtual observation without ever being able to con/rm its actuality& he ma+ority o! authors that deploys the panopticon as a historical background !or new surveillance techni2ues2uotes or rephrases passages in which oucault de/nes the ma+or e*ect o! the panoptic tower& Mne o!ten citedpassage re!ers to the ma+or e*ect o! the Tanopticon A5X9 to induce in the inmates a state o! conscious andpermanent visibility that assures the automatic !unctioning o! powerC 5oucault, 1HH >19& n another passage,

oucault wrote .e [sic] who [whoever] is sub+ected to a feld o "isibility, and who knows it,assumes responsibility or the constraints o power" he makes them playspontaneously upon himsel!" he inscribes in himsel! the power relation in which hesimultaneously plays both roles" he [theyB becomes the principle o his theirBown sub0ection 5oucault, 1HH >>9& he Tanopticon can be conceived as technology, /rst, because as anarchitectural arrangement, it substitutes human surveillance by an opa2ue but visible tower" and, secondly,

because it renders power automatic by promoting sel!-surveillance& he decisive 2uestion lies in howto conceive this sel!-surveillance& he nature o! the compliance with power rules and values is what is


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at stake here& We believe that the strange pro#imity between the Tanopticon and the A'ig-'rotherC is rooted in the understanding o! sel!-surveillance not as care o! the sel!, but assel!-monitoring 5=yon, >1 1149 or, as Norris and ;rmstrong ingeniously put it, as Ahabituated anticipatorycon!ormityC 5Norris and ;rmstrong, 1HHH @9& Tutting ourselves in the prisonersV situation may be the best way toshed light on the theoretical problems posed by these readings& What would it mean to comply with power throughAanticipatory con!ormityC8 We would certainly try to act according to what power e#pects !rom us, but we wouldonly do so because we would be aware o! the possibility o! being observed& We would act di*erently i! given theopportunity to escape powerVs eye& We would resemble Adocile bodiesC, but our docility would only be apparent, amask that we carried as long as we thought we were being observed& o put it di*erently, we would internali(epowerVs eye but we would not identi!y with its values& n reality, instead o! an un!olding o! ourselves inconsciousness and its ob+ect, our conduct, we would e#perience a three!old partition o! our interiority& We woulddistance ourselves !rom our behaviors and look at them with powerVs internali(ed eyes& .owever, there would be an

additional detachment a part o! ourselves constituted by our consciousness and desirewould be sheltered !rom powerVs eyes& 6oncretely, we would act considering thepossibility o! obser"ation and posterior punishment and ob0ectiy our conductaccordingly, but we would not believe that by acting thus we would be doing what is best !or us& Sel!-surveillance would be, in !act, e#perienced as surveillance o! an internali2ed, butidenti/ed, other upon us& he root o! the dystopic apprehension o! the panopticon is, then, theunderstanding o! sel!-surveillance as internali(ation without identi/cation& ! this is what oucault meant in

7iscipline and Tunish, we would have reason to e#perience disciplinary society as totalitarian& We would wishto live di*erently but we would be unable to do so because society would be aprison at large. Worse, i! contemporary practices o! surveillance are to be seen as an e#tension andintensi/cation o! the panopticon principles, we would be running the risk o! living in a totalitarian age today& hisinterpretation o! oucault is not totally absent o! grounds& here are moments in 7iscipline and punish in whichoucault appears to assert that modern individuals were constantly under powerVs surveillance& or e#ample, herhetorically asks his readers, As it surprising that prisons resemble !actories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which allresemble prisons8C 5oucault, 1HH >>I9 oucault also wrote that the Tanopticon was a diagram polyvalent in itsapplications, a pure !unction detached !rom any speci/c use and, thus, capable o! spreading throughout numerousinstitutions 5oucault, 1HH >J9& .owever, reading these passages as implying that Aanticipatory con!ormityC isdi*used through society is an easy but huge leap that collides !rontally with two main arguments put !orth by

oucault in his books and articles that power is not repressive, but productive" and that thesub+ect is historically produced& ;s an .acking would have it, these criti2ues o!

surveillance practices

through the lens o! the panopticon as Uanticipatory con!ormityV 5X9

leaveout the inner monologue, what say to mysel!& They lea"e out seldiscipline, what Ido to mysel & hus, they omit the permanent heartland o! the sub+ectivity& t is seldom!orce that keeps us on the straight and narrow" it is conscience 5.acking, 1HI@ >G@9& Terceiving that the thesis thatthe individual is the bearer o! power relations re2uires more than sel!-monitoring, some authors have pointed that

internali(ing powerVs eye also entails identi!ying with its values 5'ogard, 1HH@" Randy, 1HHG"Rilliom, >19& Randy, !or e#ample, indicates that there are A5X9 more sub+ective !orms throughwhich the individual actively participates in trans!orming himsel! or hersel! into adisciplinary sub+ectC 5Randy, 1HHG 19& Nonetheless, when e#plaining how this participation is induced, herecurs to Bary 7ouglasV suggestion that human beings have an e#traordinary readiness to !allinto socially produced slots 5Randy, 1HHG 19& t is clear that this recourse to a tendency to occupy slotsdoes not go very !ar in e#plaining how techni2ues o! surveillance may concur to the production o! sub+ectivity& he

connection between internali(ation and identi/cation hinges on the !unctioning o!the normali(ing +udgment& he reason !or this dependency may be contemplated through a religiousanalogy& ;s it is widely known, the principles o! the Tanopticon allow it to be !ramed in terms o! the topic o!seculari(ation& he panoptic tower can be viewed as a technological transposition o! the belie! in an omniscient andomnipotent Rod the inmates knew they could be observed any time and that power would be deployed in theoccurrence o! a transgression& 'ut i! the individualVs belie! is limited to this kind o! devious and seculari(edomniscience and omnipotence, the relation between the technological parody o! Rod and UitsV believers isconLicting& Rod must be also a Rod o! love, assuring the !aith!ul both that there is a reward !or their AgoodCbehavior and that .is path entails an intimate and sub+ective struggle& Teople have to believe that there is adisorienting !orce within them that could turn them into sinners unless they made an e*ort to con!ront it&


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ndividuals holding this belie! would be internally torn between Rod and the devil, between good and evilthroughout their lives 5Niet(sche, 1H@I J>I9& Normali(ing power ;lthough normali(ing +udgment can be understoodas an in!ra-penalty that partitioned an area that the law had le!t empty < the vast domain o! gestures, attitudes,2uotidian activities, tasks, discourses, uses o! time, habits, etc& < its real novelty resides in the !act that these

micro-penalties are not addressed so much at what one does, but at who one is 5oucault, 1HH 1I9& 'esidesconstructing the dangerous bridge between !act and value and thus associatingknowledge with power, the normali(ing +udgment also operates the passage !romaction to being , e#tracting !rom individualsV behavior the identity o! each andeveryone& he norm is an immanent law < an observed regularity and a proposedregulation 5oucault, 1HH 1H9& n schools, !or instance, the average time spent by students to conclude a taskis /rst observed and later becomes a rule those who are too slow !ail& his !ailure does not concern only theinobservance o! a rule" it also concerns the value o! individuals, con!erring upon those who have !ailed an identity

that can vary !rom the bad student to the abnormal& ;s oucault put it, A5&&&9 the disciplinary apparatuseshierarchi(ed the U good3 and Dbad3 sub+ects i n relation to one anotherC 5oucault, 1HH1I19& his Udividing practiceV must not be understood as only something that isimposed !rom the e#terior upon individuals & Mn the contrary, the classi/cation o! eachindividual along the polarity ranging !rom normal to abnormal achieves its goal i!it is active in the interior o indi"iduals, i! it makes them 0udge and concei"e

themselves according to this polarity & he passage !rom an immanent but e#ternalclassi/cation to an internali(ed normali(ing +udgment re2uires bringing intoe#istence an impersonated ethical negativity < the delin2uent and the Ushame!ulclassV o! the military school described in 7iscipline and Tunish or the se#ual pervert presented in he .istory o!Se#uality & he production in reality o! an impersonated ethical negativity is a ma+or tenet o! oucaultVs conceptiono! power because it directly contradicts its traditional, repressive conceptions& ! power were repressive, the actionsit tried to suppress as it spread throughout society would asymptotically tend to disappear !rom sight& .owever, asoucault asserted while describing the modern concern with the se#uality o! children he childVs UviceV was not somuch an enemy as a support" it may have been designated as the evil to be eliminated, but the e#traordinary e*ortthat went into the task that was bound to !ail leads one to suspect that what was demanded o! it was to persevere,

to proli!erate to the limits o! the visible and the invisible, rather than to disappear !or good& ;lways relying onthis support, power advanced, multiplied its relay and its e*ects, while its targete#panded, subdivided, and branched out, penetrating !urthe r into reality at the

same pace 5oucault, 1HI 4>9& his Uparado#icalV relation between modern power and its ob+ect is!oregrounded in 7iscipline and punish when oucault argues that the supposed !ailure o! the prison < the !act that itincreases recidivism and !orges the delin2uent < was part o! the general strategy o! disciplinary power& heproduction o! delin2uents by prisons legitimi(ed an increasing intervention o! the police in society instead o! a!ailure, it supported the propagation o! power& n addition, the e#istence o! delin2uents in reality was a means to

di*erentiate illegalities, to promote the perception o! some as AwrongC and typical o! UbadVpeople& hus, some !orms o! contestations o! capitalism, e#actly those that had a potential o! rapid anddangerous spread 5oucault, 1HH >I9, were deemed as Udelin2uencyV and, conse2uently, popular movements o!contestation re!rained !rom adopting them 5X9 he e#emplar e*ect once e#pected o! the spectacle o! the sca*oldwas now sought not so much in the rigor o! the punishments, as in the visible, branded e#istence o! delin2uencyitsel! while di*erentiating itsel! !rom other popular illegalities, delin2uency serves to keep them in check 5oucault,

1HH >H9& hese peripheral beings, these marginal and e#terior e#istences produced by power relations constituted the interiority o the Dnormal3 indi"iduals& ;s they tried to ascertain

their nature and value, they compared themselves to the incarnated abnormal& he normpossessed a !eedback mechanism i! a norm o! behavior comes to e#ist in reality, itis rein!orced by the !act that no one desires to be outside it 5.acking, 1HH J9&ndividuals, then, ear potential abnormality not only in others but also withinthemselves, and thus re!rain !rom doing what would characteri(e them, in their owneyes, as abnormal& he norm becomes the ob+ect o! individualsV desire instead o! beingonly e#ternally imposed& ;!ter all, where can the norm e#tract its value i! not !rom that which it tries to negate8 orinstance, where would the merits o! a se#uality con/ned to the limits o! genitality reside i! the pervert, as a UsickV


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soul with UrepulsiveV passions, did not e#ist in reality8 hrough the creation o! an impersonatedethical negativity and the subse2uent internali(ation o! potential abnormality byevery UnormalV individual, normali(ing power attains two ma+or e*ects& Mn one hand, the sub+ectionto powerVs ga(e and scrutiny is consented inso!ar as /gures o! power embody the!unctions o! caring and ensuring the UnormalityV o! those they watch over& Mn the

other hand, sel!-surveillance is part o! the necessary care o! the sel!, with this careassuming the !orm o! an e*ort to constitute onesel! as a normal citi(en& To makethe soul suer, rather than the body E>oucault, 1*(*F 1(*, 1G1H 7 this is

the logic o a power that , instead o repressing an ahistorical sub0ect,

constitutes a sub0ect that 0udges and condemns his or her own acts,

intentions, desires and pleasures according to Dtruths3 that are historically

produced & he su*ering o! the soul is not that o! a repressed consciousness, butone o! guilt, Ubad consciousnessV 5Niet(sche, 1H@I JJ9 its pain is e#perienced when moral !ailureresides in its deeds and sensations& Oisk, =i!estyle and sel!-control While presenting the perverse implantation in.istory o! Se#uality , oucault o*ers a clue on how to diagnose a ma+or historical change through trans!ormationsin speci/c social practices& n a regime o! power centered on legitimate alliances, the !ocus o! social dis2uiet !ellupon the se#uality o! the couple Athe se# o! husband and wi!e was beset by rules and recommendationsC5oucault, 1HI G9&

ndoing pri"ilege is about processo"erproduct 7 we must be

selre!exi"e as a means o destabili2ing our pri"ileged modes

o "iewing the world 7 this internally link turns their orm o

debate because pri"ilege warps and distorts our interactions

with others

Jancy G 5Reorge, Tro! o! Thilosophy at 7u2uesne 3niversity, Black bodies, whitegazes : the continuing signicance of race, p& >4@->49

conceptuali(e existential conversion in relation to whiteness as a constantafrmation o! new !orms o! responsiveness, new !orms o! challenging unearned privileges, and assiduousattempts at !ounding antiwhiteness values& ;!ter all, one has to live in the everyday world in which whiteness--despite one%s commitment to live one%s body in !reedom, that is, contrary to the e#pectations and ready-mademeanings that always already e#ist in the serious world o! whiteness-continues to be seductive& o live one%s bodyin !reedom there!ore does not mean that one lives one%s body outside various situational constraints and historical

!orces, but that one continues to achieve those sel- reexive moments that attempt todestabili2e "arious habituated white normative practices& .ence existentialcon"ersion, at least with respect to whiteness, must involve a sel-reexive way o being-in-the-world where the newcomer continually takes up the project odisafliation rom whitely ways o being, even as she undergoes processes o!interpellation& By point here is that as she lives her body in !reedom, as she challenges the white raciali(ed andracist world, its discourses and power relations, as she attempts to !orge new habits and new !orms o! sel!-knowledge, she does not live her body outside o! history& here is no nonracial ;rchimedean point !rom which shecan unsettle racism& .ence, while a process o! constant destabili(ation that cracks away at whiteness is

indispensable as a value and a !orm o! pra#is, there is the reali(ation that a cartography o! race would betterdescribe a white race traitor as %o* center,% that is, as destabili(ing the center while still remaining in it&,,@ So, evenas the newcomer conceivably e#tends her hand across the color-line, reaching out to the young W& & '& 7u 'ois,thus throwing her whiteness o* center and situates hersel! in that space o! liminality, she will, at some point, leavethe classroom and be thrown back into the serious world o! whiteness where the rich possibilities o! ambush are

covered over& 6oncerning the insidious !orms o! whitely modes o! being, Bailey's distinction

between privilege-cognizant and privilege-evasive white scripts proves

helpul & Within the !ramework o! this discourse, the newcomer must constantly rea:rm hercommitment to enacting a privilege-cogni(ant white script, that is, she must remain


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cogni(ant o! the ways in which she is privileged 5or privileges hersel!9 because o! her phenotypicwhiteness& ;ccording to 'ailey, privilege- cogni(ant whites are race traitors who re!use to animate the scriptswhites are e#pected to per!orm, and who are un!aith!ul to worldviews whites are e#pected to hold& ,&@I n this way,

privilege-cogni(ant whites are committed to doing whiteness di*erently& ,&@H ! race is constitutedthrough the repetition o! acts, verbal and nonverbal, that continue to communicatedi*erence, then whites must engage in counterstyli2ed iterati"e antiwhitely

acts& o t is not easy to discern the subtle and yet pervasive ways in which theideology o! whiteness prooundly distorts mutually Lourishing !orms o! human

relationality & 6ontesting the normative status o! whiteness means living in constant

struggle, always working with sel! and those around you& & & & t is a process that & & & [builds on]the notion that all bene/t when whiteness inLicts less violence [on] others in the world&Y, 'ut it is important tonote, in 'eauvoirian termsY that whiteness is like an inhuman [idol] to which one will not hesitate to sacri/ce allthat is o! valueY even the white body itsel!& here!oreY the serious world o! whiteness is a very dangerous world&

Whiteness makes tyrants out o! human beings& he white elides the sub+ectivity o! his [her]choice through the constitution o! whiteness as an absolute value that is being asserted through him [her]& hisis done at the e#pense o! white accountability & n this way, one is able to deny the sub+ectivityand the !reedom o! othersY to such an e#tent that, sacri/cing them to the [idol o! whiteness] means absolutelynothing& Mn this score, it is accurate to describe whiteness as a !orm o! !anaticism that is as !ormidable as the

!anaticism o! passion&,,> Whiteness as !anaticism occludes other voices !rom speakingY and

other bodies !rom being, and other ways o! re"ealing and perorming thedepths o! Y and the promises inherent inY human reality as homo possibilities& So, don%t be!ooled& Whiteness is not the best that history has to o*er& his conclusion signals the historical bankruptcy o!whiteness as an ethical e#emplar, the problematic sel- certainty and narcissism owhiteness, the historical contingency o! whitenessY and the possibility !or new and nonhegemonichermeneutic hori(ons&

In response to this, Collin and I a6rm a process o intralocality7 a 5uestioning o the topological ormation that gi"es way to

structures o oppression. The 5uestion the 1=C is begs is how

are we complicit with structures o power that produce

insidious orms o oppression like whitenessK

/oore 11 57arnell =&, writer and activist whose work is in!ormed by anti-racist,!eminist, 2ueer o! color, and anti-colonial thought and advocacy& 7arnell%s essays,social commentary, poetry, and interviews have appeared in various national andinternational media venues, including the eminist Wire, bony maga(ine, and he.u:ngton Tost, Mn =ocation he AC in the ntersection,

http??the!eministwire&com?>11?1>?on-location-the-i-in-the-intersection?9 he most general statement o! our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committedto struggling against racial, se#ual, heterose#ual, and class oppression and see as our particular ask thedevelopment o! integrated analysis and practice based upon the !act that the ma+or systemso! oppression are interlocking& he synthesis o! these oppressions creates the conditions o! our lives& ;sblack women we see black !eminism as the logical political movement to combat the mani!old and simultaneousoppressions that all women o! color !ace& -he 6ombahee Oiver 6ollective in ; 'lack eminist StatementZ Banyradical movement builders are well-versed in the theory o! intersectionality& eminists, 2ueer theorists and activists,critical race scholars, progressive activists, and the like owe much to our 'lack !eminist sisters, like he 6ombahee


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Oiver 6ollective, who introduced us to the reality o! simultaneity


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imagined and advanced , it seems to me that we would need to start at adi&erent location than we mightVve e#pected sel ,

8hiteness maintains its coherence by naturali2ing internali2ed

domination 7 in order to combat oppression we must begin

with selre!exitity;ray 1 < 5Kel - works out o! a =R';^ youth center in Thilly, 1-1>-1J, A0ourinternali(ed dominance is showing a call-in to white !eminists who believe that_alllivesmatterC, http??everyday!eminism&com?>1J?1?your-internali(ed-dominance-is-showing?9??kbuck

or the girls at camp, their race was a source o! pride and their e#periences with racism a source o! /ght built intotheir every breath& ;s my mom had taught me about being a girl, their moms had taught them about being blackgirls& began to tremble a bit as it came to my turn& canVt say Vm proud to be black because Vm not black& 'ut Vmwhite8 What does that mean8 Vm not proud o! thatX donVt think8 A.i, Vm Kelly, Vm proud Vm a girl, and Vm proud

have a guinea pig&C Well, that was that& , a group o! black lesbian!eminists by the name o! the 6ombahee Oiver 6ollectiveissued a statement that would become a core canon o!black !eminist thought and a re2uired te#t within intersectional !eminism& heir statement e#pressed that AXthema+or systems o! oppression are interlocking& he synthesis o! these oppressions creates the conditions o! ourlives&C n a lesser-cited e#cerpt, however, the 6ollective stated, AWe reali(e that the only people who care enoughabout us to work consistently !or our liberation are us&C We repeatedly hear the voices o! !eminists o! color callingout a persistent whitewashed !eminism that erases their e#periences as people o! color& his is not new& his has

been going on !or over a century& So where are the white anti-racist !eminists8 'ecause o! internali(eddominance, being marginali(ed in one way doesnVt necessarily translate to honoringthe marginali(ed e#perience o! those who are di*erent !rom you& Bore simply denti!ying

http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/white-privilege-explained/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/white-privilege-explained/http://diversity.tamu.edu/Dictionary/DisplayAllTerms.aspx#Ihttp://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/on-ferguson-and-4-ways-we-can-choose-to-divest-from-white-supremacy/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/income-vs-wealth/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/income-vs-wealth/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/income-vs-wealth/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/unlearning-patriarchal-lies/http://jezebel.com/the-myth-of-the-fag-hag-and-dirty-secrets-of-the-gay-ma-1506868402http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2013/01/10/on-azealia-banks-and-white-gay-cis-male-privilege/http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2013/01/10/on-azealia-banks-and-white-gay-cis-male-privilege/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://battymamzelle.blogspot.mx/2014/01/This-Is-What-I-Mean-When-I-Say-White-Feminism.html#.VKAyR8AA3Bhttp://everydayfeminism.com/2014/08/michael-brown-and-ferguson/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/08/michael-brown-and-ferguson/http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/07/28/women-of-color-and-feminism-a-history-lesson-and-way-forward/http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2014/02/18/trouble-with-white-feminism/https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen&src=typdhttps://twitter.com/search?q=%23SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen&src=typdhttp://www.blackpast.org/aah/combahee-river-collective-1974-1980http://www.blackpast.org/aah/combahee-river-collective-1974-1980http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.htmlhttp://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.htmlhttp://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/kimberl-crenshaw-intersectionality-i-wanted-come-everyday-metaphor-anyone-couldhttp://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/02/toxicity-true-story-mainstream-feminisms-violent-gatekeepers/http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/02/toxicity-true-story-mainstream-feminisms-violent-gatekeepers/http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2011/03/womens_suffrage_and_racism_ida_b_wells_vs_frances_e_willard.htmlhttp://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2011/03/womens_suffrage_and_racism_ida_b_wells_vs_frances_e_willard.htmlhttp://everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/white-privilege-explained/http://diversity.tamu.edu/Dictionary/DisplayAllTerms.aspx#Ihttp://diversity.tamu.edu/Dictionary/DisplayAllTerms.aspx#Ihttp://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/on-ferguson-and-4-ways-we-can-choose-to-divest-from-white-supremacy/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/income-vs-wealth/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/unlearning-patriarchal-lies/http://jezebel.com/the-myth-of-the-fag-hag-and-dirty-secrets-of-the-gay-ma-1506868402http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/2013/01/10/on-azealia-banks-and-white-gay-cis-male-privilege/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/08/racist-against-white-people/http://battymamzelle.blogspot.mx/2014/01/This-Is-What-I-Mean-When-I-Say-White-Feminism.html#.VKAyR8AA3Bhttp://everydayfeminism.com/2014/08/michael-brown-and-ferguson/http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/07/28/women-of-color-and-feminism-a-history-lesson-and-way-forward/http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2014/02/18/trouble-with-white-feminism/https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen&src=typdhttp://www.blackpast.org/aah/combahee-river-collective-1974-1980http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.htmlhttp://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/kimberl-crenshaw-intersectionality-i-wanted-come-everyday-metaphor-anyone-couldhttp://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/02/toxicity-true-story-mainstream-feminisms-violent-gatekeepers/http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2011/03/womens_suffrage_and_racism_ida_b_wells_vs_frances_e_willard.html


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with !eminism doesnVt mean that donVt perpetuate white supremacy \ and the same goes !or you& 6onsider this;s a !eminist, how many times have you heard the !ollowing8 Baybe i! women didnVt dress like that, they wouldnVtget se#ually assaulted& hatVs reverse se#ism& 0ouVre +ust a man hater& tVs not all about gender, you know& Womenare se#ist toward each other, too& Why donVt you ever talk about menVs issues8 Ben are victims to violence, too& canVt be se#ist& Vm a [marginali(ed identity]& 0ouVre +ust dividing people& Why are you so angry8 _Not;llBen imagine youVve heard at least one o! those things be!ore, i! not all& .ow did you respond8 .ow did you !eel8 ;s ananti-racist !eminist, how many times have you heard the !ollowing8 Baybe i! people o! color didnVt commit crimes,they wouldnVt get arrested& hatVs reverse racism& t sounds like you +ust hate white people& tVs not all about race,you know& Teople o! color are racist toward each other, too& Why donVt you ever talk about the struggles whitepeople !ace8 White people are arrested, too& canVt be racist& Vm a woman& 0ouVre +ust dividing !eminists& Why areyou so angry8 _;ll=ivesBatter Similarly, imagine youVve heard at least one o! those things be!ore, i! not all& .ow

did you respond8 .ow did you !eel8 See what happened there8 Mne marginali(ed identity does notimmuni(e us !rom internali(ing the dominance o! another& Without unlearning internali(eddominance, white !eminists can silence the e#periences o! people o! color +ust as men can silence the e#perienceso! women& Shi!ting oward a Sel!-;ware ;ccountability Bany anti-racist !eminists right!ully mistrust an anti-racismthat is outward looking < the type that believes that as a white !eminist, should learn about the e#periences o!

people o! color in order to help them& should promote diversity and inclusion& nstead, as a white !eminist, need to /rst study my white privilege, unlearn my internali(ed white supremacy,and emotionally connect to the ways in which perpetuate oppression & n sum hadthose eight !ree years o! color-ignorance, but itVs time learned about my whiteness& When commit to sel!-awareness, itVs not very hard to identi!y the ways in which my whiteness shows up in the world& or e#ample, can

emotionally connect to many times when men have spoken over me& #amining my whiteness, can also map thatemotional e#perience onto times when have spoken over people o! color& can emotionally connect to readingdisparaging statistics about communities belong to and wishing our strengths were publici(ed instead& #aminingmy whiteness, can also map that emotional e#perience onto a time when read disparaging statistics about acommunity o! color and attributed those statistics to the community itsel! & can emotionally connect to being calledangry and polari(ing !or speaking up around gender and cisse#ism& #amining my whiteness, can also map thatemotional e#perience onto a time where !elt a person o! color was being oppositional around race and racism& donVt !eel proud o! my whiteness, no& 'ut have to acknowledge my oppression and my capacity to oppress i! wantto inhabit a !eminism that truly dismantles not +ust my oppression, but also the whole thorny system o! oppression&What this means is that my accountability to anti-racism as a white person is as integral to my !eminism as genderitsel! is& Sometimes more so given the work o! unlearning must continue to do& Boving orward Bind!ully ! youhave come here to help me, you are wasting our time& 'ut i! you have come because your liberation is bound up

with mine, then let us work together& \;boriginal activist group, ueensland, 1Hs Mnly when we unlearnour internali(ed power and privilege do we emotionally connect to the shape-

shi!ting web o! oppression and /nd our uni2ue role in dismantling it & or white !eminists,we are well overdue to place a collective emphasis on noticing andlearning about our whiteness as it relates to ourdesire to be anti-racist& his isnVt +ust a call to learn about the uni2ue struggles encountered by women o! color in awhite supremacist society, but to really study your whiteness& his is the only way to genuinely address whiteprivilege in a way that lends itsel! to a humble and !ocused anti-racism& Study your words, your thoughts, your!eels& ind what is yours and what you have been taught& #amine the things that you !eel entitled to, or situationsin which you do not e#perience barriers& ;nd when you /nd your privilege is checked, or witness anotherresponding to their privilege being checked, notice the response& Speci/cally, have an honest conversation withyour heart and witness whether you e#perience the silencing tools o! oppression \ not only the ones that erase thelives o! women, but also the lives o! people o! color&

The ballot is a detachment rom modernity 7 a shit in

pedagogical interpretations o "iolence "ia perormati"epolitics that 5uestions daily complicity in power structures like

debate.

>assett and 8arren L < 57eanna =& - pro!& San Qose State, Qohn & - pro! 'owling Rreen ,ASubverting Whiteness Tedagogy at the 6rossroads o! Ter!ormance, 6ulture, and ToliticsChttp??works&bepress&com?deannaE!assett?11?9??kbuck

Students in our classes, which !ocus on communication and cultural?se#ual di*erence, per!ormance studies, andcommunication and the classroom, o!ten ask about the end o! political criti2ue\that is, to what !uture do we do this

http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/04/rape-culture-address-3-things/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/seeing-other-women-as-allies/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/seeing-other-women-as-allies/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/seeing-other-women-as-allies/http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/08/teen-girls-depression/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/anti-racist-isnt-code-for-anti-white/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/halloween-cupcakes/https://www.princeton.edu/~sociolog/ugrad/courses/fall1997/kelly_liebowitz.htmlhttps://modelviewculture.com/pieces/how-to-uphold-white-supremacy-by-focusing-on-diversity-and-inclusionhttps://modelviewculture.com/pieces/how-to-uphold-white-supremacy-by-focusing-on-diversity-and-inclusionhttps://modelviewculture.com/pieces/how-to-uphold-white-supremacy-by-focusing-on-diversity-and-inclusionhttp://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2006/09/14/things-you-need-to-understand-4/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/violence-is-not-a-culturally-specific-phenomenon/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/violence-is-not-a-culturally-specific-phenomenon/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/the-privileged-oppressed/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/the-privileged-oppressed/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/04/holding-the-tension/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/07/girls-taught-to-avoid-smart/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/07/girls-taught-to-avoid-smart/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/04/rape-culture-address-3-things/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/seeing-other-women-as-allies/http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/seeing-other-women-as-allies/http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/08/teen-girls-depression/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/anti-racist-isnt-code-for-anti-white/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/halloween-cupcakes/https://www.princeton.edu/~sociolog/ugrad/courses/fall1997/kelly_liebowitz.htmlhttps://modelviewculture.com/pieces/how-to-uphold-white-supremacy-by-focusing-on-diversity-and-inclusionhttp://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2006/09/14/things-you-need-to-understand-4/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/violence-is-not-a-culturally-specific-phenomenon/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/12/the-privileged-oppressed/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/04/holding-the-tension/http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/07/girls-taught-to-avoid-smart/


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critical work8 or instance, when we talk to our students about current events in class 5i&e&, the lynching-stylemurder o! Qames 'yrd, Qr&, the beating-e#ecution o! Batthew Shepard, or the shooting death o! ;madou 7iallo on the

streets o! New 0ork by police9, we try to understand not only the e*ects o! these instanceso! cultural violence 5how it shapes and produces a public9, but to also ask 2uestions about the conte#tsthat breed these tragedies& hus, our e*ort is to locate the speci/c events within larger, moresystemic social systems& or instance, can we understand the Batthew Shepard incident as a result o! a

social system o! heterose#ism, homophobia, and straight supremacy8 6an we see the death o! 7iallo not as anisolated instance o! racial violence, but as part o! a larger social system that has produced deaths in places like

6incinnati and =os ;ngeles8 o do this work, we look outward !rom these spectacular instanceso! violence and e#amine the minute and mundane processes that make these actspossible& n our courses, we e#amine how instances o! racism, homophobia, and other !ormso! oppression are generated through everyday communicative ? per!ormative acts \that is, both aesthetic and reiterative& hus, we seek to understand di*erence 5speci/cally race9 as a per!ormativeconstruct that is always already aesthetic 5that is, constructed !or an audience or public9 and reiterative 5that is,repeated and ongoing9& 'y !ocusing on race as one !orm o! oppression, we e#amine whiteness as a systematicproduction o! power\as a normative social process based upon a history o! domination, recreating itsel! through

naturali(ed everyday acts\much like heteronormativity or misogyny& hough in this writing we addresswhiteness, in particular, as a system o! power and privilege , such an e#ploration helps mark theunmarked 5Thelan9\making visible the workings o! a number o! oppressive social relationships& o render whiteness

visible re2uires care!ul analysis and constant criti2ue o! our taken!or-granted norms& 'ut, as our students 2uestion,to what end do we do what we do8 We both base our courses, at least in part, in critical race theory, asking howsystems o! power are reiterated and rea:rmed through our collectivecommunicative , per!ormative, and aesthetic interactions & he !oundation o! critical racetheory and cultural studies means that we in!use all course content with issues o! power, re!using to allow matterso! race and di*erence to be marginali(ed& hese courses look at education, theatre, and everyday communication,as well as other sites such as popular culture or identity& he seemingly simple 2uestion we are o!ten asked standsnow as the premise o! this essay\i! these theories and criti2ues are use!ul, then where does that leave us in termso! sketching out visions o! hope and change8 ;s one student said, i! you +ust tear down social norms, then where dowe all stand8 his essay is our stand\it is a documenting o! how we are making a particular, ongoing researchpro+ect matter in our lives 5and we hope, as a result, in the lives o! others9& t is a documenting o! per!ormance-based research\a mode o! research that asks students and other participants to enter into the space o!per!ormance and seek possibility as they are engaging in critical theory& What we document here is a problem-posing per!ormance workshop, based in the critical work o! Taulo reire and ;ugusto 'oal, that seeks to intervene in

the reiterative process o! whiteness& t is a response to bell hooks and others who have asked !or a criticale#amination o! whiteness not only through the bodies and voices o! people o! color, but through white e#periences

as well& t is, in the end, a search or new ways o engaging in a politics o hope. 'lind5ing9 Trivilege Whiteness as Ter!ormative n the last ten years, a variety o! cross-disciplinary scholars have

illuminated 5and, in that e*ort, sought to deconstruct9 racial privilege and disadvantage by e#aminingwhiteness as a cultural, political location \as an identity created and maintainedthrough our everyday communication&1 n some o! these studies, whiteness is revealed as astrategic rhetoric , a means by which people , working in concert and o!tenunreLectively, levy power and cultural inLuence& or e#ample, communication and /lm scholarse#amine rhetorical constructions o! whiteness 5see 6renshaw" 7yer" Nakayama and Kri(ek" Shome9& While thisperspective may help us understand the role o! language 5and how social systems and individuals work in concertto create racial oppression9 recent e*orts by scholars to maintain a !ocus on the white sub+ect have underscored

the importance o! deconstructing and challenging white sub+ectivity in order to promote a moree2uitable and socially +ust society& Oesearch here has taken many !orms& 6ritical scholars in theatrehave led the way, creating critical per!ormances o! whiteness 5see Qackson" MV'rien" Warren andKilgard9 that !unction to mirror, particularly to white audiences, the mechanisms and machinations o! their oppressive actions, however unreLective& thnographic portraits o! whiteness have givendepth and immediacy to our understandings o! people in lived conte#t 5.artigan" hooks"Warren, Ter!orming9& ;utoethnographers, because they plumb their lived e#perience !or particular details andcontradictions about how they create and are created by culture, have constituted a rich repository !or the study o!how each o! us works to understand his or her own ethnic identity 56lark and MV7onnell" Telias" Warren, A;bsenceC9&Studies in education have also created a critical conte#t !or understanding how whiteness permeates our


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classrooms 5see Rirou#" .ytten and ;dkins" Bcntyre9" such work !unctions to remind us o! the power o! pedagogyto help us see and re-see the actions we take, challenge, or leave un2uestioned& n an earlier essay, one o! usorgani(ed, !rom across the variety o! disciplinary perspectives, !our key scholarly approaches to the study o!whiteness to help create a nuanced understanding o! this seemingly inescapable and overwhelming political andcultural thicket 5Warren, AWhitenessC9& irst, scholars have analy(ed whiteness in order to promote antiracism& ore#ample, Outh rankenberg, in her classic book White Women, Oace Batters, deconstructs white womenVs talk inorder to uncover 5and to help them discover9 how racism and whiteness saturate their talk& Second, manyresearchers have investigated how whiteness is embedded in literature, /lm, and scholarship& Such works e#plorehow taken-!or-granted sites, including popular cultural te#ts or scholarly research, are never politically neutral& orinstance, in Tlaying in the 7ark, oni Borrison uncovers how writers o! ;merican literature almost always assume awhite reader to the e#clusion o! other ways o! seeing or interpreting a te#t or series o! events& hird, scholars whoadvocate an understanding o! whiteness as a rhetorical construct have shi!ted researchersV attention !romwhiteness as a stable identity 5i&e&, this person is or is not white9 to whiteness as a discursive way o! levying power5i&e&, whiteness as a discursive space, e#isting in our communicative interactions9& or instance, communicationscholar 6hristina W& Stage e#plores how a small-town celebration discursively invokes and rewards whitenessthrough a series o! power!ul communication strategies\that is, through the re-historici(ing o! the community,members recreate the past and locate that past within the discursive space o! white power 5e&g&, settlementnarratives that locate the beginnings o! the town within a white sub+ect9& he !ourth and /nal research trendinvolves reading whiteness as a per!ormative construct& Qudith 'utlerVs analysis o! Nella =arsenVs Tassing provides athought-provoking e#ample o! how whiteness as an identity is communicatively reproduced through our everydayactions& n her analysis, white identity is considered a discursive construct that is made and remade through ourreiterative patterned communication choices& We draw strength !rom each o! these modes o! analysis as they!unction to call out whiteness as a political and social !orce& .owever, what is o!ten absent !rom the e#tant

literature are strategies !or actively and publicly deconstructing and undermining whiteness as the cultural center& hat is, these microanalyses provide hope and incisive criti2ue, but lack su:cient theori(ing to change ourbehavior& n this way, all the approaches here are ways o! seeing and criti2uing, but !ew are actively documentingprogressive action with others& ;lice Bcntyre, an education scholar, perhaps comes closest with her action-research-oriented teacher groups in which she debates and teaches about whiteness as she draws her dissertationresearch data !rom them" however, the members o! the research team have long disbanded by the time the book is

written& hus, what we see missing is an action-oriented research pro+ect that holdsaccountable ourselves and the members o! the community we want to in!orm& .ow doyou make meaning!ul the criti2ues above in a way that e#perientially demands thatparticipants put their bodies on the line8 s there a research process that could makethe invisible and naturali(ed processes o! whiteness more visible, more visceral,more present8 We begin this essay with this political and ethical claim as

researchers concerned with whiteness as a means o! levying power and privilegeover others, we must articulate a process !or combating whiteness as a political!orce in our schools, in our homes, and in our communities& n this writing, we o*er our own attempt to callout and combat whiteness a series o! workshops !or white students 5although nonwhite students were note#cluded9 that asked them to move past apologia and guilt !or their ethnic identity, toward the development o!

actions that have the potential to challenge cultural oppression& or us, such a process must be bothan e#ercise o! the mind and a rethinking through the body\it must hold both oureveryday talk and our everyday actions accountable !or the ways we eachreproduce whiteness as a socially power!ul, culturally centered location & We groundedthe !rame and method !or our workshops in reireVs Tedagogy o! the Mppressed, employing his methodology !or

critical literacy groups& his participatory, ethnographic method is ideally suited !orengaging and incorporating the body into theories o! liberation , thus helping us to

maintain our !ocus on the process, the per!ormances, by which individuals come toenact and constitute oppressive social systems& n addition to articulating our use o! this method !or enLeshing , engaging, and challenging whiteness, our essay e#ploreshow such a mode o! engagement allows !or participants to see whiteness as aper!ormative process& Ter!ormative Tedagogy ; Tedagogy o! Subversion Oecent work inper!ormative pedagogy has created a rich conte#t !or 5re9considering whitenessliterature& Ter!ormative pedagogy is an approach to education that moves meaningto the body, asking students to engage in meaning-making through their own living


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and e#periencing bodies ; critical, per!ormative pedagogy asks students andteachers to be embodied researchers\to take learning to the body in order to cometo know in a more !ull and power!ul way& t is to liberate the body !rom the shackles o! a dualism that privileges themind over the visceral& t is to ask students to be more !ully present, to be more !ully engaged, to take more

responsibility and agency in their own learning& 5Warren, ATer!ormative TedagogyC HJ 9 Ter!ormativepedagogy demands that students think about identity as per!ormative\to place the

2uestion o! identity in the space o! per!ormance & Ter!ormative pedagogy, while still anundertheori(ed site o! investigation 5and pedagogical practice9, has groundings in various /elds ranging !rom dance

and theatre to nglish and communication studies& Mur commitment to per!ormative pedagogyemerges !rom traditions o! oral interpretation \a /eld o! study where researchersand teachers !eel one can develop a thought!ul and comple# understanding o! aliterary or popular te#t, such as a poem, by per!orming that te#t, by reading thatte#t through the body& Wallace ;& 'aconVs work on the potential o! per!ormance is indeed persuasive Aheper!orming act comes as close, perhaps, as we shall ever get to the transcendence o! sel! into other& t is a !orm o!knowing\not +ust a skill !or knowing, but a knowing& [& & &] ! the engagement is real, not simply pretended, the sel!growsC 5G9& While 'acon here discusses the transcendence o! sel! into the other, his work is a possible way o!thinking through whiteness\where whiteness is so invisible to the perceiving white sub+ect that his own racial

identity is e*ectively othered& hus, the engagement with whiteness is an engagement with the other, a

reconceptuali2ation o the sel as other. 6ertainly the work o! 'oal is key in this process o!engagement& .is work on !orum theatre alone can be imagined as a productive and engaging site o! understandinghow power is situated in our lives, in our bodies& .is work has been !ramed by several scholars as per!ormative\most clearly by lyse =amm 41JSubverting Whiteness Tineau, who, aligning her work with 'oalVs, argues thatper!ormative pedagogy is a trickster 5that is, subversive9 pedagogy& Tineau o*ers !our ways o! !raming and de/ning

per!ormative pedagogy, noting that through this pedagogical method one might assist inchallenging and subverting systems o! power such as whiteness & She !rames thisrede/nition as educational poetics, play, process, and power 51J9& n Aducational Toetics,C the banking mode o!education characteri(ed by traditional in!ormation dispensing into waiting students is re!ramed into an Aeducationalenterprise [that is] a mutable and ongoing ensemble o! narratives and per!ormancesC 519& Aducational TlayCresituates pedagogy in the body, asking students and teachers to engage in corporeal play\a mode o!Ae#perimentation, innovation, criti2ue, and subversionC 51J9& Aducational Trocess,C on the other hand,acknowledges that identities are always multiple, overlapping, ensembles o! real and possible selves who enactthemselves in direct relation to the conte#t and communities in which they per!orm& 51J9 .ere, Tineau locatesidentity as a per!ormative process, noting how selves are accomplishments o! reiterative per!ormative practices&

Aducational Tower,C the last o! TineauVs de/nitional categories, solidly situates per!ormances as Aalways politicallyand historically situated, such that they may be viewed as ongoing ideological enactmentsC 51I9&


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intentioned, it is an enabling /ction at best and a dangerous myth at worst" in e*ect, such a rhetorical move allowswhite identi/ed?appearing people an easy out, an easy dismissal o! the power o! whiteness in our lives and in ouractions& Oather than embrace this easy sense o! subversion, we take AsubvertingC as an active verb, in which wegrapple with whiteness in an attempt to unmask it& his is to say, these workshops are a way !or participants to seeand think about whiteness in ways they have not done be!ore& 'y pointing out whitenessVs power and discursivemachinery, we hope to subvert its naturalness, or rather, participate in the process o! racial subversion& While wedo not think a single two-hour workshop will trans!orm these participants into antiracists, we hope to create spaces!or us all to re-envision how race matters 5as well as how race comes to matter9 in our lives& WorkshoppingWhiteness ; young, white, male student in an introductory level communication course has been struggling withthe 2uestion o! whether racism e#ists\trying to advocate that racism was a thing o! the past, an ;:rmative ;ctiontrick to get more money and +obs !or people o! color who havenVt earned them& his argument is not new, notsurprising in any way& .owever, ABattC is a good student\young, thought!ul, and highly skeptical& We include himin the workshop, asking him to set aside his struggles, his disbelie! and engage the ideas as i! the theories we hadbeen reading were true& o be open, even i! +ust !or today& .e agrees, but has suspicion in his eyes& n Tedagogy o!

the Mppressed, Taulo reire outlines a method !or challenging oppressive systems o! power& n this method, heworks !rom the voices and stories o! those oppressed to build an e*ective pedagogywith his participants & t was in reireVs participatory, ethnographic method that we !ound an engaging way o!incorporating the body into theories o! liberation, enLeshing whiteness& reire argues that any eortto eect social change must be an engaged action with 5not to or !or9 thepeople& reireVs method emerged !rom his work with illiterate !arm laborers in 'ra(il& .e wanted to investigateand identi!y their needs, their interests" then, he worked with them to create an e*ective pedagogy !rom those/ndings, to construct an action plan that aimed to help them undermine the power structures that were keepingthem !rom !ul/lling their goals& n our workshops, we sought to build upon reireVs method, adapting and making itmeaning!ul it to the conte#t o! 3S higher education& Workshops are a particularly appropriate means !or engagingreireVs method, as they are not bound by the conventional re2uirements o! the classroom 5e&g&, syllabi, statestandards !or student learning outcomes, etc&9& We scheduled each workshop to last appro#imately two hours,which allowed !or plenty o! discussion and activity& Workshop participants di*ered depending on the conte#t" that is,sometimes we were invited into undergraduate or graduate courses in communication, theatre, or educationclassrooms& When the workshop was part o! a class, we o!ten asked students to do reading prior to our meeting&.owever, we presented other workshops at theatre and education con!erences, including an annual meeting o!Tedagogy and heatre o! the Mppressed& n each o! these sessions, participants entered with varying knowledges o! the content we were o*ering, creating a need !or us to begin by introducing the members to the literature onwhiteness and racism& he workshop structure itsel!, drawn !rom reireVs method, consisted o! !our parts& irst, weasked participants to investigate whiteness as a cultural phenomenon& .ere, participants would work !romintroductory te#ts such as their previous reading and?or our opening presentations& 7epending on the audience, oneo! us might open with a per!ormance designed to draw out a discussion o! whiteness& rom these te#ts, workshop

members !ormed small groups, creating Agenerative themes,C or a list o! basic assumptions behind whiteness& ore#ample, one group might note the seeming invisibility o! whiteness, o! the ways the power and privilege stemming!rom white ethnic identity appear unearned, and so on& Second, participants chose one theme and engaged in aAcodi/cationC o! the theme, in e*ect breaking it down into its !undamental parts&> ;t this stage, a group that haschosen to work with the notion o! whiteness as invisible or natural might begin to think about the mechanisms thatmake it invisible 5i&e&, historical, social, economic conditions that regulate the production o! racial power9& hird, weall engaged in a Adecoding dialogue,C raising and entertaining ideas and critical insights& or instance, other groupsmight challenge the notion o! whiteness as invisible, or they might articulate a sense o! whiteness as a stablenatural identity& hese sessions were important in order to collectively reveal misunderstandings about ethnicidentity 5e&g&, the misconception that racism is an individual trait rather than the result o! a social system thatprivileges some at the e#pense o! others9, as well as to come to new ways o! seeing how whiteness works& inally,each group created and presented Arecodi/cationsC or reconstructions o! their theme !or the larger group& hatgroup would then create an image 5o!ten a static image o! their bodies care!ully positioned9 to illustrate that themeto the rest o! the participants& or e#ample, students might represent Aideological struggleC with a !ro(en embodiedillustration o! two people arm wrestling, demonstrating two /gures locked in tension& hen the groups presented

per!ormances in which participants illustrated how they worked to interrupt the ways whiteness harms themselvesand others& n these per!ormances, each group shared, via their own lived bodies, the basic or !undamental elemento! each theme as a problem or 2uestion !or the general group& We used the remaining time a!ter each per!ormanceto describe and process each groupVs work& thnographic nvestigations heme Reneration Batt interacts with hisgroup, but does so leaning back in his desk chair, arms crossed, with an e#pression that says, A donVt buy this&C Wewant to pull Batt out o! the room, tell him to open his eyes, to see the world he lives in with critical eyes& .e cansee i! he +ust lets go o! the doubt, the suspicion bred !rom growing up in this culture o! color-blindness that stillspreads the myth o! meritocracy& reire argues, Athe starting point !or organi(ing the program content o! educationor political action must be the present, e#istential, concrete situation, reLecting the aspirations o! the peopleC 5@9&or him, we must begin with the people\that any e*ort to undermine power structures through a pedagogy o! theoppressed must begin with the li!e situations o! the people that are implicated in the power struggle& .e argues !or


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a AdialogicalC method, one that works !rom the Athematic universeC o! people in an e*ort to allow education to be apractice o! !reedom& With this beginning in reire, we decided to begin our workshops !rom the li!e situations o!people\peopleVs stories about or e#periences with racism and violence& hus, a workshop in whiteness had tobegin with collected narratives o! struggle, narratives o! people in Areal-li!e conte#tsC and their engagements withwhiteness& o begin with stories o! whiteness meant that our e*ort would ask the participants in the workshops totake seriously the li!e e#periences o! others in an e*ort to search out possibility within their li!e circumstances& nthis way, we begin our workshops by asking the participants to conduct a micro-ethnographic investigation o! theirencounters with whiteness& 'y ethnographic investigation, we mean that we ask the participants to e#plorewhiteness in order to /nd common themes and patterns& 6ommon themes or struggles participants o!ten articulateare their inability to discern their own deployment o! whiteness, the need to e#plore research trends\!or instance,whiteness as terror 5that is, bell hooksVs metaphor o! whiteness that captures the e*ect o! a legacy o! racism on theblack imagination9, or how whiteness is criti2ued through per!ormance te#ts like ;nna 7eavere SmithVs wilight =os;ngeles, 1HH>& We do this in several ways, each an attempt to provide te#ts or sites !rom which participants canbegin to draw together material in order to generate meaning!ul themes& We o!ten begin the workshops with brie!,aesthetic 5i&e&, styli(ed or heightened9 per!ormances& here are two central te#ts that we have !ound particularlyuse!ul as a way to set the tone, !or drawing the participants into the conversation surrounding white privilege& Banytimes we begin by per!orming our own autoethnographic work, !oregrounding our own struggles with coming to seewhiteness 5e&g&, Warren, A;bsenceC" Warren and assett9& n this sort o! per!ormance, we try to un!old and e#plorean everyday event in order to see how whiteness plays out and protects our own social position or privilege& ;second work we !re2uently draw !rom is a small piece !rom =eslie Barmon SilkoVs 6eremony, in which SilkoVsspeaker narrates how white people came to be& he piece is rather violent, describing whiteness as dominating anddisconnected !rom the earth, and particularly use!ul !or the workshop because it demands that we considerwhiteness !rom the view o! the AMtherC 5i&e&, decentering a white perspective9& hough we have pointed to two sorts

o! te#ts here, there are no doubt countless other te#ts that would serve to illuminate whiteness" !or instance, worksby Rloria ;n(alda, oni 6ade 'ambara, bell hooks, Ba#ine .ong Kingston, Oichard Oodrigue(, ;my an, and ;lice

Walker would be ripe !or such e#ploration& 'eginning the workshops with per!ormance is importantbecause it !oregrounds a central idea& his move highlights per!ormance as a way o! knowing& hatis, participants come to know part o! the literature by the per!ormance itsel!,serving as an entrance into the workshop and the per!ormative themes& urthermore,such a move establishes per!ormance as an academic method o! in2uiry& his is tosay, per!ormance shi!ts learning to a meaning-making process in which theparticipants in the workshop must assemble and construct meaning through the li!ee#perience

1nc vdebate--afropess

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