Giving Voice to ‘Whiteness’? (De)Constructing ‘Race’

I am deeply suspicious about the ways ‘race’ functions in contemporary U.S. culture. As this chapter’s epigraphs suggest, I believe that our racialized thinking and speaking, although perhaps unavoidable, lock us into destructive, soul-breaking patterns. ‘Race’ categories are built on a series of brutal, exclusionary practices originating in histories of oppression, manipulation, land theft, body theft, soul theft, physical and psychic murder, and other crimes against specific groups of people. These categories were motivated by economics and politics, by insecurity and greed—not by innate biological or divinely created differences. ‘Race’ has a poisonous history that continues infecting us today. Every time we automatically refer to ‘race’ or to specific ‘races’ we draw on and thus reinforce this violent history, as well as the ‘white’ supremacism buttressing the entire system.