The Discriminatory Gesture: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of Posttraumatic Reactions to Incidents of Racial Discrimination

This article provides a basic psychological conceptualization of racial trauma. It considers how seemingly minor instances of bias or discrimination can lead to posttraumatic reactions, the proportions of which can be hard to understand from the outside. I propose to describe this non-extraordinary event of racially biased treatment as the discriminatory gesture in order to emphasize its fluidity and pervasiveness as an interpersonal event. Being the subject of a discriminatory gesture represents a unique source of trauma, particularly because it derives its destructive power from its occurrence in a wider contemporary context of pervasive racism, white supremacy, and the historical context of slavery.     

“WHITE CRISIS” AND/AS “EXISTENTIAL RISK,” OR THE ENTANGLED APOCALYPTICISM OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

In this article, I present a critique of Robert Geraci's Apocalyptic artificial intelligence (AI) discourse, drawing attention to certain shortcomings which become apparent when the analytical lens shifts from religion to the race–religion nexus. Building on earlier work, I explore the phenomenon of existential risk associated with Apocalyptic AI in relation to “White Crisis,” a modern racial phenomenon with premodern religious origins. Adopting a critical race theoretical and decolonial perspective, I argue that all three phenomena are entangled and they should be understood as a strategy, albeit perhaps merely rhetorical, for maintaining white hegemony under nonwhite contestation. I further suggest that this claim can be shown to be supported by the disclosure of continuity through change in the long‐durée entanglement of race and religion associated with the establishment, maintenance, expansion, and refinement of the modern/colonial world system if and when such phenomena are understood as iterative shifts in a programmatic trajectory of domination which might usefully be framed as “algorithmic racism.”     

Witnessing Whiteness in the Ethics of Hauerwas

Despite constituting one of the most pressing ethical issues of our time, most white Christian ethicists and theologians fail to engage the issue of white supremacy in their work. As one of the most influential and prolific Christian ethicists of the past half‐century, Stanley Hauerwas represents this tendency, and provides specific reasons for his silence. This essay analyzes those reasons, and argues that a commitment to Alasdair MacIntyre’s understandings of tradition and narrative frames his view on race and prevents his engagement of racism. It then highlights the ways this reflects the broader trends of silence, abstraction, and colorblindness among white Christian ethicists when it comes to the issue. Identifying these failures, the essay concludes by suggesting that Hauerwas’s first published essay in 1969, on Black Power, provides resources for theologically engaging the problems of white supremacy today.     

Methodology of the Privileged: White Anti‐racist Feminism,Systematic Ignorance,and Epistemic Uncertainty

This article addresses the impact of systematic ignorance and epistemic uncertainty upon white Western women's participation in anti‐racist and transnational feminisms. I argue that a “methodology of the privileged” is necessary for effective coalition‐building across racial and geopolitical inequities. Examining both self‐reflexivity and racial sedition as existing methods, I conclude that epistemic uncertainty should be considered an additional strategy rather than a dilemma for the privileged.     

Against “Transracialism”: Revisiting the Debate

This article critically reflects on some of the themes and assumptions at stake in the “transracialism” controversy, and connects them to important works in critical race theory: namely Rey Chow's notion of “coercive mimeticism” and Sara Ahmed's critique of white liberal multiculturalism. It argues that the analytic account of “race” that Tuvel draws upon in her article—Sally Haslanger's—is politically problematic, both on its own terms and in light of broader reflections on racialized and gendered power relations. In particular, I critique Haslanger's assumption that all racial identities exist on the same conceptual plane: that a single variable definition of “race” can be applied to any particular racialized group—including white and nonwhite racial identities. This erases racialized power relations, especially where, in liberal “multicultural” nations, whiteness constitutes the implied standard against which an appearance of “racial difference” is conjured. Finally, I extend my argument to the issue of treating “race” and gender analogously. Rejecting this move, I propose an alternative way of conceptualizing these as analytically distinct, yet constitutively interdependent, phenomena. In order to situate the debate historically, I consider an example of “racial transgression” from twentieth‐century China.     

The racial subtext in Canada’s immigration discourse

The articulation of race has become subtle and elusive in democratic societies because racism conflicts with principles of equality and non-discrimination. This article examines Canada’s immigration discourse and argues that a racial subtext can be discerned from the discourse by examining its vocabulary, syntax, structure, and implied rationale. The study shows that codified concepts and an implied logic are used to convey racial massages that appear not to be “race”-based. The discourse is further facilitated by opinion polls and academic studies that reify the notion of “race” and legitimize its everyday use as a harmless concept. It is the discourse itself, and not implied differences of “race”, that fragments Canada. The study recommends abandoning the use of racial subtext in academic research and immigration policy development.     

Beyond Diversity: Cultural Competence,White Racism Awareness,and European–American Theology Students

As the population within our religious institutions and the United States grows increasingly diverse, the need for a greater awareness of cultural and racial differences is a challenge facing theology students who will live and work within a changing context. For European American students this challenge includes an understanding of the power dynamics inherent in “whiteness” and how the resultant social power affects persons of other races and cultures. This article focuses on the need for cultural competence among current theology students, and outlines a five‐stage developmental process whereby they have an opportunity to enhance their understanding of multiculturalism and anti‐racism within their own context.     

Latino/as, Asian Americans, and the Black–White Binary

This paper aims to contribute toward coalitionbuilding by showing that, even if we try tobuild coalition around what might look like ourmost obvious common concern – reducing racism –the dominant discourse of racial politics inthe United States inhibits an understanding ofhow racism operates vis-à-vis Latino/as andAsian Americans, and thus proves more of anobstacle to coalition building than an aid. Theblack/white paradigm, which operates to governracial classifications and racial politics inthe U.S., takes race in the U.S. to consist ofonly two racial groups, Black and White,with others understood in relation to one ofthese categories.I summarize and discuss the strongestcriticisms of the paradigm and then develop twofurther arguments. Together these argumentsshow that continuing to theorize race in theU.S. as operating exclusively through theblack/white paradigm is actuallydisadvantageous for all people of color in theU.S., and in many respects for whites as well(or at least for white union households and thewhite poor).     

Remembrance–Toward Righteousness and Reparations

This article explores “remembrance” as the first part of a planned three-part paper titled “Remembrance, Righteousness and Reparations,” intended as a conceptual framework and spirit guide of accompaniment for the World Council of Churches’ pilgrimage of healing, justice, and peace. This first part focuses on remembrance to counter the dis-membering, trauma, and woundedness inflicted by systems of acts of White supremacy, racism, patriarchy, and male privilege. Parts two and three of this paper offer righteousness and reparations as additional conceptual frameworks and spirit guides: righteousness to recentre and deepen our understanding of justice in a world fraught with human suffering, violence, and evil; and reparations to covenant and bind a process of truth-telling, reckoning, and reconciliation in the face of the consequences and legacies of the transatlantic slave trade system upon people of African descent.     

Emergence of the bipolar cultural complex in Walt Whitman

My main hypothesis in this paper(1) is that America's seminal poet, Walt Whitman, was trapped--like so many of his contemporaries--in 'cultural complexes' (Singer & Kimbles 2004) that he internalized, but that he found a way to transcend the splits inherent in these 'bipolar' (Perry 1970) organizations through his art. One way he accomplished this was through his aesthetic method of 'holding the opposites' between two poles of a slavery is wrong/white supremacy is justified cultural complex. In my paper, I provide evidence for some of the contradictions inherent in Whitman's character by examining the political splits of his times and explore how various Self symbols he produced through his poetry, particularly the figures he called 'Black Lucifer' and the Deus Quadriune--a quaternity symbol--facilitated his personal and cultural transformation. Finally, I demonstrate the relevance of my hypothesis to contemporary racism during the pre-Civil Rights period in the South through a clinical example, and I show how the Jungian method of 'holding the opposites' can be effectively practised in the transference/countertransference field of psychotherapy in general.     

Being white,being Jungian: implications of Jung’s encounter with the ‘non-European’ other1

This personal account charts the changing relationship to a Jungian identity arising from the interrelated processes of understanding the roots of the colonial and racial ideologies that underpin Jung’s thinking, and a developing awareness of what it means to be a white person in a system of racism that maintains white supremacy. This is illustrated with reference to the image of a black man appearing in the dream of the white author and with use of post-Jungian thinking to critique the notion of an objective, non-racial psyche.     

Race and the Feminized Popular in Nietzsche and Beyond

I distinguish between the nineteenth‐ to twentieth‐century (modernist) tendency to rehabilitate (white) femininity from the abject popular, and the twentieth‐ to twenty‐first‐century (postmodernist) tendency to rehabilitate the popular from abject white femininity. Careful attention to the role of nineteenth‐century racial politics in Nietzsche's Gay Science shows that his work uses racial nonwhiteness to counter the supposedly deleterious effects of (white) femininity (passivity, conformity, and so on). This move—using racial nonwhiteness to rescue pop culture from white femininity—is a common twentieth‐ and twenty‐first‐century practice. I use Nietzsche to track shifts from classical to neo‐liberal methods of appropriating “difference.” Hipness is one form of this neoliberal approach to difference, and it is exemplified by the approach to race, gender, and pop culture in Vincente Minnelli's film The Band Wagon. I expand upon Robert Gooding‐Williams's reading of this film, and argue that mid‐century white hipness dissociates the popular from femininity and whiteness, and values the popular when performed by white men “acting black.” Hipness instrumentalizes femininity and racial nonwhiteness so that any benefits that might come from them accrue only to white men, and not to the female and male artists of color whose works are appropriated.     

Sankofa Socialization as a Response to the Soul Trauma of Black Women Activists in Ministry

This article sets out an emerging discourse on defining and repairing the generational spiritual consequences of racism, victimization, marginalization, and isolation experienced by women of African descent, identified in this paper as “soul trauma.” Drawing on the work of W.E.B. Dubois, Joy DeGruy, Iva Carruthers, and others, it establishes the deep and deadly effect of internalized white supremacy and cultural hegemony on the identity and socialization of Black women, an effect that requires substantial work and repair beyond what established human service delivery practices can provide to the essential core of one's being, the soul. This article posits the concept and practice of Sankofa as a form of holistic medicine in the repair of Black souls, specific to the use of Kindezi, a Kikongo education system.     

Skepticism,Contextualism, and Discrimination*

The skeptic says that “knowledge” is an absolute term, whereas the contextualist says that ‘knowledge” is a relationally absolute term. Which is the better hypothesis about “knowledge”? And what implications do these hypotheses about “knowledge” have for knowledge? I argue that the skeptic has the better hypothesis about “knowledge”, but that both hypotheses about “knowledge” have deeply anti‐skeptical implications for knowledge, since both presuppose our capacity for epistemically salient discrimination.     

Rac(e)ing from Death

In response to recent events that demonstrate the persistence of racial trauma, this essay revisits James Baldwin's claim that racism is a symptom of fundamental human tendencies and constraints. For Baldwin, we cannot understand the legacy of racism if we do not take seriously all too human attempts to evade, and deflect, death and its intimations. To flesh out this component of Baldwin's thought, I engage with the thought of Georges Bataille, an author who thinks generally about the fraught relationship between the preservation of life and our responsiveness to suffering. To test the insights that Baldwin provides on racial matters, this essay engages recent discussions in black studies and queer theory around futurity, racial difference, and the category of the human. I maintain that we must think “the human” and racial difference together, as a tension‐filled relationship, in order to understand the limits and possibilities regarding our efforts to change the order of things.     

On White Ignorance,White Shame,and Other Pitfalls in Critical Philosophy of Race

This article examines Samantha Vice's essay ‘How Do I Live in This Strange Place?’ (2010), which sparked a storm of controversy in South Africa, as a starting point for interrogating understandings of whiteness and racism that are dominant in critical philosophy of race. I argue that a significant body of philosophical scholarship on whiteness in general and by white scholars in particular obfuscates the structural dimension of racism. The moralisation of racism that often permeates philosophical scholarship reproduces colourblind logics, which provide individualistic explanations for structural problems, thereby sustaining white dominance. In the process, I show that notions of white guilt, white habits, white ignorance, white invisibility, white privilege, and white shame as they are theorised in much critical philosophy of race share a crucial limitation: they minimise white people's active interest in reproducing the racist status quo. Studies, such as Vice's, that frame racism as a moral dilemma while silencing its institutionalisation and the central cause for its existence and longevity – that is, white people's investment in maintaining economic, political, and symbolic power – further naturalise white supremacy.     

‘Pre‐discursive’ racism

This paper makes the case that discourse analytic approaches in social psychology are not adequate to the task of apprehending racism in its bodily, affective and pre‐symbolic dimensions. We are hence faced with a dilemma: if discursive psychology is inadequate when it comes to theorizing ‘pre‐discursive’ forms of racism, then any attempts to develop an anti‐racist strategy from such a basis will presumably exhibit the same limitations. Suggesting a rapprochement of discursive and psychoanalytic modes of analysis, I argue that Kristeva's theory of abjection provides a means of understanding racism as both historically/socially constructed and as existing at powerfully embodied, visceral and subliminal dimensions of subjectivity. Kristeva's theory of abjection provides us with an account of a ‘pre‐discursive’ (that is, a bodily, affective, pre‐symbolic) racism, a form of racism that ‘comes before words’, and that is routed through the logics of the body and its anxieties of distinction, separation and survival. This theory enables us, moreover, to join together the expulsive reactions of a racism of the body to both the personal racism of the ego and the broader discursive racisms of the prevailing social order. Moreover, it directs our attention to the fact that discourses of racism are always locked into a relationship with ‘pre‐discursive’ processes which condition and augment every discursive action, which escape the codifications of discourse and which drive the urgency of its attempts at containment. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“A Golly was simply a toy. End of”: Inoculation,attention deflection,and attempted puzzle-resolution in contesting racism in online discussions

In producing arguments against minority groups that are designed to avoid accusations of prejudice, speakers routinely deploy two discursive strategies. One strategy of “inoculation” seeks to ward off such accusations, while the other strategy of “attention deflection” directs attention away from the potential target group. Where despite use of one or both strategies accusations arise, the result is a puzzle that needs to be resolved through explanation. Here, in a discourse analysis of online discussions as to whether “blacking up” is to count as racism, we see contributors contest (a) whether absence of intention to offend inoculates individuals from accountability for potentially racist actions, (b) whether “blacking up” depicts toys/characters rather than people, and (c) whether attempted explanations of accusations of racism work to resolve the apparent puzzle that has arisen. Contributors do not reach any consensus. These findings point to the difficulties in attempting to challenge potential racism.     

The discursive “othering” of Jews and Muslims in the Britain First solidarity patrol

In this paper, critical discursive psychology is used to analyse the Islamophobic discourse by the far‐right party Britain First in its “solidarity patrol” video. Britain First patrolled in Golders Green, North London, to show support for Jewish communities following the ISIS shooting at the kosher supermarket in Paris on January 9, 2015. The Charlie Hebdo shooting and the shooting at the kosher supermarket (as well as other attacks by members of the Islamic State) have led to Muslims being seen as a threat to Britain and exposed to Islamophobic attacks and racial abuse. This presents far‐right parties in the United Kingdom with the dilemma of appearing moderate and mainstream in their anti‐Islamic stance. The analysis focuses on how Britain First used the shooting at the kosher supermarket in order to construct Jews as under threat from Islam. The analysis also includes visual communication in the solidarity patrol video that was used to provide “evidence” that Britain First supported Jewish communities. Results are discussed in light of how Britain First used aligning with Jews in order to appear as “reasonable” in projecting its anti‐Islamic ideology and how critical discursive psychology can be used to show how conflicting social identities are constructed.