Viewpoint Magazine
Now is not the time to focus on whiteness. And yet, if our movement hopes to abolish white domination, we must at least ask what whiteness means. We should be clear on its history and effects on our social existence. Neither endless introspection among white people, nor corporate handbooks on diversity, nor a purely moral recognition of white supremacy’s evils can provide such clarity. We need to examine whiteness as a political problem.
The materials in this pamphlet were written by various authors and originate in distinct historical moments. We have assembled them here with the aim, in light of the recent rebellions, to move discussions from a fixation on individual experiences of whiteness toward the broad possibilities of collective struggle for abolition and human freedom.
We encourage readers to download, distribute, and discuss.
Table of Contents
Introduction: On Becoming a Different People Entirely
Inventing Whiteness
- Pem Davidson Buck, “Constructing Race, Creating White Privilege” (2001)
- W. E. B. Du Bois, “The White Worker” (1935)
- Thuy Linh Tu and Nikhil Pal Singh, “Morbid Capitalism and its Racial Symptoms” (2018)
Abolishing Whiteness
- Asad Haider, “White Purity” (2017)
- Noel Ignatiev, “Without a Science of Navigation We Cannot Sail in Stormy Seas” (1969)
- Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, “Back from Hell: Black Power and Treason to Whiteness inside Prison Walls” (1994)
- Jay Caspian Kang, “Black Protester, White Protester” (2020)
