‘Declarations of Whiteness’ (After Sara Ahmed)
I wrote this poem inspired by the work I have come across by academic Sara Ahmed on Whiteness (and other things). This poem is named for her article of the same name.
I have also found the attached video incredibly useful for people less academic in Whiteness, which brings this to the mainstream.
In order to have Blackness or Brownness, we must have Whiteness
talking about racism puts the onus on the victim
without any inclination to discuss the system
it’s easy to talk in the language of DiAngelo or McIntosh
that keeps it between individuals, not how White power has quashed
and undermined movements like the Black Panthers
and DiAngelo tells a clipped narrative that doesn’t really answer
questions about history and we got to this
since White supremacy is fluid and adapts and disjoints itself to fit
cus terms like “fragility” and “privilege” tend to only flirt
at the frames of this problem, White supremacy is not an extrovert
and these books and texts are by no means quite useful
but they keep us focused on Whiteness as something purely individual
but White people live their lives thinking they’re just people
they often can walk through the world relatively invisible
this is what it means to be seen as unraced
to not have to speak on behalf of your race
so when they get called “White” for the first time
I am met with performance, it’s theatre and pantomime
White declarations of Whiteness do not do anything
it did not stop George Zimmerman from killing Trayvon Martin
and it did not stop Black Tories from attacking Critical Race Theory
nor do declarations stop the historical continuity of slavery
it’s time to ask questions, like “are police and prisons obsolete?”
and why Black kids are going from school to prison in fleets
why are Black children sent to pupil referral units in Ends
it’s 1971 again and Bernard Coard’s writing about ESNs
and how British Education made West Indian
children educationally subnormal in the school system
when that word Caucasian is used as a prefix
and by that I do not mean as in geographics
with the Caucasus region between the Caspian and Black sea
prefixing humanity with White is what I actually mean
but when they are called White people rather than their name like Jonathan or Beth
it’s as if they are overcome with grief and are now bereft
that whilst for POCs we have grown up being raced
for White people who are now faced
with the conceptualisation of being called White
they are now met with fight or flight
or as I much much much prefer, to love and learn
step into my office, we’ll talk with wood to burn
for White people, White can be synonymous with human
that racism may look like doom and gloom in
with many of my White friends telling me they were raised
to treat all people of all backgrounds the same
whilst that’s great, I don’t even know my family name
Ventour and Griffiths are nice to say
but Benjamin Ventour took the enslaved on the Fonteony Estate
Grenada, there lies White supremacy on my CV
Whiteness in print, in the remnants of empire and slavery
because White supremacy is not extroverted
it can be subtle, silent, and written in coded
language that sits in the strong arms of history
and to be White, mostly, it is easier to trace your genealogy
Charles Mills believes that it’d be useful to curb talks about White privilege
as it would be more useful to think in terms of White supremacy and images
of how this impacts issues like the normalisation of White European thought
and from, overpolicing Black communities to the constructions of laws
the Murder of George Floyd penetrated me like a knife
but what killed him was a system that treats life as a synonym for White
whilst in Atlanta a White man killed six Asian women but anti-Asian
racism in the USA’s history is as long as its arms in racist immigration
and the #NotAllMen brigade are scared that women will laugh at them
but women are afraid that men will murder them in tens
anti-Asian hate is not “un-American”
because it was there at these United States’ formation (sort of)
as we read about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
that lasted until 1943 with World War Two
and I didn’t learn any of this history in school
legislation, the law, and the legal system as tools
of institutional racism but more importantly institutional Whiteness
with the normalisation of anti-Asian racism like this
so when we talk about Whiteness, we need to talk about it
as something beyond individuals but also something systemic
cus you do not have to be a White supremacist to benefit
and our world is full of it, from film and TV to education and politics
because White supremacy is more than the KKK and colonial statues
it’s the implicit undertones of this obsession with British values
it’s the Home Office’s continuation of the hostile environment and the Windrush crisis
it’s seeing Black and Brown children holed up in pupil referral units
it’s how Boris opened up Britain for Christmas but not for Eid
and really it’s how if you’re POC, you are not afforded some British identities
Whiteness is the universalisation of viewing the world
it’s how I can walk into a pub and feel it’s not for me
the looks the stares; White faces, spaces, places, this is White supremacy
and this travels to our institutions, to our streets and neighbourhoods
and the fact the UK still ordains its chosen with MBEs and knighthoods
and once you see Whiteness, you can’t unsee it
but with the help of White people we can dismantle it
Whiteness isn’t as simple as disparities in skin colour
yes, it’s how people see how Black looks and Brown looks
and yes we can read about privilege in those reading books
but traditional views of racism is only part of it
declarations don’t stop White saviour academics trying to SAVE Black students
it doesn’t seek to unpack how ‘race science’ is still running truant
how these ‘scientists’ back in the day writing in Greek and Latin
made a hierarchy of races and also where the Irish were blackened
and how even amongst those stories of whitening
there is a hierarchy of who’s outside Whiteness and who’s allowed in
the ideal White man: reasonable, logical, heroic, in the spirit of empire
healthy, dynamic, pragmatic, this is in the work of Richard Dyer
the ideal White woman: pure, passive, silent, obeys him every word
supports him, obeys him, again paraphrased from Ruth Frankenberg
Shannon Sullivan writes about how Whiteness
is full of elegies to raced and classed behaviours
I see it in cricket, Victorian table etiquette, and White saviours
and how some White people posed a threat
to the Whiteness of the well-groomed and high-bred
that there are White people and thus people not White enough
“Whiteness is neoliberal capitalism and its ethos
it is not just Whiteness as sameness but it is the generalising
universaling impulse to have power over life, ultimately
the controlling impulse”, or so says Shona Hunter
to hold your finger to the pulse and say I discovered it
but some are ‘Whiter’ than others, some not white enough
and how many ‘lesser White people’ are left in the rough
and think about the books on race you are being told to read
that whilst there is Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility
also try Frantz Fanon, Patricia Hill Collins, and Angela Saini
Reni Eddo-Lodge, Akala, Andrea Smith
and Angela Davis and the great bell hooks
because they have also subtly
and unsubtly written about Whiteness
and it is possible to read about racism
without seeing White supremacy mentioned
and despite all good intentions
this conversation about White supremacy
is necessary otherwise we will pass it down family trees
embedded in vapour-like colonial epistemologies
and in the words of my colleague Annie (@aflo. The poet)
“the word unconscious is consciously adopted
to absolve responsibility” And she continues,
“all them White names weren’t put there inconspicuously”
White supremacy is not all White hoods. It’s being aware
that the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square
is a message that White supremacy hangs in the air
the sun has not set on the British Empire
colonial underpinnings in the theorists on university degrees
like slave trader John Locke theorising Childhood Studies students in Y3
and his theorisation of his blank slate tabula rasa in the today
historical Whiteness branded across Childhood Studies students’ essays
high in the tower
William Edward Burghardt DuBois (WEB DuBois)
one of the earliest writers of Whiteness
sermonising Whiteness like poetry
talking of economic oppression, enslavement
and how people were bought and sold
hearts of darkness and the ghost of King Leopold
and whilst I have decided to talk about education
we saw from 2020 this is across society
that White supremacy is known with notoriety
when Colin Kaepernick took a knee,
Audre Lorde’s “rejection of difference” was plain to see
with over 10,000 OfCom complaints against Diversity’s
dance performance as the whole world was listening
because as Chimamanda says, “an artist is also a citizen”
and if this is what it takes for Black people to be valued as people
why can’t Black people also be seen as vulnerable
especially thinking about Black women
here, I’m thinking back to 2019 and 2020
back to the Black British female students I mentored
talking to me of “misogynoir”, sprouted from the plantation
anti-Black misogyny stretching from the 17th century to higher education
White supremacy goes beyond you and me personally
it infests how the world is and it doesn’t operate linearly
it distorts knowledge productions and how we view our history
the biases entrenched in how think about the climate crises
those who will be most impacted when the shit hits the fan
capitalism making corpses out the Black, Brown, and tanned
we want to seek justice for Sarah Everard
a woman in the bloom of life, White and middle-class
you know I see folks saying that it wasn’t about race
but I sat thinking at least we know her name
and as an isolated incident it wasn’t about race in this case
but Black and Brown women go missing always
and their names are swallowed up by the White gaze
that in thinking how many women go missing
this is when Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional thinking comes in
and talking about women and ceilings made of glass
promotions at work, well at least White women can pass
through those panes, for women of colour it’s made of concrete
that’s how White supremacy is, laughing til it tastes sickly sweet
intersectionality gives a way to understanding a number of issues
like the climate crisis, workplace bullying, and domestic abuse
and just like BAME there is no homogeneity in White communities
that in hierarchies we can see yes the three nations of Britain
but we can see those like Irish travellers and Eastern Europeans,
Roma peoples, Jews, and those come from afar
how in the 1920s Jews were forced to show identity cards
in this history, we can see how institutions splits White peoples apart
the Jews during the first war, the Irish as ‘suspect’ following the second
what was the Aliens Restriction Act of 1914
but the institution of Whiteness doing what it was supposed to
what about the Immigration Act of 1962
the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act that donned the Irish as suspect
leading to that term Sus Laws that is now most linked to Black people, direct
the Polish, Hungarians, Slovenians, Czechs,
Slavic people, Latvians, and Lithuanians
in the context of the Workers Registration
and no recourse to public funds
terms like A8 migrants sitting on the rungs
of Whiteness and not being White enough
institutional mechanisms, Whiteness as politics
Whiteness that acts as class specific
Whiteness as gendered and raced
Vicky Pollard or are we talking Bill Gates
in knowing this, we can educate communities
we can do the reading, and see how Whiteness
is multifaceted. It moves, it slips about
it’s malleable and it adapts like armour
it moves into Breada Grey’s “whitely scripts”
that whilst we can read about race from Akala
and the like, remember DuBois, Charles Mills,
Frant Fanon, Shannon Sullivan, Kimberle Crenshaw,
Patricia Hill Collins, there’s writers galore
so when they say education is key to liberation
why are poor and / or Black and Brown children
being kept from the keys of theorisation
ancestors kidnapped by empire
and their descendants locked out by empire
education rewritten by empire
Whiteness walks into Buckingham Palace
treated Meghan with hate due her lack of Whiteness and phallus
White supremacy is what forced Meghan to leave
a historical continuity within the firm of the Royal Family
Elizabeth I, a late Tudor investor in early human trafficking expeditions
and the acquisition of people just like Meghan, early colonial ambitions
Charles II a shareholder of the Royal African Company in the 1670s
the largest human trafficking company in Britain’s slave trading history
and his brother James Duke of York, later James II was governor in those days
in the days when the Royals institutionalised enslavement and made it a craze
then George III who the ominous they call the Mad King delayed abolition
and William IV was pro-enslavement and wanted to hold on to his commission
in summary, what happened to Meghan Markle by the firm
is White supremacy in action and that has been historically learned
what happened to her is in the blood quite literally
since if there was an institution as a case study, it’s the Royal Family
we can then regard White supremacy as not always linear
nor is it always an extrovert
and often it may not even assert itself
