The work of whiteness: A psychoanalytic perspective

Abstract

This book centres on the experience of ‘whiteness’, and how it operates within a systemically racist society. The author, Helen Morgan, is white, and observes in the preface to this book how this is an aspect of identity that can be experienced as ‘normal’ or invisible, therefore allowing her the option to disregard it, and the topic of racism, altogether. This book is a challenge to that position, and convincingly argues that for white people not to see the world along racial lines, and acknowledge their inherited privilege, points to an internal ‘blindness’ or ‘dumbness’ that preserves racism and white supremacy. Morgan argues that by choosing to ‘remain unconscious of a crucial aspect of our lives and ourselves’ (p. xiii), we block our path to individuation. Within this is the idea that racism hurts us all; the book explores why then, if this is the case, racism remains functional within society, and why the psychoanalytic community may have been, and remains, resistant to deeper exploration and action to address and understand it. The introduction to this book begins with a clear statement that there is no biological or genetic basis for humans to be divided by race. While this reminder of the facts may strike some as unnecessary, it clarifies that we are thinking about a system that arose for social, economic, and political reasons, and has no objective origin. The book goes on to outline the history of the civil rights movement within the UK, and defines terms used throughout the book. Morgan then outlines why a psychoanalytic perspective on racism is important. She suggests that while, as a profession, we have developed and refined theories on how a racist thought or act emerges from within an individual's psyche, we have disregarded larger socio-economic determinants, the ‘racist template’ into which we in the Western world are born. Morgan argues that -