Introduction: Hopes of and for Whiteness

Abstract

This article introduces and explores two intersections between hope and whiteness: first, how various forms of hope alternately operate as discursive techniques that reproduce or resist whiteness; and second, whether theorists have warrant to hope for changes in whiteness itself. In order to prompt further study of both, I survey literature to propose seven dimensions for comparing forms of hope. I then apply this incipient typology of hopes to ethnographic evidence of white people who relocated to live in predominantly Black neighborhoods. I argue that their modes of hope transformed to become less agentic, less optimistic, and less conformed to white supremacist modes of hope. I close with a reflexive look at the place of hope in whiteness studies itself, pointing to two possible foundations of hoping for better future possibilities of whiteness.