Peggy McIntosh stated that “”I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness. Not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”. (McIntosh) (No Page number. On top of page) Ignoring the reality of white. Privilege has given rise to conflicts between people of colour (POC) and whites. Recent occurrences of discrimination against POC have led to the creation of movements. Like Black Lives Matter to expose the violence of white police officers on undeserving POC. To seek justice for these innocent individuals and to prevent future deaths of innocent POC at the hands of white police officers.
These progressive movements seek equality and justice for discriminated minorities. And want to inspire future generations to live by a creed of acceptance and equality in every societal aspect. This brings us to the importance of intersectional analysis. As it identifies and distinguishes one’s sense of culture and shapes our social systems and institutions. Our way of life and our social frameworks are founded in intersecting systems of oppression. That are constantly related to abusive discriminatory actions and mentalities. This essay will argue that bell hook’s main argument in her article “Representing Whiteness in the black imagination” is that a society under white authority is the legacy of pilgrim dominion and of the enslavement of POC by whites.
Her approach is intersectional because she mentions. “They do not imagine that the way whiteness makes it presence felt, in black life, most often as terrorizing imposition, a power that wounds, hurts, tortures, is a reality that disrupts the fantasy of whiteness as representing goodness.” (hook 341) and discusses about whiteness as a reaction to traumatic torment and anguish that remaining parts an outcome of white bigot mastery. (Just like Peggy McIntosh, hook discusses white male privilege in current Western society, suggesting “White supremacist terror and dehumanization during slavery centered around white control of the black gaze.” (hook, 340)
In hook’s chapter “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination”, she clarifies that the thought of ‘whiteness’ is a reaction to “supremacist terror” (hook, 340); meaning that it is a lingering fear and dread felt by POC towards whites because of their historical cruelty:
“The eagerness with which contemporary society does away with racism, replacing this recognition with evocations of pluralism and diversity that further mask reality, is a response to the terror [perpetuated] by providing a cover, a hiding place. Black people still feel the terror [associated] with whiteness, but are rarely able to articulate the varied ways we are terrorized because it is easy to silence by accusations of reverse racism or by suggesting that [POC] terrorized by whites are merely evoking victimization to demand special treatment.” (hook, 345)
hook mentions a personal experience where she felt white individuals overpowered POC: when she overheard white women deriding her fear, she blamed “their inability to conceive that my terror is a response to the legacy of white domination and the contemporary expressions of white supremacy [and that it] is an indication of how little this culture really understands the profound impact of white racist domination.” (hook, 345) She contrasts how blackness is consistently spoken of by white minds, but the reversal of roles is rare. In “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination”, she criticizes contemporary political correct and argues that whiteness is viewed differently by POC and whites through inaccurate generalizations and stereotypes:
“however inaccurate, [these inventions] are [a] form of representation […] created to serve as substitutions, standing in for what is real […] not to tell it like it is but to invite and encourage pretense. [Stereotypes are] a projection onto the Other that makes them less threatening.” (hook, 341).
