The Texture of Being and Becoming White

Abstract

This essay takes its title from Kathleen Pogue White’s call to White psychoanalysts to explore “the texture of being white in relation to the experiences of racism” in her 2002 article “Surviving Hating and Being Hated: Some Personal Thoughts about Racism from a Psychoanalytic Perspective.” It focuses on the White author’s experiences of racial hatred and White supremacy between friends as a child and adolescent in Detroit, Michigan. It seeks to add emotional and affective nuance to contemporary ways of talking about Whiteness and White supremacy in relation to Blackness and Black Americans. It also explores the damage intra-racial hatred between Whites can cause.

Keywords:

• racism
• whiteness
• class
• white supremacy
• interpersonal
• blackness

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Vitale

Anna Vitale, M.F.A., Ph.D., is a Division 1 Candidate at the William Alanson White Institute, currently on maternity leave. She is the author of Detroit Detroit (Roof Books, 2017) and the pamphlet Our Rimbaud Mask (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018).