WHITE RACIAL IGNORANCE: White Lies and Inverted Epistemologies
Publication Date
1-1-2023
Document Type
Contribution to a Book
Publication Title
Critical Whiteness Praxis in Higher Education: Considerations for the Pursuit of Racial Justice on Campus
DOI
10.4324/9781003443919-5
First Page
70
Last Page
89
Abstract
This chapter thoroughly explores the intricacies of Mills’s theorization of the racial contract and his conceptualization of epistemologies of ignorance in order to better understand the concept of white racial ignorance and how it can be applied to research and practice in higher education and student affairs. Moreover, the relationship between white racial ignorance and systemic racism and white supremacy is symbiotic in that racist structures are necessary to maintain a society rooted in an epistemology of ignorance, and this inverted epistemology simultaneously allows for the maintenance of racist structures. Lastly, white racial ignorance functions as the mechanism that allows white students to participate in a historical amnesia, which becomes particularly important as practitioners attempt to apply student development research and theory to their work with students. Through the institutional epistemology of ignorance, white-serving institutions might advance the idea that change can happen by ensuring that institutions uphold their promises to hire more Faculty of Color.
Recommended Citation
Chris Corces-Zimmerman and Tonia Guida. "WHITE RACIAL IGNORANCE: White Lies and Inverted Epistemologies" Critical Whiteness Praxis in Higher Education: Considerations for the Pursuit of Racial Justice on Campus (2023): 70-89. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003443919-5
