On White Ignorance

(Editor's Note: This is a paper I wrote for a philosophy class a couple years ago. So it might be a little dry. You can find the paper I am responding to here: http://shifter-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mills-white-ignorance.pdf)

In “White Ignorance”[1], Charles Mills argues that the history of white supremacy in America has created a tendency towards certain epistemological flaws in (predominantly, though not necessarily) white Americans. This is easy to see in the case of actual racists, where prejudice prevents them from forming true beliefs about different races. But Mills shows that this is also possible when people are not actually racist. For example, if our history books (written by whites) de-emphasize wars with American Indians and whitewash their depictions of slavery, even Americans who are not racist may not realize the extent to which this country was built through genocide and oppression. Thus they fail to recognize the extent to which these events have disadvantaged other races to the present day. In fact, “color-blindness” only blinds a person to these truths.

Mills acknowledges that white ignorance is not the only kind of ignorance that is based on the differing power dynamics between certain social groups. For example, women and the lower classes are also subject to discrimination through the ignorance of men and the upper classes, respectively. However, Mills fails to take into account (or at least does not address) the ways in which all forms of ignorance, including white ignorance, may interact with one another. I believe these interactions may exacerbate other forms of ignorance - either through bringing groups into conflict that are fighting different forms of ignorance, or by the partial conflation of what appear to be separate forms of ignorance. This may not be easy to see so I will use examples to make it clearer.

First, I would like to examine how white ignorance and male ignorance interact in the area of rap music and make both kinds of ignorance harder to fight. Many white feminists view rap, often correctly, as a genre of music that consistently denigrates women. Since they are sensitive to these issues, some of them may dismiss the genre out of hand. However, many black artists, including ones that do denigrate women (N.W.A. comes to mind), rap about the reality of race relations in their communities, realities of which these white feminists may be unaware. So when white feminists raise objections to the content of rap music, concentrating on the denigration of women and ignoring any other message, the black artist may see this, at least partially correctly, as another example of white ignorance and dismiss their concerns. (This also may create a dilemma for a black woman, who may be forced to choose between the two sides.) We have a situation in which white ignorance is caused by male ignorance and male ignorance is caused by white ignorance. So we see that it is possible for one kind of ignorance to come into conflict with another form of ignorance and increase them both.

Secondly, I will examine how white ignorance and class ignorance interact and become partially conflated. To do so, we will first need to look at how America’s class ignorance is created. This is generally done through the widespread propagation and belief in the myth of “The American Dream” - that anyone can do anything if they put their mind to it and work hard enough. While there is a certain amount of class mobility in America, it is a sad fact that the circumstances of one’s birth largely determine how successful one will be later in life. Being born into poverty generally means one will have less parental support, go to worse schools, and live in areas with higher crime rates, factors that all make it difficult for someone born in those circumstances to find economic success. However, many Americans view poverty as a personal failing, that poor people are lazy and stupid. This applies to all races, as the term “white trash” attests.

Now if we consider the black point of view, we can see how class ignorance exacerbates white ignorance and vice versa. Thanks to America’s history of slavery and segregation, black Americans have been systematically economically disadvantaged from the very beginning. So in addition to white ignorance, many of them also have to deal with class ignorance. It might seem like we could consider these separate phenomena, except that in many cases the simple fact that blacks are more likely to be living in poverty than whites is used as evidence of their inferiority. And since they are inferior, it makes sense that they live in poverty, blinding some in the upper classes from recognizing how difficult poverty is to escape. This circular logic fuels a feedback loop in which class ignorance increases white ignorance and white ignorance increases class ignorance - a loop that, over time, widens the economic gap between whites and blacks and between the lower classes and upper classes of all races.

Mills, or others, might object to focusing on ignorance in so general a sense. As he points out, there are already feminists fighting male ignorance and socialists fighting class ignorance. Focusing on general ignorance pulls resources away from the problem of white ignorance, yet another example of black concerns being discounted. If we were to concentrate solely on ignorance in general, he would not be wrong.

However, I don’t believe that those fighting white ignorance need to pull their focus away from that particular problem. All I am asking for is that for anyone combating any form of ignorance to remain aware of the ways in which their efforts may interact with each other. A failure to do so will only make our jobs that much harder.

[1] Charles W. Mills, ed. Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, "White Ignorance," Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, State University of New York Press, 2007 ,   pp. 13- 38.