we are confronted with the “troubling story” of racial and political whiteness. Blending art, photography and academic discourse, the project explores the falsehoods and paradoxes of whiteness, as well as its oppressive nature. It also highlights the crucial work contemporary photographic artists are doing to “subvert and critique its image and its continuing power”.In the book, Blight examines whiteness not only as a political or social phenomenon, but also as a visual construct.
However, as he ventured deeper into the subject, he quickly realised that there were more people who were challenging this notion of whiteness – many of them working across various different disciplines, such as portraiture, photography and montage. “The book itself is mostly visual, comprised of a sequence of images around a number of themes identified in my introductory essay,” explains Blight.Sunday Painter.
A core theme of the book is the bias of photographic technology – a medium created and dominated by white people, as an extension of “the white eye” – which plays an active role in reinforcing troubling narratives of whiteness. Blight includes images that disrupt this notion, with work from image-makers like Buck Ellison, Nancy Burson and Hank Willis Thomas.
The book also carefully explores the nuance and fluidity of racial whiteness. Blight explores how, historically, there have been many groups of people with white skin who were not generally seen as racially white . The exclusivity of whiteness in this sense reinforced the notion that it was a class-based privilege, rooted in a discourse of racial purity. “Certain people historically have been invited to become white,” Blight explains.
Asked to share his stance on the role that whiteness plays in society today, and what he feels should be done about it, Blight aligns himself with the “logic” of abolitionism. “Instead of trying to reform whiteness, I argue that we don’t need it in any way. It’s a kind of specious, violent invention that can’t be saved, effectively,” Blight says, finally. “Of course, there is a massive difference between having white skin and being racially white.
“Instead of trying to reform whiteness, I argue that we don’t need it in any way. It’s a kind of specious, violent invention that can’t be saved effectively” — Daniel C. Blight