11/28/2017 On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary | Literary Hub

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( H T T P : / / L I T H U  . C O M ) SEARCH 

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ON WHITN AND TH RACIAL IMAGINARY
WHR WRITR GO WRONG IN IMAGINING TH LIV OF OTHR

April 9, 2015   Claudia Rankine and eth Loffreda (http://lithu.com/author/claudia-rankine-and-eth-loffreda/)
hare:
 (https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Flithub.com%2Fon-whiteness-and-the-racial-
imaginary%2F&t=On%20Whiteness%20and%20The%20Racial%20Imaginary)
e following i adapted from the foreword to  e Racial Imaginar, a collection of ea
 (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?
edited  Claudia Rankine and eth Loffreda, availale from Fence ook
via=lithub&text=On%20Whiteness%20and%20The%20Racial%20Imaginary&url=http%3A%2F%2Flithub.com%2Fon-whiteness-
and-the-racial-imaginary%2F)
(http://www.fenceportal.org/?page_id=5662). 
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
Here are a few of the trope ou would likel encounter if ou tarted looking at writer
(http://lithub.com)
(https://plus.google.com/share?url=http%3A%2F%2Flithub.com%2Fon-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary%2F)


writing aout race thee da. One: I met an other and it wa hard! 
More FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 
at i lightl aid,
ut that i the eence of the trope: the anxiou, entangling encounter with other that
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happen efore anone even make it to the page, and that appear there primaril a an
OOK MARK 
occaion for the writer to encounter her own feeling. Another: I needed to travel to
“meet” race, I went to Africa or to Aia or to the American outh or to Central America
to look at race, a if it now mainl can e found in a ort of wildlife preerve eparate
from ordinar, everda experience. Another: race i racim. And latl: the enduring
American thing of eeing race a a white and lack affair, the cene where the real race
tuff goe down. Which i accompanied  the trope of the dicount: the one that fail to
extend to other people of color an authentic fullne of experience, a mopia that render
them in the term of the “not reall.”

e matter of craft come up clearl when we encounter the variou trope that white
writer take recoure to repeatedl when race i on the tale.  ee trope are tpicall
heartfelt; ut their repetition hould e taken a a ign. Here’ one: “ e imagination i a
free pace, and I have the right to imagine from the point of view of anone I want—it i
againt the nature of art itelf to place limit on who or what I can imagine.”  i
language of right i a extraordinar a it i popular, and it i triking to ee how man
white writer in particular conceive of race and the creative imagination a the quetion of
whether the feel the are permitted to write a character, or a voice, or a perona, “of
color.”  i i a deco whoe lucioune i evident in the frequenc with which it i
chaed.  e deco itelf point to the whitene of whitene—that to write race would e
to write “color,” to write an other.

ut to argue that the imagination i or can e omehow free of race—that it’ the one
region of elf or experience that i free of race—and that I have a right to imagine
whoever I want, and that it damage and deform m art to et limit on m imagination
—act a if the imagination i not part of me, i not created  the ame we and matrix
of hitor and culture that made “me.” o to a, a a white writer, that I have a right to
write aout whoever I want, including writing from the point of view of character of

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color—that I have a right of acce and that m creativit and artitr i harmed if I am
(http://lithub.com)

told I cannot do o—i to make a mitake. It i to egin the converation in the wrong
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

place. It i the wrong place ecaue, for one, it mitake critical repone for prohiition
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(we’ve all heard the in ationar rhetoric of candalized whitene). ut it i alo a mitake
OOK MARK
ecaue our imagination are creature a limited a we ourelve are.  e are not ome


pecial, unin ltrated realm that trancend the me realitie of our live and mind. To
think of creativit in term of trancendence i itelf peci c and partial—a lovel dream
perhap, ut an inhuman one.

It i not onl white writer who make a prize of trancendence, of coure. Man writer
of all ackground ee the imagination a ahitorical, a a generative place where race
doen’t and houldn’t enter, a pace for odie to trancend the legilative, the economic—
trancend the tuff that doen’t lend itelf much poetr. In thi view the imagination i
potracial, a pothitorical and potpolitical utopia. ome writer of color, in the tradition
of previou writer like Countee Cullen (http://www.poetrfoundation.org/io/countee-
cullen) (a l and complicated tradition, we acknowledge), don’t want to have race
dirting up the primac of the imaginative work; want the merit of the work made free
 more neutral tandard. To ring up race for thee writer i to inch cloe to the
anxiou pace of affirmative action, the carring quali ed.

o everone i here.

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(http://lithub.com)

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(http://wordpre-imageupload-prod.3.amazonaw.com/wp-content/upload/2015/03/Kate-Clark-Pra.png) Kate Clark, ‘Pra’,
2013

Trancendence i unevenl ditriuted and experienced, however. White writer often
egin from a place where trancendence i a given—one alread ha acce to all, one
alread i permitted to inhait all, to addre all.  e crii come when one’ acce i
quetioned. For writer of color, trancendence can feel like a ditant and eluive thing,
ecaue writer of color often egin from the place of eing addreed, and acceed. To
e a peron of color in a racit culture i to e alwa addreale, and to e addreale
mean one i alwa within tigma’ reach. o one’ imagination i in uenced  the
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recognition of the need to account for thi ituation—even in the imagination, one feel
(http://lithub.com)

accountale, one feel one mut counter. o a writer of color ma e fueled  the deire
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

to exit that place of addreailit. At the ame time one ma wih to write of race. And
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again at the ame time one ma wih to do an or all of thee thing inide a et of literar
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intitution that expect and even reward certain predictale performance of race.  ere


can e a comfort, a place to hole up, a place to ret, found in that performance—that i, if
that performance conform. ut even if it conform, the performance return the writer
of color to an addreailit that at an moment ma ecome violent rather than afe—
ma ecome violent if the performance tep outide or eond thoe comforting
conformitie, or even if the performance ta within them. ecaue the “favor” of largel
white-run literar intitution i founded on an original, if ocured, amament of racial
power: the can alwa remind ou ou’re a guet.

What we eek to detect in thee example aove i the preence of a more general
ituation, the cene of race taking up reidence in the creative act.  i i what we mean
 a racial imaginar, an unlrical term, ut then it lack of muic i  tting. One wa to
know ou’re in the preence of—in poeion of, poeed —a racial imaginar i to
ee if the oundarie of one’ imaginative mpath line up, again and again, with the
line drawn  power. If the imaginative mpath of a white writer, for example, hut
off at the edge of whitene.  i i not to a that the onl olution would e to extend
the imagination into other identitie, that the white writer to e antiracit mut write
from the point of view of character of color. It’ to a that a white writer’ work could
alo think aout, expoe, that racial dnamic.  at what white artit might do i not
imaginativel inhait the other ecaue that i their right a artit, ut intead emod
and examine the interior landcape that wihe to peak of right, that wihe to move
freel and unounded acro time, pace, and line of power, that wihe to inhait
whomever it chooe.

It hould alo converel not e aumed that it i “ea” or “natural” to write cenario or
character whoe race matche (whatever that might mean) one’ own.  i i the trap
that writer of color in particular till mut negotiate; it’ the place where “write what ou

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know” ecome plantational in effect. (http://lithub.com)

FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

We acknowledge that ever act of imaginative mpath inevital ha limit. Perhap the
L O wa to expand thoe limit i not to “enter” a racial other ut intead to inhait, a
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intenel a poile, the moment in which the imagination’ mpath encounter it
 OOK MARK
limit. Or: to realize one might alo make trange what eem oviou, near, cloe.

Are we aing Aian writer can’t write Latino character?  at white writer can’t write
lack character?  at no one can write from a different racial other’ point of view?
We’re aing we’d like to change the term of that converation, to think aout creativit
and the imagination without emploing the language of right and the ometime
concealing term of craft. To ak ome  rt-principle quetion intead. o, not: can I
write from another’ point of view? ut intead: to ak wh and what for, not jut if and
how. What i the charima of what I feel etranged from, and wh might I wih to enter
and inhait it. To peak not in term of prohiition and right, ut deire. To ak what we
think we know, and how we might undermine our own ene of authorit. To not impl
aume that the mot private, interior, emotional pace of exitence—the pace that are
uppoed to e the “proper” material of the lric and the  ctive—are mot availale for
lric and  ctive rendering ecaue the are omehow eond race. To not aume that the
preence of race deform the creative act, render the creative act adl earthound. We
are ourelve earthound. And race i one of the thing that ind u there.

Crucial in what we’re aing aove i that we don’t want to talk onl of writing “acro”
racial divide. For we wih to alo unettle the aumption that it i ea or imple to write
what one “i.” Wh might I aume it i ea to write what i nearet to me? How do I
know what that i—and what do I mi when I keep familiar thing familiar? It hould e
difficult to write what one “know”—and if it i too ea, it i worth aking if that i
ecaue one i reproducing convention and aumption rewarded  the marketplace of
literature. And here again the racial preference—the particular plot, the particular
character, the particular cenario and peronae—favored  literar intitution put
pecial preure on writer of color, threaten to deform what uch a writer i aumed to
know and expected to produce.
http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/ 6/16
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Race enter writing, the making of art, a a tructure of feeling, a omething that
(http://lithub.com)

tructure feeling, that la down track of affection and repulion, rage and hurt, deire
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

and ache.  ee track don’t onl occur in the making of art; the alo occur (ometime
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vicioul, ometime hazil) in the reception of creative work. Here we are again: we’ve
OOK MARK 
made thi thing and we’ve ent it out into the world for recognition—and ecaue what
we’ve made i in eence a  eld of human experience created for other human, the  eld
and it maker and it reader are thu uject all over again to race and it in ltration. In
that moment arie all ort of poile hearing and mi-hearing, all kind of addre and
redre.

For example: In that moment, writer and reader of color ma feel profound and mutual
anxietie that all people of color are aout to e locked in, locked down,  the
repreentation at hand, no matter who wrote it. ut epeciall if a white writer wrote it.
i anxiet i fueled  the fact that racim, in it ver dailne, in it ver variet of
expreion, in’t  xed. It’ there, and then it’ not, and then it’ there again. One i alwa
doing the math: Wa it there? Wa it not? What jut happened? Did I hear what I
thought I heard? hould I let it go? Am I making too much of it? Racim often doe it
ugl work  not manifeting itelf clearl and indiputal, and  undermining one’
own ailit to feel certain of exactl what force are in pla.  i happen in reading a it
doe everwhere ele. In a ene, it doule-down the force of race—ou feel it, ou feel
the injur, the racit addre, and then ou quetion ourelf for feeling it. You wonder if
ou’ve made our own prion.

Another example: white writer can get exploivel angr when aked to recognize that
their racial imagining might not e perfect—when aked to recognize that their
imagination i not entirel their own—and in particular when confronted with that fact
 a peron of color quetioning omething the wrote. And the target of that anger i
uuall the peron of color who hared with them thi fact.  e white writer feel injured
in thi moment—miundertood and wounded—and elieve it i the reader, the peron

http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/ 7/16
11/28/2017 On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary | Literary Hub

of color, who ha dealt the injur.  i i how the white mind tend to racial “wound”—
(http://lithub.com)

it make a mitake aout who or what ha dealt the injur. For it i not the reader of color
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

who deal the injur. It i whitene itelf.
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To recontruct the reader of color a the aggreor i one wa that whitene reaert it
OOK MARK 
power in it moment of crii. It ha een expoed—it mut now perform weakne,
helplene, it mut pretend to innocence, to harmle and undefended and hocked
innocence, in order to “reveal” the reader of color a motivated  unavor, irrational,
aggreive, “political,” or ujective tendencie that have lahed out at the innocent and
harmed him (thi i how “the race card” trope work to diqualif the reader old enough
to call up race where it might not e wanted: the trope enact it dimiivene 
characterizing an mention of race a irreponile, an injection of race “where it doen’t
elong” when in fact it inhere whether it’ called up or not).  e white writer wa taken
 urprie  thi attack—how could he have een it coming? he meant well—urel
thi inoculate her againt an charge.  e attack wa unfair. And o we mut rall to the
victim. And thu whitene goe onl rie  conteted.

i repoitioning appear to cleane whitene of it power, of it aggreion—for who
can’t hear the aggreion in “I have a right of acce to whomever I wih?”—and a of
whitene intead “I have een unfairl characterized and miundertood, I have een
aainated  omeone whoe motivation are political and who i thu diquali ed from
the human endeavor that i art making.”  u the wound i paraded for all to witne,
and whitene gather to itelf again it aiding centralit, it authorit, it “right.” It
anit.

http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/ 8/16
11/28/2017 On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary | Literary Hub

(http://lithub.com)

FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

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OOK MARK 

(http://wordpre-imageupload-prod.3.amazonaw.com/wp-content/upload/2015/03/Amiti-Motevalli-Looking-for-the-
ird.png) Amiti Motevalli, Looking for the ird, 2005

What the white writer might realize intead, in thi moment of crii, i that he ma
well e an injured part—ut the injur wa dealt long efore.  e injur i her
whitene.  aing “injur” we do not mean to erae from view all the ene t and
privilege that whitene endow; we do not mean to invite an unwarranted mpath.
ut we do think white people in America tend to uffer an anxiet (and man have
written of thi): the know that the are white ut the mut not know what the know.
e know that the are white, ut the cannot know that uch a thing ha ocial

http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/ 9/16
11/28/2017 On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary | Literary Hub

meaning; the know that the are white, ut the mut not know that their whitene
(http://lithub.com)

accrue power.  e mut not call it whitene for to do o would e to acknowledge it
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

force.  e mut intead feel themelve to e individual upon whom nothing ha acted.
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at’ the injur, that their whitene ha veiled from them their own power to wound,
OOK MARK
ha cut down their mpath to a maller ize, ha peruaded them that their imagination


i unin ected, unin ltrated. It ha made them unknowing. Which i one reaon wh

white people take recoure to innocence: I did not mean to do an harm. Or: I wanted to
imagine ou—in’t that good of me, haven’t other aid that wa good for me to tr? Or:
If I cared aout politic, I would write a manifeto—what I’m tring to do i make art.
Or: I have a right to imagine whatever I want, and it traduce or dirtie art to limit the
imagination. Or: I don’t ee color. Or: we’re all human eing.

Part of the mitake the white writer make i that he confound the invitation to witne
her inevitale racial ujectivit with a tigmatizing charge of racim that mut e
reutted at all cot.  e white writer, in the moment of crii, tpicall cannot tell the
difference. What a white peron could know intead i thi: her whitene limit her
imagination—not her reader’ after the fact. A deep awarene of thi knowledge could
indeed expand the limit—not trancend them, ut expand them, make more room for
the imagination. A good thing.

For one ource of creativit lie in the fact that each individual i eentiall trange.  ere
i a deep trangene, an alterit, in the individual human mind, a portion of ourelve
that we never full comprehend—and thi i what writing tap, or i at leat one of
writing’ ource, one of it engine.  i might explain the enigma of writing for o man
of u, that the writing o often eem to know more than we do, that we are ‘ehind’ the
writing (“ehind it” in that we make it, ut alo “ehind it” in the ene that we can’t
catch up with what it know and reveal, that it i out ahead of u driven  energie in
our poeion ut not entirel in our delierate control).  i eential trangene, thi
unknowailit, i a creative reource, perhap the creative reource, the wellpring of art
that how u thing we did not know ut that are omehow inevitale and true—true to
a realit or a knowledge we don’t et poe, et  nd in the moment of encounter

http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/ 10/16
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poile, omething we accept the fundamental eing of even if it nature hock or
(http://lithub.com)

tartle or repule or unettle u (arthelme’ trange oject covered in fur can onl
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

reak our heart if ou have accepted, in the intant of encounter, it eential eing, even
LONGFORM (HTTP://LITHU.COM/CATGORY/LONGFORM/)  DAILY FICTION
if ou have not et comprehended it trangene, it otherne).
OOK MARK 

ut while it might e mtifing how creative impule and deciion emerge from
omewhere within, that doen’t mean we mut make a fetih of that mterioune. For
that unknowale portion of the human mind i alo a domain of culture—a place croed
up  culture and hitor, where the condition into which we were orn have had their
effect. Part of what i unknowale within u, at leat until we invetigate it, i the
tructuring of our ver feeling and thought  what preceded u and i not our “own,”
et condition our experience nonethele. o the location of a writer’ trangene i alo
the eat of hitor. A writer’ imagination i alo the place where a racial imaginar—
conceived efore he came into eing et deepl lodged in her own mind—take up it
reidence. And the dientangling and harneing of thee thing i the writer’ endle
and un nihale ut not fruitle tak. Another wa of aing thi: the writer’ eential
trangene i her greatet reource, et he mut alo e in keptical tenion with her own
inclination. ecaue thoe inclination are in part an inheritance from a racial imaginar
that oth i and i not her.

We want to acknowledge that we have fallen into one of the ver trap we mentioned at
the tart—we are having a hard time talking aout race eparate from racim. Indeed,
we’re not ure if we can or  nd it elievale to imagine otherwie, imagine a time when or
a fahion in which race outrun it irth in racim and ecome ome kind of neutral,
unfanged categor. And we want to acknowledge too: thi i a nat uine. We hould
not pretend that our experience of race are otherwie. A we write, a we read one
another, the internal tumult i unavoidale. It might e oft or it might e loud, ut it’ll
e made up of ome admixture of hame, guilt, loathing, opportunim, anxiet, irritation,
dimial, elf-hatred, pain, hope, affection, and other even le nameale energie.  e
particular chemitr ma differ depending upon one’ idioncratic mix of peronal
hitor and ocial location. For ome it i nothing hort of an aault, an aault no le

http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/ 11/16
11/28/2017 On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary | Literary Hub

painful ecaue it i routine, an ordinar effect of negotiating a life in a world of people
(http://lithub.com)

largel comfortale watching the aault go on, or at leat willing to minimize it
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

exitence. It’ me, and it’ going to ta me. ecaue hitor i not an act of the
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imagination. Which i the condition from which we tart.
OOK MARK 

What we want to avoid at all cot i omething that feel nearl impoile to evade in
dail peech: an oppoition etween writing that account for race (and here we could
alo peak of gender, exualit, other enmehment of the od in hitor) and writing
that i “univeral.” If we continue to think of the “univeral’ a etter-than, a the
pinnacle, we will alwa dicount writing that doen’t look univeral ecaue it account
for race or ome other demeaned categor.  e univeral i a fanta. ut we are captive,
till, to a eniilit that champion the univeral while imultaneoul de ning the
univeral, till, a white. We are captive, till, to a tle of championing literature that a
work  writer of color ucceed when a white peron can neverthele relate to it—that
it “trancend” it categor. To a thi ook  a writer of color i great ecaue it
trancend it particularit to a omething “human” (and we’ve all read that review,
mae even written it ourelve) i to reveal the racit underpinning quite clearl: uch a
claim egin from the tance that people of color are not human, onl achieve the human
in certain circumtance. We don’t wih to uild camp. And we know there i no
language that i not loaded. ut we could tr to a, for example, not that good writing i
good ecaue it achieve the univeral, ut perhap intead that in the preence of good
writing a reader i given omething to know. omething i rought into eing that might
otherwie not e known, omething i doul witneed.

What we mean  a racial imaginar i omething we all recognize quite eail: the wa
our culture ha imagined over and over again the narrative opportunitie, the kind of
feeling and attriute and ituation and uject and plot and form “availale” oth to
character of different race and their author.  e racial imaginar change over time, in
part ecaue artit get into tenion with it, challenge it, alter it availailitie. ometime
it change ver rapidl, a in our own lifetime. ut it ha et to diappear. We cannot

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imagine it out of exitence. Intead our imagining might tet their inheritance, to make
(http://lithub.com)

wa for a time when uch inheritance no longer ennare u. ut we are creature of thi
FATUR  NW  WRITING LIF 

moment, not that one.
LONGFORM (HTTP://LITHU.COM/CATGORY/LONGFORM/) DAILY FICTION 

 
OOK MARK 

elected art from  e Racial Imaginar courte of Fence. Feature image: Chinoierie, 
Kungmi hin, 2003.

 eth Loffreda (http://lithu.com/tag/eth-loffreda/) Claudia Rankine (http://lithu.com/tag/claudia-rankine/)

ea (http://lithu.com/tag/ea/) Fence (http://lithu.com/tag/fence/)

Non-fiction (http://lithu.com/tag/non-fiction/) race (http://lithu.com/tag/race/)

racim (http://lithu.com/tag/racim/) The Racial Imaginar (http://lithu.com/tag/the-racial-imaginar/)

writer (http://lithu.com/tag/writer/)

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 More

Claudia Rankine and eth Loffreda (http://lithu.com/author/claudia-rankine-and-eth-loffreda/)

Claudia Rankine i the author or  ve collection of poetr, including Citizen (2014), a
nalit for the National ook Award and winner of the National ook Critic Circle
(http://lit Award in Poetr. eth Loffreda teache workhop in non- ction a well a coure in
hub.com/ recent American and African-American literature at the Univerit of Woming and
author/cl pulihed Loing Matt hepard: Life and Politic in the Aftermath of Anti-Ga Murder
audia- (2000).
rankine-
and-

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beth- (http://lithub.com)
loffreda/)
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Claudio Ferrara • 6 months ago

If one should bring your logic to its full extent, then only autobiographies could be written. Flaubert
couldn't have written Madame Bovary because he wasn't a woman and Dostojevskij couldn't have
written his novels beacuse we wasn't a serf toiling on the hard Siberian soil. I suppose Shakespeare
shouldn't have written Othello either, since he was not black, and Dante couldn't have written the
Commedia since he wasn't neither angel nor demon. O tempora o mores.

PS: using the words 'race' and 'racial' IS racist in itself, no matter how much bona fide you put in
them. There's no such thing like 'races' in the real world (ask any good genetist for details). There is
only ONE race and it's called the human race. Evey time you use the word 'race' to mean 'ethnical
group' you are putting up a fence that doesn't exist in real life (thank God). 'Race ' and 'racial' give
me the shivers every time I read them, recalling times I hoped we had put behind us for good. I
can't understand how you can use those words so lightheartedly in the US with all that obsession
with PC-ness you have.
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ChezC3 • 4 months ago

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(http://lithub.com)
Seems one should be offended that you'd presume to understand the white writer's intentions,
motives, and mind.
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ottopivnr • 3 years ago
Ever since i read, and hated, Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, I have been pondering this topic.
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I have also changed my reading and buying habits, looking, wherever possible, for, dare i say it,
'authenticity' in the authorial voice.
This essay, which I must admit will require several closer readings, touches on many excellent
points regarding the way the we, as readers and critics, owe it to ourselves to examine how minority
characters and cultures are presented to us.
This is not limited to literature, of course. rap and hip hop culture deal with appropriation all the
time, but until the publishing industry promotes more diversity as a matter of course, it is
incumbent upon us, the audience, to seek it out a wide variety of points of view, if only to insure
that those voices continue to be heard.
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A Matak • 2 years ago

You may find great interest in this 2011 sociology article on race and book reviewing:
http://phillipachong.com/wp...
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Vicki Weisfeld • 3 years ago

This very topic came up in my writers' group the day before I found this thoughtful essay. I tried to
distill some of its arguments on my own blog (www.vweisfeld.com/?p=4265), with contrasting
views written in response to critiques of Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, to derive a modus
operandi for writers. I can only conclude that perfection is a long way off, but thinking deeply about
the characters one writes about is essential, regardless of demographics. In the case of characters
unlike oneself, Rankine and Loffreda wisely insist there are responsibilities, as well.
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