White People Aren’t Stupid, They’re Ignorant

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Abstract

This double ignorance has been coined White Ignorance. It is telling someone of Filipino descent that they have Mulan without acknowledging the countless Disney princess movies with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess. It is claiming that affirmative action has set a level-playing field between White and Black Americans and that it is now doing a disservice to White people. It’s feeling a need to latch on to oppression when it isn’t even relevant to you. White Ignorance is self-serving. It ensures White people continue reaping all the benefits that come with privilege without having to be held accountable for it.<a href="https://thedissonance.org/2018/03/16/white-ignorance-what-it-is-how-it-hurts-and-what-needs-to-change/">White Ignorance manifests itself through deflection, distancing, and moral absolution. It maintains relevancy through white talk.</a> Talk that encourages White people to say things like “I don’t see race” or deflect racism on others by clinging to the idea of reverse racism. It is the thing that gives whiteness so much power.<blockquote id="3c80">According to Boodman, whiteness is a complex social position in the sense that it is both one thing and many things. It is non-essential, and yet essentialized. This is due to the fact that whiteness, like any other race, is socially, politically, and legally constructed. White ignorance is a direct product of this complexity. White ignorance is a cognitive disruption driven by a refusal by whites to recognize history. Rather than a neutral lack of information, white ignorance is substantive. It is invested in being blind to its own

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norm. It is an active production of various modes of justification for whiteness, including interpersonal racism and structural racism.</blockquote>White people absolve themselves of any responsibility for racism by ensuring that history centers around whiteness. The history that is taught in Western countries is White history. To learn about other groups of people, you need to actively seek it out. That requires one to enroll in African, World, Asian, etc… histories to learn outside of themselves. By centering history around the accomplishments of White people, you imply that racism was necessary for America to be in the position it is today. In a sense, that the ends justify the means.This perpetuates white ignorance and makes People of Color have to explain why they matter. It puts the responsibility on the least heard to be the loudest they can be. Ignorance can only be reversed when you become aware of it.Reversing White Ignorance will require White people to understand that whiteness is made up. It is a social construct that was created to form a racial hierarchy. One in which White people are meant to be on top for perpetuity. It requires understanding the structures that maintain individual and structural racism and the ways in which it can be dismantled. All of this requires an immense amount of work and is the antithesis of White Ignorance. However, it is also the very antidote needed to make the world more equitable.White people aren’t stupid, they never have been, they are ignorant and have set up structures that preserve it.</article></body>

Calling White people stupid implies that they tried to understand something and couldn’t get it.

Bernard Goldbach at Flickr

Yesterday, I was talking to my friend about the newly released Disney movie Raya and the Last Dragon and how it is nice to see Filipino representation on screen. We got on to the topic of ancestry and how insane it is that White people want you to know that they are Irish, German, Italian, etc… yet anyone of color detailing their ancestry is too much for them to comprehend.

An Asian person being anything other than Chinese is too much to remember. Someone from Africa being anything other than just African is asking too much of them. My friend then proceeded to say all of this happens because White people are stupid. I interjected and corrected her. I said, “White people aren’t stupid. They are ignorant. To call a White person stupid implies that they attempted to understand and couldn’t grasp the topic. White people don’t even attempt, they don’t try to understand, and they aren’t willing to. White people aren’t stupid, they are ignorant.”

White Americans are ignorant of the individual and institutional racism that plagues People of Color, even when there is overwhelming evidence of it. This ignorance is compounded by the fact that they are unaware of it. This double ignorance has been coined White Ignorance. It is telling someone of Filipino descent that they have Mulan without acknowledging the countless Disney princess movies with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed princess. It is claiming that affirmative action has set a level-playing field between White and Black Americans and that it is now doing a disservice to White people. It’s feeling a need to latch on to oppression when it isn’t even relevant to you. White Ignorance is self-serving. It ensures White people continue reaping all the benefits that come with privilege without having to be held accountable for it.

White Ignorance manifests itself through deflection, distancing, and moral absolution. It maintains relevancy through white talk. Talk that encourages White people to say things like “I don’t see race” or deflect racism on others by clinging to the idea of reverse racism. It is the thing that gives whiteness so much power.

According to Boodman, whiteness is a complex social position in the sense that it is both one thing and many things. It is non-essential, and yet essentialized. This is due to the fact that whiteness, like any other race, is socially, politically, and legally constructed. White ignorance is a direct product of this complexity. White ignorance is a cognitive disruption driven by a refusal by whites to recognize history. Rather than a neutral lack of information, white ignorance is substantive. It is invested in being blind to its own norm. It is an active production of various modes of justification for whiteness, including interpersonal racism and structural racism.

White people absolve themselves of any responsibility for racism by ensuring that history centers around whiteness. The history that is taught in Western countries is White history. To learn about other groups of people, you need to actively seek it out. That requires one to enroll in African, World, Asian, etc… histories to learn outside of themselves. By centering history around the accomplishments of White people, you imply that racism was necessary for America to be in the position it is today. In a sense, that the ends justify the means.

This perpetuates white ignorance and makes People of Color have to explain why they matter. It puts the responsibility on the least heard to be the loudest they can be. Ignorance can only be reversed when you become aware of it.

Reversing White Ignorance will require White people to understand that whiteness is made up. It is a social construct that was created to form a racial hierarchy. One in which White people are meant to be on top for perpetuity. It requires understanding the structures that maintain individual and structural racism and the ways in which it can be dismantled. All of this requires an immense amount of work and is the antithesis of White Ignorance. However, it is also the very antidote needed to make the world more equitable.

White people aren’t stupid, they never have been, they are ignorant and have set up structures that preserve it.