Retrieving Biko: a black consciousness critique of whiteness

Hook, Derek (2011) Retrieving Biko: a black consciousness critique of whiteness. African Identities, 9 (1). pp. 19-32. ISSN 1472-5843

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Abstract

There is an important history often neglected by genealogies of ‘critical whiteness studies’: Steve Biko's Black Consciousness critique of white liberalism. What would it mean to retrieve this criticism in the context of white anti-racism in the post-apartheid era? Said's (2003) contrapuntal method proves useful here as a juxtaposing device whereby the writings of a past figure can be critically harnessed, travelling across temporal and ideological boundaries to interrogate the present. Four interlinked modes of disingenuous white anti-racism can thus be identified: (1) a fetishistic preoccupation with disproving one's racism; (2) ostentatious forms of anti-racism that function as means of self-promotion, as paradoxical means of white self-love; (3) the consolidation and extension of agency through redemptive gestures of ‘heroic white anti-racism’; (4) ‘charitable anti-racism’ which fixes tolerance within a model of charity, as an act of generosity and that reiterates the status and role of an anti-racist benefactor.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14725843.as...
Additional Information:	© 2011 Taylor & Francis Group
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Date Deposited:	21 Jul 2011 10:30
Last Modified:	20 Nov 2024 05:57
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/37493

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