“On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary” by Claudia Rankine offers valuable perspective on whiteness in writing and it’s persistence in the literary institution. Rankine brings to light whiteness and its interaction with race. While doing this, she breaks down the person of color’s experience in an white institution, and what that means for them as writers and creators.

Rankine beings by giving examples of tropes one might encounter when approaching white writers writing about race. All of these tropes are racist and ignorant in some way, and exude whiteness and privilege. Although these writers may be heartfelt and well-meaning, their way of thinking is harmful to themselves and those in reach of them, i.e. those who read their work on race. The high frequency of white writers like this adds to the alarm. The white writer’s defense of their writing is overwhelmingly narrow-minded. Their argument for writing on race and other perspectives is that imagination is a “free space” and creativity is transcendental, meaning race, social class, gender, etc are concepts that anyone can tackle because we are above them all. They believe they have the right “to imagine from the point of view of anyone I want—it is against the nature of art itself to place limits on who or what I can imagine” meaning their occupation as writers makes it so they can write about anything. Rankine provides the following argument: race is inherently a part of the imagination because our imagination is an extension of the self, which is undoubtedly attached to and affected by our experience with race. Therefore, when writers make the argument that the imaginary is not affected by race, they are wrong. She says this is not to say writers cannot write about race and from the perspectives of another, it is to ask them why they would want to inhabit that space and “what for… if and how.” Rankine also wants to ask white writers, what is the purpose of using other perspectives? What can you say now that you are using this perspective, and why would you want that idea out in the world, coming from that certain perspective? When white writers talk about the transcendence of the imaginary, they go looking outwards, to other races and lives. They do not look at themselves and their power over their imaginary and lived experiences. White writers writing on race who frequent other bodies and experiences should ask themselves why they write from such a position. If they think they have nothing interesting to add on the topic of race as a white person, they should look within themselves and get to know the bigger ideas and understandings that exist within them.

Rankine also provides insight on the way literary institutions remain in favor of a whitewashed system. They do this by asking for specific content on race from their writers of color, stifling their true perspectives and lived realities by creating a space and system that only accepts certain narratives and discussions. This kind of expectation can be hard for any writer to achieve. Not to mention the conflict and turmoil the writers must be facing about genuine voice vs. work demands. Literary communities also continue to value white writers’ feelings over the valid opinions and questions of readers of color. When people of color bring up a point in white writers’ work, the writers get offended and feel targeted, feeling that this person of color is coming from a political perspective aiming to attack them for being white. After all, despite what point is brought up against the white writers, their intentions weren’t to be offensive in any way, and thus the community rallies to support the writer. As a result, nothing worth talking about is confronted, in this case: whiteness.

This eventually leads to Rankine’s final point and goal: we have to untangle the idea of the racial imaginary that exists in all of us. Some of us have to do more work than others, but all pf us have existed up til now as consumers of a white narrative, and therefore our imagination has also been been affected. Noticing our biases and intentions is not enough, we have to work against the white narrative by following the true creativity inside of us. Ideas and concepts we might not understand but exist within us can mean something profound in someone else, or to the future world. Rankine wants us to write our truth, and to teach something. We cannot connect to everyone at once, so the goal of a universal piece is unachievable, but we can write to teach.

This text is beautifully written and only a tiny bit confusing. Rankine surely has a way with words; a topic like this would’ve been difficult to understand had it been written with an academic style, but her almost poetic, almost spiritual explanations and questions made me enjoy my time here. While reading this piece, I thought to myself many things. For one, just because you can write about something doesn’t mean you should. Another one: intent is not an excuse that can protect you, because by the time you discover the impact of your words, your audience who’ve read and digested your work have been guided to believe a certain idea that might harm themselves and/or someone else. At the end of the text I found myself reading the comments at the bottom, and the most popular one by Claudio Ferrara made me think, what would Rankine say? It’s true we wouldn’t have as many profound pieces of works if past writers had stuck to their lanes and written about themselves. Like Rankine said, our standard of good writing shouldn’t be based on the universal, it should be to teach. The pieces listed in Ferrara’s comment do that. Rankine emphasizes why white writers write from the perspective of another, why they use the racial imaginary to create. They can create without borrowing other races, genders, etc. I think Ferrara missed the point and felt called out.

The perspective of writers is discussed in “On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary” by Claudia Rankine and Beth Loffreda. They specifically discuss the issue of race and the obstacles an author faces when writing. Authors are often challenged when attempting to write from the perspective of another person. One of the main challenges they face is trying to write about the experiences a person of a different race has had or struggles they went through. It is mentioned in the essay how this is not possible because a person can only feel or go through the experiences of their own race. By discussing how an author has a limited imagination due to not being able to appropriately create a character that is a different race, the authors of this essay highlight how authors are not entitled to write about anything.

The essay demonstrates how an author’s perspective may be restricted if they are a different race. It is important to look out for this because it can make the text unreliable as the author is presenting inaccurate information or something they are not fully educated on. The presence of this restricted perspective can be detected by the reader by looking for sympathy in the writing. When an author attempts to write about another race, often they hold back in their writing because of their lack of knowledge and experience. Most of the time, this held back writing can be translated as sympathy towards the other race. At the same time, it can be difficult for authors to write about situations that involve characters of the same race as the author. Additionally, they might hesitate on the subject out of fear that they will be inaccurate or offend the race they are discussing in some way. These authors will usually lack the emotion or be able to develop the appropriate feelings the character of the different race is feeling because they themselves have never been in the situation and cannot properly imagine it. This restrictive writing only gives readers the wrong idea and does the opposite of the author’s intentions.

Worries and feelings of concern might flood the minds of people of color who read material written by authors of different races because they know that misinformation may be present. This misinformation might even include or be fueled by racism. Authors of other races may be angered by the accusations of misinformation or even racism present in their writing by their readers. While this may not be intentional, it can be present due to the absence of information the authors have. Some entitled authors might believe that their imaginings are without fault and will unfortunately become irritated if told otherwise. Some authors may be offended or hurt when a reader of color or another race points out the misinformation that exists within the authors writing. The offense that these authors feel tends to be blamed upon the readers of the material even though they are just mentioning the truths. However, the hurt that occupies the authors comes from the privilege of the author’s perspective and race. These authors are unable to acknowledge the advantaged position that they are in when they write. It is because of this that the issue of race can not be evaded in writing.

I was interested in the article “On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary response”. It opened my eyes to thinking about the way authors and I myself as someone who likes to write portrays my characters. I had never really thought about white authors writing about black characters or Hispanic characters before. Now I catch myself thinking about it more. 

The authors of the article argue that authors should not write about the experiences of other people unless they have experienced it themselves or know people who have. If a white author is going to write about something that maybe they have never experienced then they should research it first and make sure they get it right. It’s hard to understand what someone has gone through if you yourself haven’t experienced it. We may feel sympathy for these people but we can’t fully understand unless it happens to us. This is why these authors point out that we must be careful in the way we portray our characters when writing a novel. 

The authors also explain that they want people to have the creative freedom to write about what they want while also being conscious of the material. When you’re writing about nonreal events you do have this creative freedom. We start to get constrained when we go into things that have actually happened. This is why it’s hard to definitively say what authors can and can’t write about because it depends on the topic. But this should open up our eyes into thinking about for example if a white person writes about Asian culture  We have to think about why are they writing about this topic and if they have had any experiences with this culture. If they haven’t then we must know if they did research on it or studied it we have to make sure that authors aren’t getting information wrong and that they aren’t portraying certain groups in only a negative way. This article just changes our perspective in the way we look at books. Yes we do have some creative imagination but at the same time we don’t and we have to make sure we are aware of what we write about in books. 

“On Whiteness and the Racial Imaginary” caught me by surprise. Growing up I was not aware on my Latin-ness. I knew, of course, that I was Puerto Rican, but I did not experience it from an “otherness” point of view (or a third party view as Fanon would label it). As I grew into an adult and became aware of racial injustices throughout history and in the present, I became aware. I became aware of my differences from the world and perspectives of white people, as well as that of black people. In doing so, I also had to recognize my differences from other members of the Latinx community–the community I am a part of. Broken into categories of race and then subcategories, such as:  melanin and residency status. I, too, have privilege. Albeit not as much as a white man in America, but more than the Afro-Latina who was born here, and even moreso that the Mexican woman who escaped the persecution by gang members in her village and worked her ass of to become an American citizen. I am a Puerto Rican (which, as a territory of the US buys me some sort of privilege), I was born and raised here in the US, and my complexion is light– even lighter than my own brother’s. Again, although this does not equate me to a white man here in America, it allows me to move through the world in ways easier than say, my brother. At least when it comes to racial standards. I’ll save the talk of sexism for another day.

What surprised me about “On Whiteness and the Racial Imaginary” was how it called me out on something that was right under my nose, but that I had never stopped to consider before, partly because of that privilege. I don’t think I have ever stopped to consider if a book with a “minority” character had been written by a white author, or what that would even mean. I also assumed that imagination would render it okay, or if an author did enough research maybe they can get it right, but this essay revealed otherwise. This is not to say that white writers should never portray these characters, but as the essay argues, they should ask the reasons behind it, as opposed to how they can go about doing it. I love the argument that our imagination is shaped by our experiences, making it limited. As kids we are taught that our imagination has no bounds and we just learn to believe that. But the argument made here was like a light going on. How can I know what that woman fleeing Mexico even feels or experienced if I never did? And how much of what I THINK I know is not shaped by my own life or by what society projects to be her truth? The same goes for white authors writing for black characters and scenarios. Society, whether they like it or not, has put confines on the writers’ imagination, so that he or she only produces the same tropes that have been read many times before. The writers of this essay also point out how unjust it actually is for white authors to transcend into their black protagonists, as they have an “all-access” pass due to their privilege. Their black counterparts can only begin from a place of being addressed, and even so, it is argued that they cannot write for other black people because their experiences may not be alike either (like myself, for example, with other Latinxs).

A reference to a veil is made in this essay that reminded me of the veil discussed by W.E.B. Du Bois. Although, his veil referred to the double consciousness black people experienced life in, this essay connects the veil to the white authors. In “On Whiteness and the Racial Imaginary” it is said that when white authors get it wrong and are addressed by the black community, they play the victim.

“Their whiteness has veiled them from their own power to wound.”

This veil is not a consciousness of oneself that comes from the perception of others. Instead, it is a veil of privilege, making white writers “unknowing” of the damage they caused and allowing them to be the victim.

This essay has provided me with a perspective that I will not easily shake and I look forward to utilizing it into my readings of literature going forward.

Zora Neale Hurston in her work “How it Feels to be Colored Me” argues that white people are missing out on the joy that comes with being black. She flips Du Bois’ and Fenon’s arguments that black people are always reacting to a prior restriction of blackness compared to whiteness where blacks are subjected to white power and are called out in social spaces. Hurston simply states that white people are missing out. She describes an experience she had going to a jazz club with a white companion where she connected to the music in a way her white companion wasn’t able to. She believes that because white people have to tiptoe around issues of race and black people simply live it that makes black people freer. 

Hurston enjoys the drama and attention she gets by being black. She says that she gets “twice as much praise or twice as much blame” for anything she does compared to a white person. She holds the center stage and behaves as if she is performing for the world. Her perspective is that she has nothing to lose and everything to gain because “the game of keeping what one has is never as exciting as getting.” She views herself as the underdog with room to grow and do amazing things that white people can’t experience because they are simply trying to maintain their power. 

However, Hurston doesn’t believe that white people having power is absolute she thinks that trying to keep this power causes anxiety and makes white people fearful of blacks gaining power. This relates to Fenon who says that white supremacy was born because white people were threatened and wanted to protect their privilege. Hurston feels bad for the white man who is so threatened but the black man and has such anxiety about trying to maintain supremacy that he never actually enjoys being in power. She says that white people are worrying if they measure up to black people even in the most intimate settings like their bed or while they are eating. She states that “no dark ghost thrust it’s leg against mine in bed” emphasizing the greatest fear of white men, that black men will come and steal their women because white people cannot measure up sexually to black people. This constant state of anxiety and fear that Hurston paints the white man in makes the black experience seem superior. While black people are living rent-free in the minds of whites, their supposed oppressors, they are able to achieve more, create bigger spectacles, and exercise their power over white people because they can only grow from where they are now.