The House of Difference,or White Silence |
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Authors: | Adrienne Harris PhD |
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Institution: | 1. New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California adrienneeharris@gmail.com |
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Abstract: | In this article I track three ways of confronting the question of whiteness and its attendant problematic of racism. I look at two personal episodes one involving inheritances from white explorer forebearers and the place of racism in fetishized objects and second in the institutional difficulties within psychoanalysis in finding ways to speak about race and the dilemma of being a beneficiary of racism. Finally I look at the hidden racism in a much lauded psychoanalytic article, Joan Riviere's (1929
Riviere , J. ( 1929 ). Womanliness as a masquerade . International Journal of Psychoanalysis , 9 , 303 – 313 . Google Scholar]) “Womanliness as a Masquerade,” and in the light of these three problems speculate on “whiteness.” I argue that the intergenerational transmissions of guilt and disavowal together leave a blank psychic space that makes an authentic expression of racial consciousness and genuine reparation currently difficult and certainly, even if well intentioned, partially compromised. |
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