Massachusetts Prof Writes Book Detailing the Problem of ‘Deflective Whiteness’
“The Route 2 symbol is a tribute to the Mohawk people, but Noel said the route doesn’t even sit on Mohawk territory.”
Do progressives in higher ed just sit around making up new divisive terms like this so they can write about them?
The College Fix reports:
The latest malady attributed to those of pale hue: ‘deflective whiteness’
A professor of interdisciplinary studies at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has a new book out titled “Deflective Whiteness: Co-opting Black & Latinx Identity Politics.”
Hannah Noel — or Hannah Haynes according to her Linkedin and college faculty profiles — told The Berkshire Eagle that deflective whiteness is white people claiming “aggrieved social status” and “victimhood” based on things such as worries about demographic displacement.
The 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia rally is an example, according to Noel: The protesting white supremacists allegedly “were able to protest, not fear police violence, claim space, and do so in a relatively confrontational way, was demonstrating the privileges of their whiteness.”
In her home of Massachusetts, Noel said deflective whiteness can be seen in whites’ refusal to acknowledge their “appropriation of indigenous imagery.” Whites insist that (Native) symbols such as that for the state’s Route 2 are an “honor” regardless of the circumstances.
The Route 2 symbol is a tribute to the Mohawk people, but Noel said the route doesn’t even sit on Mohawk territory. Nevertheless, “it’s shown as ‘Look, we want to honor these people.’”
Another example, Noel said, is the Massachusetts state flag about which white people say “Oh, this is like paying homage. This is honoring [Natives].”
But “to me, [the flag] a symbol of white supremacy,” Noel said. “[People think] it’s like, ‘this is this really great symbol’ and ‘Massachusetts is so liberal they would have an indigenous person be on our flag, this is great.’ When you actually look into the symbology when you look to what it represents, when you look into the history of settler colonialism, it’s a much more complicated story.”
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Must be from the Elizabeth Warren School of Cultural and Sexual Identity Appropriation.
“The 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia rally is an example, according to Noel: The protesting white supremacists allegedly “were able to protest, not fear police violence, claim space, and do so in a relatively confrontational way, was demonstrating the privileges of their whiteness.”
So what is Noel’s take on the BLM riots and the recent rash of apparently black dominated crime sprees?
Must be the privilege of displaced slavery or some other farcical rot.
Where in the world do they come up with this stuff?
Short answer to the first paragraph:
Yes.
“Do progressives in higher ed just sit around making up new divisive terms like this so they can write about them?”
Not just in academia. One of the drivers of the left is their constant need to one-up each other. You think you hate white people? Well, watch me hate them even more!
Common sense and moderation have no place in their constant competition to be the smartest, most wokest ever.
Never mind that is exactly what leftists like Biden have said they intend, and that “demographic displacement” is part of the UN’s definition of genocide.
“the Problem of ‘Deflective Whiteness’”
It sounds like a “you problem,” Hannah.
Next time I see a black guy eat vanilla ice cream I’m gonna go into self defense mode … I ain’t gonna sit idly by when I’m being threatened …
Indoctrinate as many Western civilization people as possible that they are chock-full of White privilege and to make amends to all non-Whites Western country borders must be thrown open to allow the barbarian hordes from 2nd- and 3rd-world countries to enter and transform the West into a New World Order where the elite-owned one-world government can take control.
Hannah! ….. Balderdash!🙄🙏🏻🇺🇸
Hannah, whoever you are, you are more than free to go live where ever your heart desires! If you don’t love America, trying to tear her apart with all this crap, then go somewhere you’ll be happy. I have no problem with thoughtful critisizm but ascinine pseudo-realities, making issues where there aren’t any and trying to set up all this tribalism, is wrong. E pluribus Unum is our motto for a reason – we’ve been trying to be a melting pot for 250 years and not the tossed salad that you are trying to make it. We have warts & all, but we are also the greatest country that has exixted. Why do you think people fight to get here? What other country would tolerate your blather?
The left has to keep the fire burning on these issues. It’s their power-base. It’s what makes them feel good about themselves. And as we all know, any lefty in the world of academia seeks to make themselves more relevant by writing this type of trash.
We’ve come a long way in this country from where we were in the 1950s. We can’t make up for every wrong our government or society ever committed.
If that’s the new standard, then Italy owes a lot of people for the way the Romans treated humans when they conquered their share of the world . . . together with enslaved, force gladiators into the arena, etc.
At some point this all becomes utter nonsense. Those of us alive today (particularly us pale faces) aren’t responsible for every ill perpetuated in the past.
195 bucks for a hard cover of the book ?
32.95 for a paperback or pdf version ?
pa-leeeeze. for this ? synopsis of the book
In Deflective Whiteness, Hannah Noel repositions Whiteness studies in relation to current discussions around racialized animus and White victimhood, demonstrating how White supremacy adapts its discursive strategies by cannibalizing the language and rhetoric of Black and Latinx social justice movements. Analyzing a wide-ranging collection of cultural objects-memes, oration, music, advertisements, and news coverage-Noel shows how White deflection sustains and reproduces structures of inequality and injustice.
White deflection offers a script for how social justice rhetoric and the emotions of victimization are appropriated to conjure a hegemonic White identity. Using derivative language, deflection claims Whiteness as the aggrieved social status. Through case studies of cultural moments and archives including Twitter, country music, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more, Deflective Whiteness exposes the various forms of tacit White supremacy that operate under the alibi of injury and that ultimately serve to deepen racial inequities. By understanding how, where, and why White deflection is used, Noel argues, scholars and social justice advocates can trace, tag, and deconstruct covert White supremacy at its rhetorical foundations.