The habits of whiteness
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Both Sara Ahmed and George Yancy explore whiteness and its habits in their meditations. Ahmed writes “whiteness is what bodies do, where the body takes the shape of the action.” Going on to explain that white people “do not get ‘stressed’ in their encounters with objects or others, as their whiteness‘ goes unnoticed’.” Exploring what the trails white people leave behind mean for racialised folks and the ease in which white people can move through life without considering the impact of their actions. This ease becomes a habit for white people as they normalise their whiteness allowing the systems of white supremacy to be upheld.
Yancy writes on Ahmed's exploration of this habit of whiteness and says “This does not mean, however, whites who choose to give their attention to thinking critically about whiteness are incapable of doing so, though it does mean that there will be white structural blinkers that occlude specific and complex insights by virtue of being white.” Emphasising that white people who give space and time to reflecting on their whiteness may be able to better understand the impact of their habits and how they can attempt to recognise them but will struggle to relate to the complexity of racialised people’s experience at the hands of white supremacy. Ultimately, Ahmed and Yancy offer explanations on how ingrained habits of whiteness prevent white people from understanding the realities faced by those affected by systemic racialised inequalities.