Yancy, the white child and racial prejudice
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Yancy writes about white people viewing themselves as "background" noise, their bodies existing as "neutral" in a world upheld by white regulation. He argues that if white people do not make themselves examine their actions, or inaction, on a quotidien basis, they reproduce racism by perpetuating the invisibility of whiteness and maintaining the structures of racial dominance that privilege their own identity. The white child grows up in this system of purposeful ignorance and learns to embody a normalisation of white supremacy, through unquestioning and uncritical acceptance of their racial privilege.
Yancy contends white children are socialised into a framework where this white privilege is rendered invisible to them, not by accident, but by design. The narrative of white innocence functions to shield white children from the recognition of their participation in a racialised world, thereby encouraging their unconscious complicity in oppression. In this sense, the innocence ascribed to white children becomes a form of epistemic violence, where their lack of awareness is not neutral but contributes to the maintenance of a world where whiteness remains "unremarkable". He shifts the conversation from a notion of innocence as passive, to an active construction of white identity as meaningless.
"Whiteness is there to be shown", argues Ahmed: as soon as white people are shown to be "raced beings", it inextricably binds them to the historical processes of racialisation. This is crucial in understanding the construction of white innocence in children, as Yancy suggests. The refusal to recognize whiteness preserves the myth of white neutrality and, in turn, innocence. The white child is raised in an environment where their racial identity is deliberately rendered invisible, keeping them unaware of their role in perpetuating racial hierarchies. In this way, innocence becomes a carefully cultivated ignorance. Their identity is framed as a universal default rather than a specific racial experience with implications for racialised people.