Whiting Out: Writing on Vulnerability, Racism and Repair

Whiting Out: Writing on Vulnerability, Racism and Repair is an experimental text that seeks to collapse the space that white writers create between ourselves and our ideas when writing about race, identity, history, responsibility, positionality, power and the present. The book is written as a first-person meditation grounded in a poetics of vulnerability, undertaken as an author study in two major parts - fragmented first through the work of James Baldwin and then refracted through the writing of Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Whiting Out is for both aspiring and experienced teachers (especially white folks), as well as anyone open to writing new narratives and imagining new possible worlds.

Each chapter contains a range of unique features to engage the reader, including select excerpts of poetry, verbatim dialogue and scattered reflection questions in conversation with Baldwin and Anzaldúa. In total, Whiting Out calls upon white people to commit to deep learning toward our collective anti-racist liberation, toward intersectional futures where racial healing and reparation are prioritized. The text reads Baldwin and Anzaldúa with fresh eyes and a cautiously hopeful heart across divergent histories and contemporary moments, to write new narratives, make new moves and articulate new political commitments fortified in shared struggle.

Perfect for courses such as: Introduction to Education; Introduction to Teaching and Learning; Introduction to Curriculum Studies; Education and Society; Education and Cultural Studies; Whiteness in Education; Critical Race Theory in Education; Race, Racism and Anti-Racism; Examining Race, Power and Privilege; Teaching and Learning in Diverse Contexts