I'm including all of this information because positioning myself is one of my biggest difficulties when I write, and I figure there is no better place than a first post on a new blog to really practice owning who I am and where I write from. In my academic work (conference presentations, papers, dissertation, conversations) I question the construction of racial categories in the United States, and I often feel anxious about contributing to conversations about racial issues while being white (that is, afforded many privileges as a result of my race). A rational part of me knows that this anxiety/discomfort is an absolutely necessary part of any good cultural critique since such critiques involve questioning norms. I also know that just because I am white does not mean that I am immune from racial construction; whiteness is just as much a product of social meaning making as blackness or brownness. Irrationally, however, I feel scared to be (another) white person in the academy producing knowledge about race. Historically this has been a subject position complicit with--if not invested in--racial oppression, and I am loathe to recreate the injustices of previous scholars of "difference".
So, there it is. I am white. I write about race. I'm also a woman who writes about gender, an academic who thinks about the academy, and a poor person with a middle-class support network who takes class seriously. This blog is my attempt to raise questions about larger social structures as I encounter them in my own life, and I hope you'll keep reading.
Peace,
Allison