White charity

Kilomba 2005: 82f). Together, these strategies allow the “white subject to look at itself as morallyideal, correct, virtuous, honest, democratic, impartial” (Kilomba 2005: 80).Chapter II: Barthes' Mythologies“The literal meaning of myth is not to reflect an objectiveworld view; in fact it is expressed how the humancomprehends himself in his world.” (Rudolf Karl Bultmann1941: 22, translation TK)In the last chapter, I criticised Critical Whiteness Studies as concentrating solely on genealogies anddiscourse analysis and not examining structures that underlie whiteness. Some authors mention a“grammar” (Wollrad 2005: 19) or a “pattern” (Goudge 2003: 20), but do not point out how it can beanalysed and deconstructed. Roland Barthes offers a structural analysis of myth as a tool ofproduction, conservation and manifestation of power, which is used by dominant groups. One hasnot to believe in all principles of structuralism to consider (parts of) his theory helpful for theanalysis of whiteness. I therefore do not consider his theory of myth as a rigid system, but as anauxiliary tool.The essays which Barthes collected in his book “Mythologies” (1957, first English translation in1972) originate from a series of articles he published between 1954 and 1956. Discussing variousmyths of French daily life in the first part of the book, he develops a methodology how to deal withmyths in general in his last chapter “Myth today”. I came across Barthes during my MA inPostcolonial Studies at Goldsmith's College in London. Although I found him really fascinating, Iforgot about him again until I read a short quotation about myths in Arndt (2005b: 340). His theorydeals with strategies of dominant societies to establish an unquestioned hegemony. I thereforeconsider his mythology a very fruitful approach in order to understand and deconstruct the waywhiteness is exercising power. Below, I am outlining the main ideas of Barthes' theory.Barthes starts with defining that “myth is a type of speech” (Barthes 2000, 109) 26 , it “is a type ofspeech chosen by history” (110). All kinds of things could be a myth. Myths carry a message andconsist of written or pictorial forms and can be analysed with semiology. Barthes draws on thetheory of semiology of his countryman de Saussure, who developed it a few decades earlier whilehe was studying linguistic systems. However, according to Barthes it is not enough to simplytransfer the methods of formal science semiology from linguistics to mythology, but instead we26 if not stated differently, all page numbers in this chapter refer to Barthes (2000)11