White charity
White charity
White charity
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Seven, equivalent to the tautology, the statement of fact is directed towards “a self-evidentappearance of eternity” (154f). It focuses on the essence of the dominant ideology: on“universalism, [on] the refusal of any explanation, [and on] an unalterable hierarchy of the world”(154). The use of proverbs is a common form of this figure; its foundation is common sense.Consequently, it represents the reality of the dominant subject as the only existing reality andtherefore encourages her/him to speak with certainty. This speech appears as “the most innocuous,innocent, and straightforward containers for common sense, [it however] contain[s] all the force ofsupremacism (Sandoval 1997: 94).In this last rhetorical form, Barthes addresses two important strategies of whiteness. First, thetransformation of an opinion into a fact, something subjective into something objective. Second, thearrangement of these putative neutral facts as common sense. Myth can easily spread throughcommon sense and it is again the dominant order, whiteness, which is controlling this tool. Verbalresistance to a sentence such as “we all know that black people are lazy” is much more difficult asto a sentence such as “my personal opinion is that black people are lazy”, as one has to argueagainst an imagined and auxiliary “we all”.role of the mythologistAccording to Barthes, a mythologist has to “be able to name concepts” (120f) in order to decipherits myth. As the signified is quantitatively poorer than the signifier, it can have a whole variety ofsignifiers. Without this repetition, it would indeed be difficult to decipher a myth. I do not want tolimit the myth of white superiority to advertisements of German charities, but argue that it isrecurrent in German (and other Western countries') daily life: in media, culture, politics as well as ininterpersonal relationships. 39 The signifier vary each time, the signified however stays the same.Foucault's methodology of discourse analysis – which Critical <strong>White</strong>ness Studies, among others,make use of – offers helpful tools for the mythologist to point out repetitions.The mythologist is easily able to justify her/his activities in deciphering myths as s/he is unveilingan tool for the establishment of power relations, which s/he considers unjust. Still, deciphering isonly possible by understanding the rhetoric of supremacy, Sandoval (1997: 86) argues, as it is thisvery rhetoric which “structures and naturalizes the unjust relations of exchange that arise within andbetween colonizer and colonized communities.” I understand the deconstruction of whiteness in thisframework. As it is addressing inequalities and has an emancipatory approach, I consider it withBarthes as a political act of resistance. The mythologist therefore “participate[s] in the making ofthe world” (156, italics TK). 40 The mythologist, however, stays excluded as s/he cuts her/himself39 Prominent events in the last year were e.g. the festival 'African Village' in the zoo in Augsburg (2005), the danceshow 'Africa, Africa' in Berlin (2006) and the reality TV show 'Wie die Wilden' (like savages) in sat1 (2006).40 making in the sense of transforming in contrast to eternalising20