Black skin/white masks: the performative sustainability of whiteness (with apologies to Frantz Fanon)

Abstract

This article uses the iconic text Black Skin/White Masks by Frantz Fanon as a metonymic trope to examine the nature of White Studies through the autobiographical frame of a Black critic. The article is structured around three components. First, the socially constructed identity of “Whiteness” as embedded in, emergent from, and critiqued by those in (and of) the project of White Studies. Second, it addresses the question of how White Studies serves as a project for “sustaining Whiteness,” in light of increasing social and cultural critique of Whiteness. Third, the article initiates an argument for the performative nature of Whiteness that crosses borders of race and ethnicity. The article also address issues of authenticity embedded in the politics and intersections of performing race and culture while extending the notion of Whiteness, like Blackness, as a performative accomplishment.