Ignorance, Innocence, and Democratic Responsibility: Seeing Race, Hearing Racism

Abstract

In contemporary race politics, ignorance is often invoked by whites to refuse responsibility for offenses. This points to the tight configuration between knowledge and responsibility. Yet, in a sociopolitical context pervasively shaped by what Mills has identified as an “epistemology of ignorance,” this configuration fosters irresponsibility. Moreover, the technologies of the surveilling state perpetuate this, as they lead white citizens to “see” certain truths about race and protect certain blindnesses to white privilege. Drawing on work in feminist epistemology, we develop an alternative approach to responsibility, one more appropriate to democratic practices of accountability. This approach must be centered on the stories of racism as narrated by racial others rather than the visions generated by the gaze of the white state. We conclude by outlining a set of “traitorous” deliberative practices that foster democratic renegotiations of racial responsibility.