White generosity: black freedom faced with good intentions

Abstract

I advance a theory of white generosity, a product of whiteness and of hierarchized relationships between races characterised by the giving to the racialized person that which has not been asked for and which has no practical immediate purpose, which can be used by anti-racist scholars as a framework for analysing racial oppression. Using postcolonial and cultural studies deconstructionist techniques in tandem with autoethnography, I use textual readings to examine instances of "giving" shaped by white generosity, drawing on Jacques Derrida's work on the gift in order to deconstruct the structure and rhetorical moves of white generosity. White generosity demands gratitude in excess of the value of the thing given. If for Derrida the gift is given unconditionally, becoming devalued as soon as it demands acknowledgement or draws attention to itself as gift, white generosity is the gift’s inverse: a “giving” that manifests itself only as a demand for its supposed recipient’s gratitude. Emancipation is no gift at all; simply a deferral of debt. The “gifts” of diversity, decolonisation, widening participation or access are all objects of brokerage in a system that is inherently unequal and violent for black folx. White generosity is related to theoretical constructs, such as white fragility, that have commanded significant scholarly engagement. However, it has not previously been named or analysed in a systematic way. This article offers a theoretical framework for use by antiracist activists and scholars to name, interrogate and deconstruct a powerful narrative used in the continued marginalisation of non-white folx.