The Deformed Appetites of Whiteness

The Deformed Appetites of Whiteness
What We are Reading

If you want to understand why there is controversy around critical race theory, take a look at this abstract from a paper by Donald Moss that was published in the Journal of the American Pscyhoanalytic Association. 

Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which ‘white’ people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic easy of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’ infiltrated appetites--to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as warning (‘never again’) or as temptation (‘great again.’) Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.