On the Challenges of Decomposing Whiteness: Foundations for Antiracist Literacies

In his Chair’s address to the Conference on College Composition and Communication in 1996, Lester Faigley argued that one important consistency throughout the history of composition studies has been “that we have remained steadfast to the goal of literacy for equality” (p. 41). As Chair of the same Conference over two decades later, Asao Inoue challenged compositionists to confront the uncomfortable paradox of Whiteness: believing ourselves to be on the right side of history can distract us from recognizing our involvement in White supremacy. Though talk of race has been a consistent focus of 21st century composition research, addressing the narratives of innocence that protect Whiteness is relatively new. This essay attempts to clarify and extend the strengths of this recent development. In it I analyze how challenging Whiteness promises to advance the legacy of racially conscious research in higher education, describe a critical pedagogy situated in a predominantly White institution that tries to build on the strengths of recent critiques of Whiteness, and offer examples of students struggling with the persistent epistemologies of Whiteness as they work to invent new critical literacies.