In Black Skin, white masks, Franz Fanon uses a psychoanalytic framework to theorize the inferiority-dependency complex of Black men in response to the colonial racism of white men. Applying his framework in reverse, this theoretical article psychoanalyzes the white psyche and emotionality with respect to the racialization process of whites and their racial attachment to Blackness. Positing that such a process is interconnected with narcissism, humanistic emptiness, and psychosis, this article presents how racial attachment becomes racial fetish. Such a fetish (...) reifies whiteness by accumulating fictive kinships with friends of color; hence, the common parlance of ‘But I have a Black friend!’ The article, then, overlays this theoretical interpretation onto the subject of teacher education in the US, specifically urban teacher education programs that are predominantly comprised of white middle-class females who claim a desire to ‘save’ urban students of color. Ending with the dangers and hopes of a more humanistic friendship, this article offers emotional ways one can self-actualize the racialization process. (shrink)

In Greek mythology, the Chimera is a fire-breathing monster with three heads: one of a lion, one of a horned goat, and one of a powerful dragon. Of similar construction is the presence of three structures in US society, whiteness, patriarchy, and capitalism, which are overwhelmingly represented, valued, and espoused when examining areas of progress, i.e., family income, poverty rates, high school and college graduation rates, and home ownership. This modern American three-headed beast controls, manipulates, and permeates all aspects of (...) US society irrespective of class, culture, or gender. Using critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, this critically interpretive parable draws from the ways in which whiteness, patriarchy, and capitalism function in social, cultural, economic, and educational spheres. The parable tells the story of Sue Libertad and analyzes how this metaphorical Chimera, despite its ubiquity, silently permeates all aspects of her life. Not until a tragic outbreak occurs, does the hegemony of this chimera erodes and Sue. (shrink)