Editor’s note

On 6 January 2021, incited by the sitting president, armed insurgents stormed the US Capitol building while Congress was in session to count the Electoral College vote and certify that the duly elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would become the next President and Vice President of the United States of America. On this ceremonious day, the world watched in horror and disbelief at an emboldened display of violent resistance by an overwhelmingly white mob. That hundreds of whites would arm themselves and converge with the expressed intent to threaten what for centuries has been perceived to be a global bastion of democracy seemed inconceivable. That they would scale the walls that some of their forefathers built (on the backs of slaves and on the sacred ancestral lands of the Anacostans/Nacotchtank, Piscataway and Pamunkey indigenous peoples) was unimaginable. That they would desecrate the halls of justice while Congress was in session, and disrupt, although only for a moment, what has traditionally been the peaceful transfer of power since the nation’s dawn, seemed to be a real-time reenactment of our worst dystopian nightmare.

Horrifying as witnessing this raw display of violence was for some, others were not at all surprised. Rage is rage no matter the hue of its possessor. In The Anger Gap (2019) Davin L. Phoenix, of the University of California – Irvine, discusses the role of emotions in politics and distinguishes between the impact of white and black rage on the political process. Drawing on data from the American National Election Study, Phoenix describes how black and white anger in the political process tends to vary in similar ways, yet blacks are ‘more likely to refrain from expressing anger than to exhibit it,’ (p. 13). Black anger nonetheless is over-emphasized in the media, labeled as extremism and criminalized, while the narrative of angry whites involved in unrest is routinely under-emphasized, legitimized and responded to with impunity. My interest is not in measuring who is most angry, but rather to assess and eradicate the root causes of the rage.

Langston Hughes in his poem Harlem (1998), eloquently questions what happens to a dream deferred and in doing so, describes the nature of rage. Hughes ponders whether our deferred dreams dry up like a raisin in the sun, fester like a sore, stink like rotten meat; crust and sugar over, sag like a heavy load, or explode. What happens to rage from dreams deferred, especially when the political system shatters the idealism and entitlement that some possess and they harbor the intent to use their power to harm? It explodes.

Anyone who has yet to get their piece of the pie, despite following the rules, understands that this expression of rage is rooted in dreams deferred. The distinction is that the rage we witnessed on January 6th, neither emerged out of the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr., of justice for the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the vulnerable (also known as the black, the brown, Asian, the indigenous), nor did the seething insurrection seek to uphold the dream that we in the US stated as we pledged allegiance. With the call for a new liberal, diverse, and inclusive administration, those who spent recent years counting on the promises of white supremacy to advance their standing, became outraged by the thought of their dreams shriveling like a raisin in the sun. This collective explosive rage was about the deferred promises of whiteness.

Whiteness as a social construct is not a biological trait distinguished by or limited to race. Whiteness is a cultural phenomenon that is engendered by the proposition that being white or associated with being white, is superior and comes with privileges, ideologies, and benefits that are reinforced by structures, institutions, policies, practices, and interactions that perpetuate its existence. Whiteness carries an (implicit and explicit) entitlement to misuse power with impunity to the extent that some individuals may be unable to discern when their obedience to systems and structures conflicts with the moral use of their own agency. The melting pot has become a monocultural metaphor for whiteness, since despite cultural pluralism, norming based on whiteness functions to acculturate and perpetuate more whiteness. Whiteness has been a tool used to build structures and systems that reinforce and sanction the differential use of power without regard to morality (e.g. genocide of indigenous peoples, slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration).

As our nation rebuilds the walls of the Capitol and reestablishes the foundations of democracy, new tools must be used. The truth is even those of us who seek to dismantle structural violence and transform justice, despite our critical lean toward justice, have benefited as a result of the myriad privileges of being or associated with whiteness. Revealing and reconciling the truth that holding on to whiteness is a trap and that true freedom, liberty, and justice for all requires dismantling the ideology that resists accepting our interconnectedness and interdependencies. Telling the truth about the myths that separate us can help reveal and heal the moral and ideological divisions that whiteness needs to exist.

The Contemporary Justice Review has engaged in the art and science of truth-telling for decades. Form Dennis Sullivan challenging us to contemplate what it means to be a just person (2005), Randall Amster declaring that justice must be lived (2017), Dan Okada meticulously drawing on the lived experiences of those involved in the Indigenous Peoples Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and Black Panther Party to help explain to an author why this journal requires a perspective grounded in justice, to T Y Okosun’s focus on violence and harms, our editors have provided meaningful examples of how to boldly shepherd the charge to engage scholars, practitioners, and readers of the Contemporary Justice Review in the collective journey of self- and social-inquiry.

Self- and social-inquiry involves looking within to challenge the ways in which we have centered whiteness in our ideology, discourse, rituals, policies, practices, and interactions. Looking within the Contemporary Justice Review’s 23 volumes, there is much to discover about the art and science of truth-telling that can help shape the way forward for decades to come. In addition to restorative justice, the journal has provided a unique space to take on critical topics often marginalized or ignored by other academic journals. Some of our most widely read and cited publications are exemplary in their truth-telling about such issues as White Protectionism and Criminality (Dirks et al., 2015), Whiteness and Social Control (Heitzeg, 2015), Racist Nativism (Huber et al., 2008), the intersection of Immigration and Critical Race Theory (Romero, 2008), and State Crime (Kauzlarich et al., 2003).

The siege of the Capitol building also points to the need to reveal and eradicate deep-seated ideology that condones interpersonal and structural violence to maintain whiteness. Over 50 years after Martin Luther King, Jr. identified poverty, racism and militarism as the largest threats to American democracy, we witnessed what happens when the militarization of the police is confronted by a privileged and armed citizenry exercising their second amendment rights. Had whiteness not been a primary factor in the Capitol siege, many of us would be mourning over the number of black and brown lives lost despite their claims to the same rights of citizenry.

To add to the discourse on how to heal the harms, in line with our tradition of drawing on restorative, social, and transformative justice, the Contemporary Justice Review has and will continue to feature local-global contributions related to peace, nonviolence, reparations, and truth and reconciliation studies. There is much to learn and share with the world about the principles of nonviolence, peace, reparations, and reconciliation to build and restore community among disparate individuals and groups. I look forward to book and film reviews on related topics that will capture the attention and inspire the work of the journal’s readership. In the spirit of Sankofa, I also look forward to using this space to appreciate the amazing work of those who have most influenced our own, many of whom remain on our CJR Editorial Board, and shine light on emerging scholars and practitioners to illuminate our path into the future.