‘I wanted to be white’: understanding power asymmetries of whiteness and racialisation

ABSTRACT

This article uses a self-reflective autoethnography to critique colonisation and whiteness as systems of marginalisation and racialisation. I examine concepts grounded in post-colonial and anti-racist theories, and I interweave these with my experiences in white spaces in Colombia, the USA and Canada as an educator and researcher. I provide personal examples as data to explain how colonisation and whiteness have paved the road to my professional ‘success’, and I also illuminate how these have taken me away from understanding my cultural and linguistic roots. Contrary to conventional wisdom that formal education is empowering for racialised peoples, this article asserts that critical education has been fundamental to challenge inequality and power asymmetries. Finally, in reflecting on the depths to which whiteness has been entrenched in all aspects of my life and other racialised peoples, I seek determination and liberation by calling into question the normative historical raciolinguistic ideologies of whiteness.

KEYWORDS:

• Whiteness
• critical theory
• autoethnography
• raciolinguistics
• colonisation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank those who have helped me emotionally in my process of resilience by giving me their support in times of struggle. Also, to those who gave me feedback and comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Since my arrival to North America in the early 2000’s, I have collected a number of audio self-notes, and journal entries of my experiences and conversations with peoples in my academic and personal life.

2. I use the term de(s)colonisation as it has been used by some scholars in Latinamerica to fight domination and exploitation from the coloniality of power to dismantle hegemonic ideologies of the West.

3. I use the word fútbol in Spanish instead of soccer as I believe this is more accurate to the meaning and sentiment of this sport in Latinamerica.

4. C1 level is an advance English level and IELTS is The International English Language Testing System