Soul-Blindness, Police Orders and Black Lives Matter

Abstract

What does it mean to see someone as human, as a member of humankind? What kind of call for justice is it to demand that a group be seen as human beings? This article explores a fundamental kind of injustice: one of perception and how we respond to our perceptions. Drawing on Cavell, Wittgenstein and Rancière, we elucidate "soul blindness" as a distinct and basic form of injustice. Rancière's police orders and Cavell's soul blindness are mutually constitutive; the undoing of police orders entails a politics of soul dawning. Soul dawning entails acknowledging the humanity of others without erasing difference. In the concluding section, we consider white obliviousness to the Black Lives Matters (BLM) movement as a case of soul blindness. Part of the political import of BLM is its capacity to illustrate how practices of soul blindness in the United States constitute whiteness in a racialized police order.

Black Youth Poetry of 2020 and Reimagined Literacies

“…And they falsely equate doing a job, even if at times a dangerous one, with living in one's own skin," as Muhammad (2019) wrote. Havercroft and Owen (2016) explained that "white obliviousness" to the BLM movement is "a case of soul blindness" (p. 740). People who reject BLM are unable to see that "Black lives have not or have only exceptionally" mattered "in the same way as White lives" (p. 751).…”

“…Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter retorts suggest that our justice system is functional and simply needs to revert to some righteous foundation (p. 752). Red states and Republican-identified White Americans are most likely to oppose the BLM movement (Updegrove et al, 2020, p. 86), failing ultimately to recognize the humanity and suffering of Black people in this country (Desai, 2020;Havercroft & Owen, 2016;Muhammad, 2019). These tensions and historical omissions are ubiquitous in literacy curricula, as noted by Borsheim-Black and Sarigianides's (2019) discussion of the centering of "White ways of knowing and being in the classroom" (p. 5).…”

“…Specifically, their grassroots writing fights back against the racist system in the United States that presumes Black criminalization and White innocence (Muhammad, 2019), reclaiming their identities as Black youth in a "third space" (Soja, 1996), where such dichotomies are exposed as lies. Seeking to present their truths to an audience who may or may not understand their experiences or support their protests, they each confront "white obliviousness," "soul blindness" (Havercroft & Owen, 2016), and the direct (in)actions of White people that have caused so much Black pain. As 11-year-old Josiah Wheeler stated in the ABC News article that published his poem: "The change I want to see happen is so everyone understands everyone else's pain.…”

“…Their words, centering their own identities, perspectives, and experiences, demonstrate their own "pursuit of criticality," which when cultivated by educators, gives "students the tools to respond to injustice in and around schools" (G. Muhammad, 2020, p. 119). In the wake of the 2020 election, as more and more Blue Lives Matter and Confederate flags have gone on display, it is vital to acknowledge the "soul blindness" (Havercroft & Owen, 2016) that is leading people to ignore-or dismiss-the "screams" rising from Black children. (Betts, 2012, likewise, referred to the "screams" transmitted by Black women's poetry about Black children who were slain at the hands of White police.)…”

Political Legitimacy as an Existential Predicament

“…By responsiveness I mean to designate modes of comporting oneself that open space for a confrontation of perspectives to take place (cf. Lindahl 2018; Havercroft and Owen 2016;Zerilli 2016). This involves practically manifesting the attitudes just described, relating to oneself and to others as judges.…”