ABSTRACT

In this essay I elaborate the concept of ‘pathological whiteness’ as a way to articulate and understand the ways in which openness to infection, transmission and death by COVID-19 has become a central element of US white conservative subjectivities, discourses and embodied practices during the pandemic. Of particular importance are the ways in which potential or actual infection is understood and enacted as a biological threat to racialized others through the weaponization of one’s own body, with infection and transmission of COVID serving as a form of racist necropolitical violence mobilized to defend and maintain white supremacist policies and futures. I analyse some of the key logics and examples of this pathological whiteness, and situate it within a broader cultural conjuncture defined by what [Calvente, L. and Smicker, J., 2019. Crisis subjectivities: resilient, recuperable, and abject representations in the new hard times. Social Identities, 25 (2), 141–155] have discussed as ‘crisis as ordinary.’ I briefly explore some of the main relationships of pathological whiteness to crisis as ordinary, and conclude by gesturing to some possible considerations for contemporary cultural studies work when trying to analyse and intervene into this cultural formation.

摘要

在本文中，我将阐述“病理性白度”的概念，以阐明和理解开放性的方式使COVID-19对感染，传播和死亡的开放成为美国白人保守主观性，论述和具体实践中的核心要素。大流行。尤为重要的是，如何通过对自身身体的武器化将潜在或实际感染理解为对种族化的他人的生物威胁，并通过感染和传播COVID作为动员起来的捍卫和维护种族主义的坏死性暴力的形式。白人至上主义政策和期货。我分析了这种病理性白度的一些关键逻辑和示例，并将其置于由[Calvente，L. and Smicker，J.，2019。社会身份[ 25（2），141–155]被讨论为“普通危机”。我简要地探讨了病理性白皙与通常的危机之间的一些主要关系，并在尝试分析和干预这种文化形态时，以当代文化研究工作的一些可能考虑为基础，得出结论。