Professor Watchlist

Barnor Hesse is an Associate Professor of African American Studies, Political Studies, and Sociology at Northwestern University. According to his university profile, his research interests include, but are not limited to: black political thought, blackness and affect, and race and governmentality.

Hesse teaches several undergraduate courses, including “Unsettling Whiteness” and “Racism in Western Modernity.” The course description for “Unsettling Whiteness” says the course “will examine whiteness in four main ways: as the racialization of white populations; as the formation of white supremacy; as the cultural institution of the White Gaze; and as the regime of White Democracy.”

“Racism in Western Modernity” says the course “is not overly concerned with empirical case studies or attitudinal assessments; it promotes a conceptual approach rather than a descriptive one.” Instead:

“It will be concerned with explaining the apparent racial discrepancies and racial injustices of western modernity (e.g. democracies combined with racism, liberalism combined with imperialism) and how those racial discrepancies and racial injustices inform, shape and define western societies like the United States.” 

Hesse created a resource called “The 8 White Identities.” East Side Community School in Manhattan came under fire after they gave “The 8 White Identities” to every parent “as part of a series of materials meant for reflection” and as “food for thought.”

Hesse’s curriculum claims,

“There is a regime of whiteness, and there are action-oriented white identities. People who identify with whiteness are one of these. It’s about time we build an ethnography of whiteness, since white people have been the ones writing about and governing Others.” 

Hesse’s “white identities” range from “White Supremacist” to “White Abolitionist:”

The district also handed out the following color-coordinated meter:

Hesse was featured in a May 2023 symposium called “Black to Front.” The event was held to celebrate the Department of African American Studies being renamed to Black Studies. At the event, Hesse discussed his views on the relationships between black studies and the world, saying:

“Black Studies doesn’t just see democracy. It sees democracy and white supremacy. The only democracy we’ve ever known in Western society is a white democracy. Black studies doesn’t just see Western civilization. It sees as the conditions of Western civilization, Western barbarism. So you see, with that angle of vision, how the world seems to tilt almost on its axis.”

 

Published – May 26, 2023