About Article

This article addresses backlash from white academic gatekeepers to research on the white far right and white supremacist violence. Centrally, I interrogate how whiteness shapes the field’s response to a seeming shift in patterns of political violence towards white supremacist activity. Taking white supremacy in the study of white supremacist violence seriously, I contend, would shift our attention to larger social patterns of oppression and opportunities for liberation. However, this does not happen due to a concept I call “whiteness as expertise.” Building on Charles W. Mills’ white epistemologies of ignorance, I argue that the attributes of transferability and disconnec tion both obscure and perpetuate how scholarship on white supre macist violence can further whiteness. First, I review the backlash experienced by the academic and policy turn towards white supre macist violence, even if scholars and practitioners may not call it “white supremacist.” I then introduce the concept of whiteness as expertise in more detail, highlighting how insistence on “terrorism” as a unitary and unifying category leads to backlash against research on white supremacist violence. I conclude with examples of academic backlash to open discussion into the complexities of studying white ness within a white-majority academy.