A Foucauldian (Genealogical) Reading of Whiteness: The Production of the Black Body/Self and the Racial Deformation of Pecola Breedlove in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

IN THIS CHAPTER, I will explore the structure of whiteness within the framework of key Foucauldian conceptual constructions. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there is no critical corpus of work dealing extensively with Foucault and the issue of whiteness. My sense is that Foucault has provided a helpful conceptual framework, particularly as developed in Discipline and Punish and the first volume of The History of Sexuality, for coming to terms with how whiteness, as a power/knowledge nexus, is able to produce new forms of knowledge (in this case “knowledge” about black people) that are productive of

new forms of “subjects.” On this reading, whiteness, as a power/knowledge nexus with respect to black “selves” and black bodies, produces a philosophical, epistemological, anthropological, phrenological, and political discursive field that “enables a more continuous and pervasive control of what people do, which in turn offers further possibilities for more intrusive inquiry and disclosure.”1