ABSTRACT
If, during the era before “Enlightenment,” blackness came into relief against a synthesis of biblical exegeses and vague physical explanations dating from antiquity, during the eighteenth century, the concept of blackness was increasingly dissected, handled, weighed, and used as a demonstrable wedge between human categories. More than just a descriptor, blackness became a thing, defined less by its inverse relationship to light than by its supposed materiality. 1
It has become a common observation that blackness, and race more generally, is a social construct. But examining whiteness as a social construct offers more answers. The essential problem is the inadequacy of white identity. We don’t know the history of whiteness, and therefore are ignorant of the many ways it has changed over the years. If you investigate that history, you’ll see that white identity has been no more stable than black identity. 2
