Implicitly White: Right-Wing Nihilism and the Politicizing of Ethnocentrism in Multiracial Sweden

• Published in: Scandinavian studies Vol. 89; no. 2; pp. 159 - 178
• Main Author: Teitelbaum, Benjamin R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Champaign University of Illinois Press 22.06.2017
• Subjects: Analysis; Audiences; Color vision defects; Communities; Cultural identity; Ethnic groups; Ethnic identity; Ethnic Studies; Ethnocentrism; Fascism; Ideology; Intentionality; Languages; Liberal nationalism; Liberalism; Multiculturalism & pluralism; Musical performances; Nationalism; Nazi groups; Nihilism; Political activism; Political activity; Political aspects; Race; Racial inequality; Racial segregation; Racism; Scandinavian Studies; Segregation; Separatism; Silence; Solidarity; Visual impairment; White people; Whiteness studies; Whites; United States; Sweden
• ISSN: 0036-5637; 2163-8195
• DOI: 10.5406/scanstud.89.2.0159

According to this ideology, the solution to racial inequality was to cease making legal or extralegal distinctions on the basis of race, whether they appear in the realm of official policy or informal communication. [...]I didn't see a single person there with non-European ancestry. [...]MacDonald interprets implicit whiteness as a symptom of defeat in this struggle: Because there is no mainstream attempt by whites to shape the explicit culture in ways that would legitimize white identity and the pursuit of white ethnic interests, implicit white communities become enclaves of retreating whites rather than communities able to consciously pursue white interests. Instances of racial congregation constitute blank signifiers, phenomena about which there is no prevailing account or dialogue, and this provides opportunity to invest the congregating whites with a particular kind of intentionality that reinforces nationalists' accounts of the human condition. [...]the silence of color blindness not only shields racial segregation from identification by the mainstream, but it can also surrender interpretation of apparent segregation to organized race ideologues.