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A review by marginaliant
White Sight: Visual Politics and Practices of Whiteness by Nicholas Mirzoeff
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
Many thanks to The MIT Press for the review copy.
The introduction to the book introduces us to the concept of "White Sight" as a collective viewpoint constructed by white people in the Renaissance at the beginning of capitalism, colonialism, and the slave trade. It is aligned with hierarchy and surveillance, and places a screen of difference between the hegemonic white viewer and the subject (in both senses of the word.) It also suggests that antiracist political action frequently targets both the attitude of white sight and the mechanisms by which white sight is perpetuated.
Unfortunately the rest of the book has nothing to offer that is not already said in the introduction. More examples are provided, but the analysis of how each of these examples ties into the concept of white sight is frequently lacking. Even ideas that I found quite compelling, such as the idea that linear perspective in art is related to the onset of a colonial ordering worldview, were not well explained. Frequently I wondered if his ideas could be better articulated with a more clear distinction between "perception" and "sight" but it is difficult to tell.
I also found Mirzoeff's intersectionality weak at best. Nicholas Mirzoeff's vision of intersectionality is one in which every bad thing is also equally representative of every other bad thing, by virtue of their badness. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne sculpture is not just indicative of sexual violence, but (by virtue of depicting sexual violence) also evocative of slavery, colonialism, and gender dysphoria: "Daphne's metamorphosis out of whiteness into wood and incarcerated status could not but evoke the transformations of Atlantic slavery." This is patently nonsense, and does not do any of the service to the subjugated that he clearly thinks it is doing.
I might read Mirzoeff again, but probably in the short form. I don't think the long form does his ideas justice.
The introduction to the book introduces us to the concept of "White Sight" as a collective viewpoint constructed by white people in the Renaissance at the beginning of capitalism, colonialism, and the slave trade. It is aligned with hierarchy and surveillance, and places a screen of difference between the hegemonic white viewer and the subject (in both senses of the word.) It also suggests that antiracist political action frequently targets both the attitude of white sight and the mechanisms by which white sight is perpetuated.
Unfortunately the rest of the book has nothing to offer that is not already said in the introduction. More examples are provided, but the analysis of how each of these examples ties into the concept of white sight is frequently lacking. Even ideas that I found quite compelling, such as the idea that linear perspective in art is related to the onset of a colonial ordering worldview, were not well explained. Frequently I wondered if his ideas could be better articulated with a more clear distinction between "perception" and "sight" but it is difficult to tell.
I also found Mirzoeff's intersectionality weak at best. Nicholas Mirzoeff's vision of intersectionality is one in which every bad thing is also equally representative of every other bad thing, by virtue of their badness. Bernini's Apollo and Daphne sculpture is not just indicative of sexual violence, but (by virtue of depicting sexual violence) also evocative of slavery, colonialism, and gender dysphoria: "Daphne's metamorphosis out of whiteness into wood and incarcerated status could not but evoke the transformations of Atlantic slavery." This is patently nonsense, and does not do any of the service to the subjugated that he clearly thinks it is doing.
I might read Mirzoeff again, but probably in the short form. I don't think the long form does his ideas justice.