Impartiality as an epistemic privilege

Abstract

In this article, I will examine the phenomenon wherein white people feel that they can be impartial in discussions about racism. Specifically, I will argue that the experience of whiteness confers the belief that one can be impartial, that manifests itself in the appearance of an epistemic privilege. The phenomenological experience of whiteness is constituted in such a way as to ignore the racialized experience. Moreover, white people have privileged access to the majority’s hermeneutic resources, as these reflect and build upon this whiteness. In this regard, I will analyse the white and racialized phenomenological experiences and examine their epistemic consequences to show how impartiality can be conceived as a white epistemic privilege.