RACIAL ALITERACY - WHITE APPROPRIATION OF BLACK PRESENCES

In this paper, I discuss how White people place themselves at the cent er of African American Women's Studies. Specifically, I explore how Wh ites can make African American Women's Studies ultimately serve the ne eds of a White power base. I also discuss how African American women c ontinue to allow White people to occupy the center of our lives and re search because all too often African-based beliefs and values do not f orm our core identities. African American women must remove White and androcentric epistemologies from our own research on African American women. When these perspectives are not removed, the White power base i s given further strength to marginalize African American women in a di scipline whose aim is African American liberation. To achieve these go als, I draw on postcolonial literary theory to describe ''racial alite racy,'' or the claim of some Whites that they do not see race, while s imultaneously reinscribing power differentials based on race. I draw o n the theories of Black psychology which link African American psychol ogical disorders with non-African-based self-identities.