Yasmeen Ar-Rayani

Guilt, Property, and Sustaining Settler Consciousness in Palestine

In “Whiteness as Property,” Cheryl Harris tracks the construction of whiteness in the United States as legalized power, specifically as property. Defining property as the expectation of the right to property, Harris paints whiteness as a legalized sense of entitlement. She cites as an example the American legal doctrine that to label a white individual “Black” constitutes defamation. As recently as 1957, Harris notes, calling a white person “Black” was a suable offence ...