The racially biased structure of the spatial perception of whiteness

Abstract

During the last few decades, empirical research in social psychology has shown a significant influence of implicit bias in the way black people are perceived and categorized. It is still not clear, however, that the same methodology can be used to assess the presence of implicit biases in spatial perception. The purpose of this article will be to argue that the perception of space is indeed racially biased, though not in the sense assumed by much of empirical psychology. According to the present proposal, implicit biases will be understood as embodied perceptual habits. Such habits are shaped by racial categories and can take the form of what we call “white expansiveness”, in which space is perceived in terms of expansiveness and permissibility. This permissibility, however, is a mark of privilege rather than competence, constituting a racially biased perception of space. Confronting the implicit raciality of these spaces demands what philosopher George Yancy calls “de-suturing,” an affective and epistemic opening that exposes the illusion of spatial neutrality and reconceptualizes it as oppressive to the non-whites who occupy these same spaces.