Responsibility and Ignorance: On Dismantling Structural Injustice

This essay tackles the thorny question of how to dismantle structural racial injustice. It engages Iris Marion Young’s work on responsibility for structural justice. But it also draws on Charles Mills’s work on what Mills calls white epistemologies of ignorance to challenge Young’s emphasis on changing how racially privileged people understand their responsibilities. It makes the case that disruptive politics play a crucial role in dismantling structural injustice. Because they interrupt privileged people’s motivated ignorance, disruptive politics create a political opening to institutionalize structural change.