In White Innocence Gloria Wekker explores a central paradox of Dutch life—the passionate denial of racial discrimination and colonial violence coexisting alongside aggressive racism and xenophobia—to show how the narrative of Dutch racial exceptionalism elides the Netherland's colonial past and safeguards white privilege.

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction  1

1. "Suppose She Brings a Big Negro Home": Case Studies of Everyday Racism  30

2. The House That Race Built  50

3. The Coded Language of Hottentot Nymphae and the Discursive Presence of Race, 1917  81

4. Of Homo Nostalgia and (Post)Coloniality: Or, Where Did All the Critical White Gay Men Go?  108

5. "For Even Though I Am Black as Soot, My Intentions Are Good": The Case of Black Pete  139

Coda. "But What about the Captain?"  168

Notes  175

References  193

Index  215

Gloria Wekker is Professor Emeritus of Gender Studies at Utrecht University and the author of several books, including The Politics of Passion: Women's Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora.