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The Construction of Whiteness: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Race Formation and the Meaning of a White Identity
A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2017
This volume collects interdisciplinary essays that examine the crucial intersection between whiteness as a privileged racial category and the various material practices (social, cultural, political, and economic) that undergird white ideological influence in America. In truth, the need to examine whiteness as a problem has rarely been grasped outside academic circles. The ubiquity of whiteness--its pervasive quality as an ideal that is at once omnipresent and invisible--makes it the very epitome of the mainstream in America. And yet the undeniable relationship between whiteness and inequality in this country necessitates a thorough interrogation of its formation, its representation, and its reproduction. Essays here seek to do just that work. Editors and contributors interrogate whiteness as a social construct, revealing the underpinnings of narratives that foster white skin as an ideal of beauty, intelligence, and power.
Contributors examine whiteness from several disciplinary perspectives, including history, communication, law, sociology, and literature. Its breadth and depth makes The Construction of Whiteness a refined introduction to the critical study of race for a new generation of scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students. Moreover, the interdisciplinary approach of the collection will appeal to scholars in African and African American studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, legal studies, and more. This collection delivers an important contribution to the field of whiteness studies in its multifaceted impact on American history and culture.
This volume collects interdisciplinary essays that examine the crucial intersection between whiteness as a privileged racial category and the various material practices (social, cultural, political, and economic) that undergird white ideological influence in America. In truth, the need to examine whiteness as a problem has rarely been grasped outside academic circles. The ubiquity of whiteness--its pervasive quality as an ideal that is at once omnipresent and invisible--makes it the very epitome of the mainstream in America. And yet the undeniable relationship between whiteness and inequality in this country necessitates a thorough interrogation of its formation, its representation, and its reproduction. Essays here seek to do just that work. Editors and contributors interrogate whiteness as a social construct, revealing the underpinnings of narratives that foster white skin as an ideal of beauty, intelligence, and power.
Contributors examine whiteness from several disciplinary perspectives, including history, communication, law, sociology, and literature. Its breadth and depth makes The Construction of Whiteness a refined introduction to the critical study of race for a new generation of scholars, undergraduates, and graduate students. Moreover, the interdisciplinary approach of the collection will appeal to scholars in African and African American studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, legal studies, and more. This collection delivers an important contribution to the field of whiteness studies in its multifaceted impact on American history and culture.
- GenresPolitics
256 pages, Hardcover
Published April 13, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 2, 2017
This collection of essays explores the social construct of whiteness from an interdisciplinary perspective. Like many books like this that collect essays, any given reader will find some essays more compelling than others, depending on their academic background and areas of interest. I found Middleton's essay the Battle over Racial Identity (which explore the history of the "one-drop rule" to be quite enlightening. I did not realize that every state had its own definition of what constituted white and non-white based on one's ancestry. Hughey's essay on Hegemonic Whiteness and the many ways whiteness normalizes racist attitudes and practices was compelling. Thompson and Watson's essay on White Racial Trauma opened up an area of inquiry of me that made sense of statements by people like Gandhi, King, Freire and a host of liberation theologians that in liberating the oppressed, the oppressors are also liberated.
This book requires a certain amount of background in Critical Race Theory and Whiteness studies but takes the topic in a variety of deeper ways that show the prevailing influence racism and white supremacy has in our culture
This book requires a certain amount of background in Critical Race Theory and Whiteness studies but takes the topic in a variety of deeper ways that show the prevailing influence racism and white supremacy has in our culture
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July 11, 2025(I'm really confused about this book, perhaps because I know too little to fully comprehend it. Here is what I initially thought the book would be about:
The founding of America stated, "All men are created equal," as in "all British subjects are treated equally in America," implying that non-British subjects, Caucasian or not, would not be treated equally. In fact, Italians—southern Italians in particular—were not granted the full "white" label in America until recent decades, even though they are Caucasian. (Not to mention, the KKK targeted Italians, Jews, and many non-Black people alike.) JFK, the first Irish Catholic U.S. president, was feared by the mainstream American establishment at the time for being "Irish Catholic"; they worried he would push a Catholic agenda on the rest of America. Even today, Southern Italians are sometimes seen as "mobs," especially by Lombardy Italians.
The use of "White" as a blanket label for people with Caucasian features, assuming they all have similar cultural upbringings, is very much a recent American invention. (I'd be very confused if a New England WASP would feel they had a shared upbringing with someone from a rural, Irish immigrant community.) Outside of America, labeling all Europeans as "white" or all Asians as "Asian" would cause confusion among Europeans and Asians themselves. Yes, a Brit would know he is "white," but he wouldn't see himself as the same as a "Frenchman." Similarly, a Japanese person would know he is "Asian," but he would innately know he has very little synergy with, say, a Vietnamese person.
Anyway, I initially thought the book would explain how disadvantaged Caucasian-looking people came to be considered "white," yet the book doesn't seem to say anything about it. In fact, the book doesn't seem to be about white people at all.)
The founding of America stated, "All men are created equal," as in "all British subjects are treated equally in America," implying that non-British subjects, Caucasian or not, would not be treated equally. In fact, Italians—southern Italians in particular—were not granted the full "white" label in America until recent decades, even though they are Caucasian. (Not to mention, the KKK targeted Italians, Jews, and many non-Black people alike.) JFK, the first Irish Catholic U.S. president, was feared by the mainstream American establishment at the time for being "Irish Catholic"; they worried he would push a Catholic agenda on the rest of America. Even today, Southern Italians are sometimes seen as "mobs," especially by Lombardy Italians.
The use of "White" as a blanket label for people with Caucasian features, assuming they all have similar cultural upbringings, is very much a recent American invention. (I'd be very confused if a New England WASP would feel they had a shared upbringing with someone from a rural, Irish immigrant community.) Outside of America, labeling all Europeans as "white" or all Asians as "Asian" would cause confusion among Europeans and Asians themselves. Yes, a Brit would know he is "white," but he wouldn't see himself as the same as a "Frenchman." Similarly, a Japanese person would know he is "Asian," but he would innately know he has very little synergy with, say, a Vietnamese person.
Anyway, I initially thought the book would explain how disadvantaged Caucasian-looking people came to be considered "white," yet the book doesn't seem to say anything about it. In fact, the book doesn't seem to be about white people at all.)
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July 25, 2016305.80097 C7584 2016
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews