Whiteness

Thomas Jefferson's Secret Plan to Whiten Virginia

by Timothy Messer-Kruse

After the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson returned from the Continental Congress to a seat in the Virginia legislature, where he undertook an ambitious effort to overhaul the laws. His work is an illuminating look at Jefferson's vision of the ideal American republic as a place purged of both slavery and of Black people. 

U of Chicago Postpones (not Cancels) Course on "Problem of Whiteness" For Security Concerns

The course, which examines the makings and effects of the historical, political and cultural category of "whiteness" was a target for critics who mistakenly presented it as an example of "anti-white hate." 

"Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity": A Posthumous Collection of Noel Ignatiev's Radical History

by Mike King

A posthumous collection of writings by the historian and labor activist reveals his practice-based thoughts on work, power, and politics, and the necessity of abolishing the idea of whiteness to create working class solidarity and power. 

"Great Replacement" Shows how Many Americans Have Embraced Whites-Only Democracy

by Adam Serwer

Whether they blame a secret cabal of elites or the Democratic Party, proponents of "replacement" rhetoric share a belief that legitimate citizenship is racially exclusive and that legitimate elections require white voters to get what they want, echoing anti-immigrant and eugenics rhetoric of the early 20th century.

Research Shows Republican Politics Fueled by White Grievance

"Why have many white Americans started to see themselves as the victims of racial discrimination?"

Docuseries "Everything's Gonna Be All White" Challenges Recurrent Historical Denial

The CRT moral panic is just the latest instance of white America preferring to forget about the significance of race in history. Historian Nell Irvin Painter joins a new series where Americans of color critique the idea of whiteness. 

Kyle's Tears

by Joe Lowndes

Kyle Rittenhouse's demeanor at trial shows the difficulty of his case; he presents a figure that normalizes and sanitizes the violent core of the vigilante movement he represents.

“Critical Race Theory” Is White History

by Kali Holloway

"The history of Black folks in America—through slavery, Black codes, lynchings, redlining, voter disenfranchisement, Jim Crow, racial pogroms, illegal medical experimentation, extrajudicial and state-led theft of Black land, anti-Black policing, racist mass incarceration—is white American history, too."

White Backlash is America's Most Destructive Habit

by John S. Huntington and Lawrence Glickman

The authors endorse the term "counterrevolution" for a repeated pattern of political mobilization among White Americans combining distrust of democracy, apocalyptic rhetoric about the effects of racial equality, and the endorsement of antidemocratic and violent means to halt change.

Clarifying the Census Bureau's Accounting of "White" Identity Puts Demographic Change in Perspective

by Morris Levy, Richard Alba and Dowell Myers

The 2020 Census seemed to show the white population was in freefall. But few questioned whether differences between the 2010 and 2020 censuses reflected real demographic change or simply statistical noise as the the Census makes incomplete progress toward accounting for multiracial identity.

Prof. Leonard N. Moore on Teaching Black History to White People

Professor Leonard Moore's new book insists that white people who hope to know more about Black history should begin by understanding more about the challenges faced by Black historians. 

Why Democrats are Losing Texas Latinos

A significant portion of Tejanos consider themselves white and many vote like Anglo Texans; their history shows the contingency of racial categories and the risk for Democrats of assuming demographics will substitute for political appeal. 

3 Tropes of White Victimhood

by Lawrence B. Glickman

"In the conservative world, the idea that white people in the United States are under siege has become doctrine." Lawrence Glickman evaluates the major rhetorical tropes of this doctrine and finds that they have a 150-year history dating back to Reconstruction. 

We are Told America is Living Through a ‘Racial Reckoning’. Is it Really?

by Simon Balto

Policing historian Simon Balto argues that White America today seems most intersted in defending a personal sense of innocence over racism rather than working for justice. The new culture war over "critical race theory" is evidence.

Left Behind: The Trouble with Euphemism

by Nancy Isenberg

A historian of white rural poverty says that the cultural phenomenon of JD Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" is just the latest deployment of the "left behind" euphemism to obscure the nature of poverty in the United States. The rural poor are and have been part and parcel of the American economic order.

What Will be the Terms of Racial Forgiveness in America?

by J. Chester Johnson

Much of today's antiracist discourse among white Americans resembles what anti-Nazi theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace" – self-forgivness without cost or atonement for crimes that, while past, nevertheless are deeply present today.

We, the Nation, Born Under This Tree

by Sean Cleary

A speech of Edward Everett and a painting by N.C. Wyeth create a mythical founding moment of an American nation conceived as a white homeland. 

After Trump, the Crisis: David Roediger on White America at the Historical Crossroads

Salon's Chauncey DeVega interviews a founding figure of the study of American whiteness, who thinks White America is at a crossroads between an inclusive social-democratic politics or a turn toward the hard right. 

Historians, Insurrectionists and Fragile White Folks

by James Brewer Stewart

A historian of abolition and an advocate of racial justice argues that historians must reject the psychological framework of some recent popular antiracist books and learn from the history of activists embodying Frederick Douglass's call for a "moral revolution" through engagement with others.

Beyond Jermag Yev Sev: A Roundtable on Armenian American Identity

A dialogue with a historian of Armenians in the United States shows that the boundaries of the "white race" have shifted historically and been determined not by biology but by politics played out in immigration courts.