The future of whiteness

Summary: White European Americans living in the United States will soon share an unprecedented experience of slipping below 50 percent of the population. The impending demographic shifts are already felt in most urban centers and the effect is a national backlash of political, and sometimes violent, activism with a stated aim that is simultaneously vague and deadly clear: "to take our country back". Meanwhile, the specter of "minority status" draws closer, and the material advantages of being born white are eroding. This is the political and cultural reality tackled by Linda Martín Alcoff in The Future of Whiteness. She argues that while white dominance is here to stay, at least for the time being, more than half of whites have given up on ideas of white supremacy, and the country's shared culture is more integrated than ever before. The young generation of whites today, as well as all those who follow, will never have known a country in which they could take white identity as the unchallenged default that dominates the political, economic, and cultural leadership. More and more, whites are becoming aware of how they appear to nonwhites, both at home and abroad, and this is having profound effects on white identity in North America. Change is on the horizon, and the most important battleground is among white people themselves.