Good white people : the problem with middle-class white anti-racism

Sullivan, Shannon 1967- (author.).

Summary: Argues for the necessity of a new ethos for middle-class white anti-racism. Building on her book Revealing Whiteness, Shannon Sullivan identifies a constellation of attitudes common among well-meaning white liberals that she sums up as white middle-class goodness, an orientation she critiques for being more concerned with establishing anti-racist bona fides than with confronting systematic racism and privilege. Sullivan untangles the complex relationships between class and race in contemporary white identity and outlines four ways this orientation is expressed, each serving to establish one s lack of racism: the denigration of lower-class white people as responsible for ongoing white racism, the demonization of antebellum slaveholders, an emphasis on colorblindness especially in the context of white childrearing and the cultivation of attitudes of white guilt, shame, and betrayal. To move beyond these distancing strategies, Sullivan argues, white people need a new ethos that acknowledges and transforms their whiteness in the pursuit of racial justice rather than seeking a self-righteous distance from it.

Record details

ISBN: 9781438451688 (paperback : alkaline paper)
ISBN: 9781438451695 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
ISBN: 1438451695 (hardcover : alkaline paper)
ISBN: 1438451687 (paperback : alkaline paper)
Physical Description: print
x, 214 pages ; 23 cm.
Publisher: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2014]
Copyright: ©2014

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-203) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: Good white liberals -- Dumping on white trash : etiquette, abjection, and radical inclusion -- Demonizing white ancestors : unconscious histories and racial responsibilities -- The dis-ease of colorblindness : racial absences and invisibilities in the reproduction of whiteness -- The dangers of white guilt, shame, and betrayal : toward white self-love -- Conclusion: Struggles over love.