Description
Book SynopsisGeorge Lipsitz's classic book The Possessive Investment in Whiteness argues that public policy and private prejudice work together to create a possessive investment in whiteness that is responsible for the racialized hierarchies of our society. Whiteness has a cash value: it accounts for advantages that come to individuals through profits made from housing secured in discriminatory markets, through the unequal educational opportunities available to children of different races, through insider networks that channel employment opportunities to the friends and relatives of those who have profited most from past and present discrimination, and especially through intergenerational transfers of inherited wealth that pass on the spoils of discrimination to succeeding generations. White Americans are encouraged to invest in whiteness, to remain true to an identity that provides them with structured advantages. In this twentieth anniversary edition, Lipsitz provides a new introduction and upd
Trade Review"Lipsitz’s 20th-anniversary reissue has only shown how prescient and important this book was from first press.... Weaving together literary references, scientific studies, and court cases, and using well-known contemporary events like Hurricane Katrina, police killings of young African-American men, the Charleston massacre, and many historical events that may be lesser known, he illustrates how white fear and failure are the sources for the development of ethnonationalism. Summing Up: Highly recommended."--
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