Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Reflections

Written in an engaging narrative style, this book contains reflections on the meanings of whiteness in racist contexts. By considering whiteness as it shapes and is infused by gender, class, sexuality, and culture, these philosophical investigations undermine racist hierarchies along with false naturalistic conceptions of the meanings of race and universalistic understandings of gender. Central to this project are questions about how it is that culture and the state create such a wide range of different people who understand themselves as white. The essays collected here discuss how one learns to be a good white Southern woman, what it means to pass as white, and whether there really is a dilemma that accompanies white privilege. At the heart of this collection are analyses of the relationships between the construction of whiteness and the realities of racism, and politics that hope for a connection between understanding racial formations and resisting racisms.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Acknowledgements Chapter 2 1 Introduction: Reflections on Whiteness Part 3 I: Glancing Backward Chapter 4 2 My Grandmother's Passing Chapter 5 3 My Father's Flag Chapter 6 4 Growing Up in Little Rock Chapter 7 5 Pinay White Woman Part 8 II: Performing Whiteness Chapter 9 6 The American Celebration of Whiteness Chapter 10 7 The King of Whiteness Chapter 11 8 "Whitie" and "Dyke": Constructions of Identities in the Classroom Part 12 III: Identity and Privilege Chapter 13 9 White Ideas Chapter 14 10 Despising an Identity They Taught Me to Claim Chapter 15 11 The Other Colors of Whiteness: A Travelogue Part 16 Epilogue Part 17 Related Reading Part 18 Index Part 19 About the Contributors

About the Author :
Chris J. Cuomo is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. Kim Q. Hall is assistant professor of philosophy at Appalachian State University.

Review :
It will be of value to a variety of readers. . . . Many of the accounts will engage, challenge and unsettle readers. This is a very worthy collection. Is a book that ought to be taught in interdisciplinary seminars on feminist theories and practice. Showcases important analytic developments in recent feminist thought to theorize the intersections among race, class, and gender. Anyone following the rapidly becoming huge number of writings on 'whiteness' will be interested in this book. Chris Cuomo and Kim Hall's Whiteness, is a new classroom resource, in the honorable tradition of feminist consciousness raising, that can help students enter the discussion of the social construction of race through the accessible language of personal narrative. Whiteness will be a model, for students, of a kind of consciousness raisin that is overtly struggling with the tendency to confess and feel better. At the same time their own consciousness raising experience, provoked by the narratives in the book, will engage them directly in the tension between personal reflection and political engagement. This new collection of feminist philosophical reflections will provide a valuable resource for readers dedicated to combatting white supremacism.