Argues policy and individual prejudice combine to create value in whiteness through a series of essays. Uses a variety of sources including law and pop culture

Full review here: http://www.originalpositions.com/2017/12/the-possessive-investment-in-whiteness-how-white-people-profit-from-identity-politics-george-lipsitz/

This book is all about how the U.S. protects whiteness & elevates it above all else. It is a demonstration that racism is more than lynching & calling someone a nigger. It shows how subtle, abstract & pervasive racism is & why it is so difficult for almost everyone to grapple with. It is not something that is static, it changes, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in obvious ways, but it is always changing, which adds to the difficulty of eradicating it. The history of discrimination in housing is explored, showing that while racists words were never explicitly written into laws that were supposed to be about making the acquisition of housing fair, restrictive covenants outside of the law, both written & unwritten, were enforced & were not unknown to the proper authorities. The far reaching effects of this, such as social programs to benefit those not so well off, money for schools & investment & how all of that were steered away from minorities is made painfully clear. Civil Rights laws had instant backlash & many of them were made to benefit the very people who made them necessary in the first place, white people.

Lipsitz points out the hypocrisy of using minorities to fight in wars against people who have done no wrong to them & the supposedly give them the same rights & freedoms that they themselves cannot enjoy in the same country that they are supposedly fighting for. Minority soldiers were denied health benefits & opportunities for jobs & housing that were supposed to be for soldiers returning home from war. In all of this, various minorities who encounter white supremacy & racism in various ways can & were used against one another & other times were made to come together. Each situation differed & depended upon who perceived what as a benefit. Some groups fought to be identified as white, understanding the value of it in this society as opposed to fighting to eradicate racism & prejudice. This dismantles the very tired argument about other groups once considered minorities who have encountered fewer obstacles to upward mobility. If they could pass as white, they would fight for the benefit of being labeled as such, be they Asian, Jewish, Irish, Hispanic, etc.

There is a chapter dedicated to how whiteness, being valued in this society, translates to land & property that can be transferred to future generations, allowing some families to prosper & since minorities face discrimination in this regard, are unable to move their families up & give them the means to stay there & possibly continue to move up in society. There is time given to the notion of "reverse racism" via things like Affirmative Action & how this is somehow misconstrued as an undue benefit as opposed to a way to combat exclusion. In addition to that, attention is given to how holding such a view while ignoring how many benefit from school or job opportunities because a parent or other relative attended a place or knows someone is hypocritical to say the least.

In the latter chapters especially, there is much attention given to cultural appropriation & how the narrative around a popular black artist or performer or certain aspects of black culture & other cultures are taken & distorted in ways that allow them to be commodified & comfortable consumed. There is a chapter on identity politics & how certain images are chosen in the media that are only ostensibly combatants to racism & sources of pride but when one probes deeper they really only reinforce racism & assuage liberal guilt.

Time is also given to how black people especially, have in their own creative ways, been able to communicate their realities via music, poetry, film etc., since they were excluded from other professions that would allow them to do so. The culture & history of California & New Orleans, the latter in light if Hurricane Katrina, are given two separate chapters to show recent events that clearly demonstrate that the assault on minorities & the poor never waned.

Overall, this is a good book. It demonstrates the reality of race in this country. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how racism is abstract & evolving.

Voting for the spineless instead of the shameless isn't going to get us out of this mess. It feels like every time we make a move to fix problems that are right there in the foundation, we simultaneously find a way to neutralize the fix and make things even worse.

It's hard to read this and not be boiling with anger. On the other hand it's way too easy to turn a blind eye to evil things we are in some ways complicit in. And it harms everyone, white people included.

Comprehensive, thorough, well documented -- "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness" is a very detailed examination of the mechanisms in US culture that keep racism in place and deprive us of the compassion so many of us might claim to possess. White people are trained to stop hearing when what other people are experiencing threatens their own reality. Lipsitz provides so many examples across history, and even of examples where people of color have acted to serve white supremacy.

"Malcolm X used to say that racism is like a Cadillac : they make a new model every year . The racism of 2018 differs from the racism of 1964 , and consequently needs to be analyzed , interpreted , addressed , and redressed accordingly."

This is a fantastic book which clearly explains how white privilege has been constructed and how it maintains its hegemony. Very well-written, very convincing and intelligent. Also loved the occasional moments of sarcasm he worked in. Cannot recommend this enough.

AMAZING. I thought I had a clue, but reading this... *fans self* ... I learned SO much. Fifty years of American institutional racism just laid right out there. From unenforceable laws to refusal to enforce the laws that did exist; government agencies, universities, police forces, Realtors, banks; this system works from the top, down, and back up again.

I read chapter 1 for a book club. I think this book pairs well with "White Trash" and provides succinct points and evidence of systemic racism. Good info for folks who deny privilege! I plan on reading it cover to cover (hence no stars right now).

In The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, George Lipsitz sets out to chart the historical development and contemporary maintenance of white supremacy in the United States. Focusing on the specific ways in which whites enrich themselves through processes of racial oppression, discrimination, and exploitation, the Possessive Investment in Whiteness reveals the mechanisms of white racial domination, such as segregated housing, and places them in their appropriate historical context. The book also links US domestic white supremacy to US imperialism abroad. Lipsitz further continually returns to the efforts people of color to challenge white supremacy. A wide-ranging text, Lipsitz engages with fields from sociology and history to cultural studies to address a number of topics.

The book does an excellent job of linking racial formations and white supremacist politics to the political economy and the shifts in transnational capitalism. In this way the book has a vaguely Marxist inflection, which at times I appreciated and at others I found to distract from Lipsitz's analysis of white supremacy.

Beyond this I have three quibbles with the book:

1. It often lapses into a universalist humanism that feels distinctly out of place in a book about white supremacy. Lipsitz repeatedly makes the point that not all adherent to white supremacist ideology are white themselves nor are all white people adherents to such ideology. While this is true as far as it goes, Lipsitz sometimes talks in broad generalities about "hatred" and "fear," which (if read by a particularly ungenerous audience) could seem to be advocating for a kind of race neutral approach to ending white supremacy (quite the paradox indeed). I think this is in part linked to the aim of the book to appeal to (potentially) anti-racist white folks and to the Marxist "working class" analysis favored by Lipsitz. Thankfully, Lipsitz more than makes up for the rhetorical maneuvers, but this is still worth highlighting.

2. This book offers a wide ranging overview of a number of topics in anti-racist thought, but doesn't always explore them in the depth I would have liked them too. For example. while Lipsitz does an admirable job of explaining the role that housing segregation plays in maintaining white supremacy, he doesn't go into the detail I was hoping for. Thankfully, Lipsitz is always careful to direct the reader to other works that (I assume) offer greater depth and detail on a given topic. In this way, this book is a good starting point for navigating the vibrant and engaging field of antiracist political and social scholarship.

3. Some chapters in this text simply felt out of place. At points, I felt like I was reading a collection of essays generally organized around the theme of white identity politics and (resisting) white supremacy, yet the book makes no indication that it is an anthology. Some chapters feel out of place, others seem to wander wildly from topic to topic, only loosely tying things up at the end. While the book was certainly interesting and insightful, I was expecting (from the Goodreads description at least) something akin to a structural/political economic analysis of contemporary white supremacy, or perhaps a historical account of the same. While this book includes elements of both of those, it also discusses a number of other (important!) topics, and from several theoretical perspectives. Thus, if you are looking for a political economy of contemporary white supremacy, this book is an excellent introduction to that field of scholarship. However, you will have to follow up on the many wonderful book suggestions made within, as Lipsitz only provides a comprehensive overview of such.

In Sum: An excellent introduction to a number of different theoretical perspectives on US white supremacy and resistance to it, offering numerous helpful sugggestions for further reading. But it feel somewhat introductory or lacking in depth at times. Worth a read for all interested in challenging racism and fighting for social justice and equality.