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A review by garberdog
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics by George Lipsitz
4.0
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.
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.