“More than the product of private prejudices, whiteness emerged as a relevant category in American life largely because of realities created by slavery and segregation, by immigration restriction and Indian policy, by conquest and colonialism. A fictive identity of “whiteness” appeared in law as an abstraction, and it became actualized in everyday life in many ways”

George Lipstiz

Readings:

• George Lipsitz, “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the “White” Problem in American Studies.” American Quarterly 47.3 (1995): 369-387.
• Kathleen M. Blee, “Racial violence in the United States.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28:4 (2005): 599-619.
• Hannah Rosen, excerpt from Terror in the Heart of Freedom, Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Post-emancipation South. In Charleston Syllabus. Readings on Race, Racism and Racial Violence. Eds. Chad Williams, Kikada E. Williams, and Keisha N. Blain. Athens: Georgia Press, 2016.