Unmarking Whiteness and the New American Racism

Race and Racism in Western Science and Society, Volume 3

This book criticizes recent performative solutions to racism (‘diversity’ programs at universities, for example) and White people’s ‘Fragility’ or intolerance of mature criticism. These ideas are locked in an intellectually gated and defensive conversation that effectively denies the ongoing, particular abuses of White supremacy.

This book criticizes recent performative solutions to racism ("diversity" programs at universities, for example) and White people’s "Fragility" or intolerance of mature criticism. These ideas are locked in an intellectually gated and defensive conversation that effectively denies the ongoing, particular abuses of White supremacy. This book instead proposes expensive educational and economic changes (including reparations) as necessary to achieve real equity. Once imputed by the eugenical effects of World War II and the Civil Rights Movement’s opposition to White racism, the word "race" was largely stricken from scientific writing. But biological determinism remained deeply ensconced in an institution of science that assumed the natural world to be determining, making natural science its most authoritative means. Authoritative heritability estimates and genetic correlations, though spurious, continued to imply that obvious racial and class inequalities (including their dire health effects) were natural and acceptable. White people often attempted to "unmark" their racial identity and assumed that of the uniquely normal people as though an act of anti‑racism (Frankenberg shows). On the contrary, it served to deny their skin color privileges while enjoying benefits of ongoing structural racism as the only real, complete human beings in the room. This book uses an ethnology of anthropology to show White people’s equivocal views of "other’s" equality in their formal analyses, museum collections and exhibitions, and treatment of colleagues in recent times. They remained deliberately deaf to critical African diasporic scholarship. Thus, "Unmarking" gives an anthropological analysis of the social history of White supremacy and shows what it is like for some to confront it. In constructing this historical and sociological counternarrative, the author provides a critical new social history that illuminates a tangled and turgid past for contemporary readers, students, and researchers with vital insights for anthropology, sociology, history, cultural studies, philosophy, and American studies.

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.