The Future of Whiteness

by Linda Martín Alcoff

White identity is in ferment. White, European Americans living in the United States will soon share an unprecedented experience of slipping below 50% of the population. The impending demographic shifts are already felt in most urban centers and the effect is a national backlash of hyper-mobilized political, and sometimes violent, activism with a stated aim that is simultaneously vague and deadly 'to take our country back.' Meanwhile the spectre of 'minority status' draws closer, and the material advantages of being born white are eroding.
 
This is the political and cultural reality tackled by Linda Martín Alcoff in The Future of Whiteness. She argues that whiteness is here to stay, at least for a while, but that half of whites have given up on ideas of white supremacy, and the shared public, material culture is more integrated than ever. More and more, whites are becoming aware of how they appear to non-whites, both at home and abroad, and this is having profound effects on white identity in North America. The young generation of whites today, as well as all those who follow, will have never known a country in which they could take white identity as the unchallenged default that dominates the political, economic and cultural leadership. Change is on the horizon, and the most important battleground is among white people themselves.
 
The Future of Whiteness makes no predictions but astutely analyzes the present reaction and evaluates the current signs of turmoil. Beautifully written and cogently argued, the book looks set to spark debate in the field and to illuminate an important area of racial politics.

Genres: Race, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics

200 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2014

About the author

Linda Martín Alcoff (born July 25, 1955 in Panama) is a philosopher at the City University of New York who specializes in epistemology, feminism, race theory and existentialism. From 2012 to 2013, she served as president of the American Philosophical Association (APA), Eastern Division. Alcoff has called for greater inclusion of historically under represented groups in philosophy and notes that philosophers from these groups have created new fields of inquiry, including feminist philosophy, critical race theory, and LGBTQ philosophy. To help address these issues, with Paul Taylor and William Wilkerson, she started the Pluralist Guide to Philosophy. She earned her PhD in Philosophy from Brown University. She was recognized as the distinguished Woman Philosopher of 2005 by the Society for Women in Philosophy and the APA. She began teaching at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center in early 2009, after teaching for many years at Syracuse University.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a philosophical take on the topic, this book is remarkably clear and accessible. As a help to a general reader trying to get to grips with the topic, be prepared to have the academic language slow you down in places. Despite that, this strikes me as an important contribution to the topic, and as we all know, this topic is very important right about now.

I read this book because I saw the author on a panel at the AAC&U annual meeting, and her clarity and good sense prompted me to go buy her book immediately. The whole panel was impressive, but I was particularly taken with the author of this book. So now that I finally got around to reading it, I am even more impressed. We get a bit of her own story, because it is very relevant and illuminating, and an excellent overview of what we might call "the problem of Whiteness," and potential ways to make a future for whiteness that is not so toxic for all concerned. Published in 2015, the book does not anticipate the current nightmare, but might help us find a way out of here, if we make the effort.

[Paul Crider · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book with solid arguments about how race -- however socially constructed it is -- is here to stay for the foreseeable future. And thus whiteness will be with us for some time as well. The problem is an interesting one: whiteness emerged as the counterpart to the racialization of Africans and indigenous people. Whites were the people and everyone else were the racialized people. So the very concept of whiteness has racist origins. But if race and whiteness aren't going anywhere, then whiteness has to be reconstructed to be non-racist, and conspicuously so if it is to break out of the "nonracial" framing.

Alcoff makes a number of "not all white people" observations without sounding like there's a hashtag in the phrase. By this I mean it's useful to remember that, for all the figures that can be cited to show the racism of whites (consider the proportion voting for Trump), it's also important to reflect on the inverse: the vast numbers of white people who vote and act against racism, often explicitly. She discusses prominent examples of forgotten antiracist white heroes from history that should be dusted off and cherished.

This is all valuable, but ultimately the book left me wanting a little bit more. Alcoff persuasively argues that we need new narratives, but there aren't many on offer.

[Donald Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd probably give it 3.75/5 if I could, but overall this is a very thought-provoking book with compelling information about "whiteness" and "race" as well as reflections on them too. I find some arguments used to be rather poor (comparing Newton's use of "white" as some how emblematic of inherent racism) or much less than what I supposed would be better and more convincing arguments to make the same points. I also find that some of the claims utilized at times are probably based on 2nd or 3rd hand support and are not sufficiently cited (a problem philosophers tend to have), and much of what is discussed here may be better served and researched by social scientists (philosophers tend to be the one's that get ideas going and then social scientists build on them, so I realize that could just be the nature of originary ideas).

All in all a good read and one that has spurred me into a great desire to learn more from these types of studies centered on race and how it might impact my world and the world of those around me.

[Eric Bottorff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and politically vital meld of philosophical analysis, social scientific theory, and autobiography.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. More theoretical than I normally go for, but I enjoyed it.

[Sagar Jethani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes an important step by examining positive models of whiteness which include— but are not limited to —an examination of the depredations it has visited upon other racial groups.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wrote up a more extensive review on my blog here: Toward an 'Unglorious Whiteness'