Full Description
An account of the emergence and development of white consciousness throughout American history.
In The Making of White American Identity, Ron Eyerman provides an explanation for how whiteness has become a basis for collective identification and collective action in the United States. Drawing upon his previous work on the formation of African American identity, as well as cultural trauma theory, collective memory, and social movements, he reveals how and under what conditions such a collective identification emerges, as well as how the mobilization of collective action around an ideology of whiteness and white superiority. Eyerman explores how the American identity was, and is still being established, through both historical and more recent events, including the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, the election of a Black president, the Charlottesville confrontation, and the violent conflict at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He further shows how each event revitalized the trauma narratives stemming from the nation's founding tensions, mobilizing social forces around the idea of white superiority and white consciousness. Tracing the historical contexts and social conditions under which individuals and groups move through this process, the author also looks forward at the prospects of the ideology of white supremacy as a political force in the United States.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: On Trauma and Trauma Narratives
Chapter Two: White Consciousness from Colonization to the Civil War
Chapter Three: Representing and Organizing Whiteness
Chapter Four: Racializing the Nation: Popular Culture and Whiteness
Chapter Five: Voicing and Visualizing Whiteness
Chapter Six: Whiteness in the Digital Age
Chapter Seven: The Future of Whiteness in the United States
Notes
Index
