- ISBN13: 9780393049343
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
A mind-expanding and myth-destroying exploration of “whiteness”—an illuminating work on the history of race and power. Eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter tells perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history. Beginning at the roots of Western civilization, she traces the invention of the idea of a white race—often for economic, scientific, and political ends. She shows how the origins of American identity in the eighteenth century were intrinsically tied to the elevation of white skin into the embodiment of beauty, power, and intelligence; how the great American intellectuals— including Ralph Waldo Emerson—insisted that only Anglo Saxons were truly American; and ho… More >>
At first blush readers may be a bit off-put at a black woman writing a history of white people and the usual questions are likely to arise. But as a historian it is Nell Irvin Painter’s job to transcend identities such as race and gender and to remain objective about her subject matter. There are many compelling arguments about the relative pros and cons of writing about a part of your identity or about an identity other than your own. Those arguments aside, Painter sets an ambitious goal of writing a history on the construct of the white race; the who, what, where, when, why and how of its origins, its evolution and change over time, and its greater societal significance and meaning to our present day and age. Rather than an angry diatribe against racism Painter seeks to provide a narrative of the evolution of white identity.
Painter begins in antiquity, a time in which race was not important so much as place; where you were from, a time of social hierarchy and class more so than racial consciousness. The disturbing truth is that class served more to define one’s status and place than ethnicity or race for many centuries. Slavery, the great sin of any age, was racially colorblind in antiquity, and even in colonial America it was initially colorblind if indentured servitude is included. Painter guides readers through the evolution and construct of whiteness leading up to the harsh realities of the 19th Century, a time where whiteness took on further nuances, differences, and distinctions owing to increased immigration. It was a time when the Irish, Italians, Jews, and “others” were denigrated for their otherness; for not fitting the Anglo-Saxon ideal of whiteness. These ideas and concepts linger in American consciousness and inform public policy and public opinion for nearly a century, resulting in some of the most egregious sins of the republic, including the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the exclusion of Asians from immigration, anti-Semitism and more. By the time of the Civil Rights Movement whites felt increasingly under attack, becoming the “other” in their own society. If Malcolm X and James Brown could exhort blacks to proclaim “Say it loud! I’m black and proud!” then why couldn’t whites revel in their own racial pride? And here’s where it gets interesting. Painter’s argument is that a nation, founded by slaveholders with justification for its class system based upon the inherent inferiority of black people a foundational belief, must reach some form of reassessment of what it should be once slavery has ended. That process has hot yet fully occurred in the United States and until such a time remains unfinished business for us to move forward.
The end result is thought-provoking, certainly controversial, and more into the realm of history of ideas than most lay people will be comfortable with. Many will undoubtedly be offended by what Painter has to say, but her point is not to provide a hagiography of a race, but to examine the larger meanings of what race is, what it means, and how it shapes us as a people and a society. The results are meant to be unsettling and to initiate further thought, contemplation and introspection. To that end Painter succeeds wonderfully. This is meant to be a challenging and polarizing book and quite honestly those who make it through will be rewarded for it. Undoubtedly many will find points to contend and debate, but they will miss the larger argument.
Rating: 5 / 5
The author gives a very distorted history of whiteness as a racial category. The ultimate racial question facing American elites has always been how to divide one “race” from another given the reality of racial mixture. Painter makes the false statement that a “one drop” rule forcing “blackness” on predominately white people has always been law in American. False! She has not read the latest research showing that, not only did antebellum states legally allow varying amounts of “black blood” into the “white race,” but “acting whiteness” or exercising the rights and social obligations of white people would raise people from “colored” to “white” even if the official “blood” quota was not met. The unenforceable “one drop” laws only came into existence (in SOME states) in the 20th century in connection with the eugenics movement. Instead of referencing excellent works on this subject such as What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America and Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise And Triumph of the One-drop Rule, Painter presents the worthless novel “Marie” as accurate history. If you want to read a detailed, accurate description of racial mixture and Creole society, the best book on the subject is White By Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana.
Painter mentions Josiah Knott but seems totally unaware of how his racist theory of “mulatto inferiority” was quoted into the 20th century by judges sentencing couples for breaking “miscegenation laws.” She does not understand how the existence of white slaves (both “mixed” and “pure)inspired and outraged the abolitionist movement and the nascent Republican Party. For that history, you can read The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue.
The author barely spends time on Mexicans and other Hispanics, even though the issue of determining whether or not they should be considered “white” (despite both Indian and African ancestry)is essential to any history of “whiteness.” An excellent book on this subject is The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (American Crossroads, 2).
It is important to know that even notorious racists like Walter Plecker (a name Painter SHOULD know)failed to force mixed whites to become “Negroes” when the intended victims resisted those efforts. The Melungeons are the prime example: Walking Toward The Sunset: The Melungeons Of Appalachia (Melungeons: History, Culture, Ethnicity, & Literature) and The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People : An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America.
Anyone who has read Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Racewill be disgusted with the way it has been upstaged by Painter’s far inferior book. American immigration law’s obsession with determining when Asians can be called “white” should have been given a lot of attention. Read White by Law 10th Anniversary Edition: The Legal Construction of Race (Critical America Series).
Painter’s book isn’t very good, but it has a big advertising budget. Let’s hope that someone else writes a really comprehensive history of “white people” and “whiteness.”
Rating: 2 / 5
It is very interesting to me that the fact that the author is Black gives readers pause or prompts a question as to “why” she is writing about white people. Haven’t white people (educators or otherwise) been writing about people of color throughout our history. No one ever seems to question their ability to articulate their research or the validity of their perspective.
Rating: 5 / 5
The History of White People is an ironic title because, as Nell Irvin Painter ably demonstrates here, “whiteness” is a term subject to many interpretations through the centuries. Beginning with the Greeks and Romans and continuing to the present, Painter analyzes the attitudes held by master peoples towards those whom they subjugated, enslaved, or at least considered themselves to be dominant over in some form.
The book’s best sections deal with the development of racial attitudes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Europeans, seeing themselves newly dominant over the rest of the world, attempted to find some biological rationale for their preeminence. Painter’s descriptions of the bizarre “scientific” theories dealing with hair texture, skull sizes and shapes, height, and so on would be laughably absurd if those same theories had not led to the development of eugenics in the late nineteenth century. In turn eugenics in the twentieth century led to forceable sterilization of the “unfit” and other horrors, culminating in the Holocaust.
Painter writes well, with an occasional wry grimace and shake of the head. Her last chapter is one of the best, for here she gives a summary of the current state of “whiteness” in a world where DNA analysis and the mapping of the human genome have so muddied the waters that one wishes J.F. Blumenbach, William Z. Ripley, and other “scientists” who tried so hard to identify one race as superior to all others could be alive to see their work brought to naught.
Rating: 5 / 5
Great research that is enlightening on the racial issues of United States and Europe. This is a cultural foundation of this country.
Rating: 5 / 5