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Author Sullivan, Shannon, 1967-

Title Good white people : the problem with middle-class white anti-racism / Shannon Sullivan.

Publication Info. Albany : SUNY Press, 2014.

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Location Call No. Status
 University of Saint Joseph: Pope Pius XII Library - Standard Shelving Location  305.8 S952G    Check Shelf
Description x, 214 pages ; 23 cm.
Series SUNY series, Philosophy and race
SUNY series, philosophy and race.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-203) and index.
Contents Introduction: Good white liberals -- Dumping on white trash : etiquette, abjection, and radical inclusion -- Demonizing white ancestors : unconscious histories and racial responsibilities -- The dis-ease of color blindness : racial absences and invisibilities in the reproduction of whiteness -- The dangers of white guilt, shame, and betrayal : toward white self-love -- Conclusion: Struggles over love.
Summary Building on her book Revealing Whiteness, Shannon Sullivan identifies a constellation of attitudes common among well-meaning white liberals that she sums up as "white middle-class goodness," an orientation she critiques for being more concerned with establishing anti-racist bona fides than with confronting systematic racism and privilege. Sullivan untangles the complex relationships between class and race in contemporary white identity and outlines four ways this orientation is expressed, each serving to establish one's lack of racism: the denigration of lower-class white people as responsible for ongoing white racism, the demonization of antebellum slaveholders, an emphasis on colorblindness--especially in the context of white childrearing--and the cultivation of attitudes of white guilt, shame, and betrayal. To move beyond these distancing strategies, Sullivan argues, white people need a new ethos that acknowledges and transforms their whiteness in the pursuit of racial justice rather than seeking a self-righteous distance from it.--Publisher description.
Subject White people -- United States -- Attitudes.
Middle class -- United States.
Anti-racism -- United States.
United States -- Race relations.
United States -- Social conditions -- 1980-2020
Anti-racism. (OCoLC)fst01742067
Middle class. (OCoLC)fst01020437
Race relations. (OCoLC)fst01086509
Social conditions. (OCoLC)fst01919811
White people -- Attitudes. (OCoLC)fst01174817
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
Mittelstand. (DE-588)4039713-0
Weiße. (DE-588)4132038-4
Ethnische Beziehung. (DE-588)4176973-9
United States. (DE-588)4078704-7
Chronological Term Since 1980
ISBN 9781438451695 (hardcover) (alkaline paper)
1438451695 (hardcover) (alkaline paper)
9781438451688 (paperback) (alkaline paper)
1438451687 (paperback) (alkaline paper)
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