2014 read #2: The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter.

The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
403 pages
Published 2010
Read from January 2 to January 6
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5

Like most white leftists, I want everyone to get along. What racial prejudices I absorbed from my white trash upbringing, I make every effort to contain and reject; my anthropological training inclines me to think of "race" as a damaging social construct long overdue for the scrap pile, while simultaneously informing me that it just isn't that simple. Centuries of economic, social, and "scientific" separation and marginalization aren't overcome in a single generation, and as depressing as it sounds, it's really only been less than a generation since Americans (as a generalized society) began making discernable progress toward overcoming "race."

Which makes books like this extremely valuable, and disturbing in their implications. Irvin Painter presents her exhaustively researched history of the evolution of the concept of American "whiteness" in erudite, mildly sarcastic, eminently readable prose, doing a superhuman job at presenting the lies, bigotry, and disgusting peccadilloes of "race theorists" in a restrained manner. I could never manage such restraint; this sort of thing makes me too angry. Demonstrating just how flimsy and hypocritical the roots of race ideology have been, it just makes me angrier to think how prevalent -- how overwhelming -- such bullshit is throughout society today.

I heartily recommend this book, and I've added Irvin Painter's Creating Black Americans (which perhaps I should have read first, except I've owned this one for years) to my to-read list.