[Vision2020] Interesting read on US culture, politics, and the "social construction of race"

[Saundra Lund]

An excellent read - thanks for bringing it to our attention.

 

I found this part particularly interesting:

"By displaying all these tropes of traditional whiteness, Obama's candidacy
disrupted the very idea of whiteness. Suddenly whiteness was no longer about
educational achievement, family stability or the command of spoken English.
One might argue that the folksy interventions of Sarah Palin were a
desperate attempt to reclaim and redefine whiteness as a gun-toting
ordinariness that eschews traditional and elite markers of achievement."

 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100503/harris-lacewell

 

 

 

Saundra Lund

Moscow, ID

 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

 

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Warren Hayman
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 11:12 AM
To: Moscow Vision 2020
Subject: [Vision2020] Interesting read on US culture, politics, and the
"social construction of race"

 

It also isn't very long. Here's a bit from the middle:

 

"Obama's whiteness in this sense is frightening and strange for those
invested in believing that racial categories are stable, meaningful and
essential. Those who yearn for a postracial America hoped Obama had
transcended blackness, but the real threat he poses to the American racial
order is that he disrupts whiteness, because whiteness has been the identity
that defines citizenship, access to privilege and the power to define
national history."

 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100503/harris-lacewell

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