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· 226 ratings · 17 reviews
Start your review of Making Whiteness: The Civilization of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940
This is an excellent book almost the movement from an integrated south based on slavery to one that promoted white superiority through segregation. It's just written very awkwardly and is a flake repetitive sometimes. The information and perspective is vital.
In attempting to analyze the tragedy of white racism in American history, Hale reduces it to the clinical. Certainly, there are insights to exist gained from her reading of systematic racist oppression, but I wonder if the practical outworkings of these systems were quite so monolithic as she implies - not that I recollect some areas of contemporary white culture were somehow immune to racialism, merely rather that individuals acted out of their ain personal prejudices as much as societal pressures. In th In attempting to analyze the tragedy of white racism in American history, Hale reduces it to the clinical. Certainly, there are insights to be gained from her reading of systematic racist oppression, simply I wonder if the applied outworkings of these systems were quite so monolithic as she implies - not that I call back some areas of contemporary white culture were somehow immune to racialism, but rather that individuals acted out of their own personal prejudices every bit much as societal pressures. In the same style, her clinical sterility has the effect of transmuting human victims into case studies, reducing them to merely what they signifed to the broader black and white communities at big. This reductionist arroyo serves to finer illustrate general attitudes and trends, but gives no explanation as to why these attitudes and trends existed in the first identify. An interesting study, likewise as a haunting narrative, but a counter-cosmetic analysis from a more private standpoint would be appreciated. ...more than
Unhurt's give-and-take of racial structure and segregation in the American S centers on the ambiguities caused past racial sharing of public spaces and mass consumer culture during the tardily nineteenth century and first-one-half of the twentieth century. Nostalgic ad, "Old Due south" tourism, and minstrelsy, were among the the more benign forms of commoditization of the black trunk that aimed at restoring white cultural supremacy during this period. Horrific lynchings, in which black people were Unhurt'due south discussion of racial structure and segregation in the American Southward centers on the ambiguities caused by racial sharing of public spaces and mass consumer culture during the belatedly nineteenth century and first-half of the twentieth century. Nostalgic advertising, "Old South" tourism, and minstrelsy, were amongst the the more benign forms of commoditization of the blackness body that aimed at restoring white cultural supremacy during this period. Horrific lynchings, in which black people were tortured, murdered, and then divided into souvenirs past the witnessing white mob, constituted the cancerous, darker-side of racial "othering." Unhurt argues that mass culture nationalized the horrors of segregation, as well every bit the more restrained forms of racial subordination, beyond the regional experience of southern America. ...more
This volume is in my top 5 of all time; it is admittedly incredible. Hale covers the history of segregation from a cultural perspective. What she describes as the 'culture of segregation', 'whiteness' is an ideology that white southerners adopted equally a reaction to the ascension blackness middle form after Reconstruction. It is one matter to accept segregation be a police force, but it is another to accept its meaning spread through major symbols of Southern civilisation. The significant effects of culture on Southern socie This book is in my top 5 of all time; it is absolutely incredible. Hale covers the history of segregation from a cultural perspective. What she describes every bit the 'culture of segregation', 'whiteness' is an ideology that white southerners adopted as a reaction to the rising black middle class afterwards Reconstruction. It is one thing to have segregation be a police force, only information technology is some other to have its significant spread through major symbols of Southern civilisation. The meaning effects of culture on Southern society are horrific. Everything from literature to lynchings contribute to this 'culture of segregation'. This volume has challenged me to retrieve virtually gimmicky issues of race and has made me truly believe we exercise not live in a post-racial age. This 'whiteness' withal exists, and that is a terrifying thought. ...more
This book is really interesting. Hale takes the menstruation from 1890-1940 and discusses how whites in the Southward created a civilization of segregation. She uses advertisements, retentivity, and even the violence of spectacle lynching to discuss how whites created their whiteness, and then badly tried to hang on to it. Her arguments were clear and concise; she gets a piddling wordy sometimes, and I would have to go dorsum and read sentences or whole paragraphs ii or three times before I would sympathize what
This book is really interesting. Hale takes the menstruum from 1890-1940 and discusses how whites in the Southward created a culture of segregation. She uses advertisements, memory, and even the violence of spectacle lynching to discuss how whites created their whiteness, and so desperately tried to hang on to it. Her arguments were articulate and concise; she gets a picayune wordy sometimes, and I would have to go dorsum and read sentences or whole paragraphs ii or iii times before I would sympathize what she was maxim. Hale also totally omitted the Ku Klux Klan in this period; except for a few mentions, they practice not have a place, which I think was a big hole in her arguments. All in all, an excellent description of white thought and culture in the South during that fourth dimension.
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For me, a native Southerner, Unhurt's findings opened my eyes to the manner the generations preceding me in the deep South synthetic the segregated society in which I grew up. What had seemed to me "the mode the world was" had been painstakingly assembled, not "in the wake of the War," but later on a generation of living with something different. The color line and its specific meannesses had their own barbarous history, yet i total of contradictions. For me, a native Southerner, Hale's findings opened my eyes to the style the generations preceding me in the deep S constructed the segregated order in which I grew up. What had seemed to me "the way the earth was" had been painstakingly assembled, not "in the wake of the State of war," only after a generation of living with something different. The color line and its specific meannesses had their ain barbarous history, even so one full of contradictions. ...more than
MAKING WHITENESS: 4/5 StarsI enjoyed Making Whiteness and particularly liked the deep-dive it did into sure cultural pieces, such as Gone with the Air current and Stone Mount. Every bit a white person raised in the wealthy South, it's fascinating to encounter the things that are supposed to be innocuous today exposed equally being built on racism and the ways in which white people distinguished themselves and forced Black folks into certain stereotypical roles. Economic compulsion is a huge and invisible forcefulness, and I
MAKING WHITENESS: 4/5 StarsI enjoyed Making Whiteness and especially liked the deep-dive information technology did into certain cultural pieces, such as Gone with the Wind and Stone Mountain. Every bit a white person raised in the wealthy Southward, it's fascinating to run across the things that are supposed to be innocuous today exposed as being congenital on racism and the ways in which white people distinguished themselves and forced Blackness folks into sure stereotypical roles. Economical coercion is a huge and invisible strength, and I loved the style that this book tried to put signs of economic coercion of racism and white supremacy in clear terms.
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While somewhat academic in its reading, Making Whiteness is a good primer on the social and political mechanisms southern whites used post-reconstruction to reassert their dominance. This social hierarchy was so taken up by the balance of the country, providing us with the racial framework nosotros live with today. An of import contribution to understanding systemic racism.
This volume has sat on my bookshelf for a couple of years. Information technology takes a critical approach to exploring the creation, meaning and maintenance of segregation in the S. It feels like cultural history, there is a singled-out feeling of theory underlying each of the chapters. The organisation of the book eschews a strict chronological approach which is engaging in the short term, but can make the book feel equally if it is not moving forrad at other times. It was ofttimes interesting, but also often difficult This book has sat on my bookshelf for a couple of years. It takes a disquisitional approach to exploring the cosmos, meaning and maintenance of segregation in the South. It feels like cultural history, there is a singled-out feeling of theory underlying each of the capacity. The organization of the book eschews a strict chronological approach which is engaging in the short term, but can make the book experience every bit if it is not moving frontwards at other times. It was oft interesting, just too often hard to have real long sustained readings. Hale's methodology gives the book an impersonal experience. Even the affiliate that describes iii lynchings in painful detail, the people feel more than similar symbols than characters, and the discussion remains remote from the human side of these often tragic stories. I really institute this element of the work interesting, but this was definitely a part of having read much more history that is narrative driven. Later on Race and Reunion, which has a similar approach to being theory or thematically driven, Making Whiteness didn't feel wooden. The writer brings a sense of urgency to the writing that provides the humanity often intellectualized in the text. The final affiliate and epilogue bring this forward effectively. The last few pages are part conclusion, part plea, and part call to activity.
Lynchings, advertisement, consumer culture, minstrelsy, lots of topics that seem specialized are rendered as tools all utilized towards i goal, creating and maintaining a new civilization of segregation in the South. The late chapter that deals with Margaret Mitchell and Lillian Smith shows the inherent contradictions of the civilisation also as its sturdiness in American Life.
This book is aimed at a more bookish audience. I wish I would accept been aware of it 5 years ago, when I read more academic history. It is yet engaging, however. If y'all similar historiography pick information technology up. Recommended.
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In order to justify a segregated society, the American Southward constructed whiteness every bit the norm and relegated blackness to the perimeter of mainstream culture. Hale'due south insightful study of white Southerners' methods of distancing and identity construction is carefully laid out in Making Whiteness. She deftly charts the construction of the institution of segregation from the terminate of Reconstruction to what is arguably the beginning of black civil rights consciousness during Globe War II. The dialectic In order to justify a segregated club, the American Due south constructed whiteness equally the norm and relegated blackness to the perimeter of mainstream culture. Unhurt's insightful study of white Southerners' methods of distancing and identity structure is carefully laid out in Making Whiteness. She deftly charts the structure of the institution of segregation from the end of Reconstruction to what is arguably the first of black civil rights consciousness during Earth War II. The dialectic construction of blackness identity based on paternal fantasies and fear is described every bit occurring meantime with the creation of the Lost Cause and Old Southward myths in the tardily nineteenth century—thereby creating whiteness and its other, blackness. Hale so recounts two cultural revolutions that occurred at the plough of the century and grew to complicate and eventually undermine white identity as divide from blackness: the domestic shift from plantation life to the white heart course, and the evolution of modern consumerism in the southern United States. Both changes, 1 individual and i public, necessitated the need for southern whites to create public and powerful means to reestablish their primacy in the face of ambiguous racial relationships in the home and in the shop—Hale suggests that spectacle lynchings and public monuments served this purpose. Her conclusions indicate that southern violence towards blacks inevitably caused larger American sentiment to wane in support of white supremacy as it manifested itself in the South. In addition, the interaction between blacks and whites in consumerism and domestic service served to undermine the separation that occurred in other public spaces causing African-Americans in the region to begin boldly demanding equal rights in all spheres of society.In spite of the ambitious nature of her project, Hale does a remarkable job of illustrating the construction of segregation and its inherent tenuousness. She draws from remarkable sources, including local newspapers from small southern towns boasting of mobs torturing black men in the defense of southern womanhood, as well as the piece of work of scholars from historical, literary, sociological, and political backgrounds. Comparative literary assay of divergent works similar Mitchell's Gone With the Wind and Smith'due south Foreign Fruit is coupled with photographic analysis of blacks and whites shopping side past side in the early on twentieth century, providing the reader, no thing what discipline, some point of engagement with her inquiry. Well organized and well executed, Making Whiteness provides a unique insight into the justifications and social strategies of southern whites to maintain power over their sometime slaves, also as black responses and resistance to those efforts by the likes of early activists Ida B. Wells and W. E. B. DuBois.
One of the more interesting parts of the book occurs in the epilogue, in which Hale traces out the subsequent historical changes that eventually took place after the developments detailed in the body of her work. The final two pages of her book warn that the social implications of her piece of work are notwithstanding relevant today, optimistically calling for a restoration of faith in "humanity's ability to effect progressive change." Scholarship as overt activism does crusade i to intermission and wonder if a political agenda may accept affected Hale's work. While the politics are fairly broad and non-offensive, she evidently sees her piece of work equally part of a process of instigating and perpetuating social change in racial relations. Reservations merely occur to the extent that political bias might take directed what was included and what may accept been left out of her inquiry. Hale's wealth of sources and extensive endnotes indicate that concern is almost likely unmerited.
Making Whiteness implies the possible changes that tin can exist made to avoid the casuistic justifications of segregation from always occurring again. Racism is non inherent to the human condition, according to Hale, simply is created from inside cultures and societies. Therefore, information technology can be unmade.
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The long chapter on lyching balanced and amplified Orlando Patterson's discussions. Hale'southward conscientious construction and defense of her concept of the "spectacle lynching" as a miracle of 20th century consumer civilization, specifically a production of the combined influence of the railroad, telephone, and newspapers is disarming. Calls into question Patterson'due south somewhat mystical concept of lynching as a modern manifestation of something ancient. Hale's discussion and appreciation of Due west.J. Cash'southward Mind of The long chapter on lyching counterbalanced and amplified Orlando Patterson's discussions. Hale's careful construction and defense force of her concept of the "spectacle lynching" as a miracle of 20th century consumer civilization, specifically a product of the combined influence of the railroad, phone, and newspapers is convincing. Calls into question Patterson'due south somewhat mystical concept of lynching as a modern manifestation of something ancient. Hale's word and appreciation of W.J. Cash'due south Heed of the S made me want to go back and re-read him. ...more than
Re-read this extraordinary cultural history of segregation this week. I love Grace Hale'southward writing, her sharp analysis of Southern civilization and found her discussion of lynchings, the significance of the Rock Mount monument and GWTW to be particularly compelling and insightful. Equally with near cultural histories, however, I found myself searching for a more than house grounding in political, economical and social trends, but peradventure that'southward expecting also much.
Re-read this extraordinary cultural history of segregation this week. I love Grace Hale's writing, her precipitous analysis of Southern civilisation and found her discussion of lynchings, the significance of the Rock Mountain monument and GWTW to be peculiarly compelling and insightful. Equally with most cultural histories, however, I institute myself searching for a more firm grounding in political, economical and social trends, merely perhaps that's expecting likewise much.
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This is a well written book that I call up would appeal to a wide range of people. Hale uses cultural artifacts (books, movies, advertisements etc.) to explain the structure of whiteness.
Really a 4.5. 1 of the all-time books on the culture of white supremacy in the early (and later on) 20th century. Information technology is as well a very accessible historical piece of work.
This is ane of the near personally important books that I've e'er read. It made me think of race in a completely different and complex manner. Everyone should read this book. This is ane of the near personally important books that I've e'er read. It fabricated me think of race in a completely different and complex way. Everyone should read this book. ...more
Grisly. Could not read anything beyond my assigned chapter on lynching.
If you lot're seeking an excellent audiobook, you cannot become wrong with an award-winning recording. Luckily for u.s.a., each year the Audie Awards option...
"Slavery, in other words, founded and stock-still the meaning of blackness more than any transparent and transhistorical significant of black skin founded the category of slavery." — 0 likes
"Yet it was racial identity that became the paramount spatial mediation of modernity within the newly reunited nation. Non cocky-evidently more meaningful, not more real or natural than other markings, race nevertheless became the crucial means of ordering the newly enlarged meaning of America. This happened because sometime Confederates, a growing working class, embattled farmers, western settlers, a defensive northeastern elite, women's rights advocates, an" — 0 likes
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