This is an excellent and important book. The author has some very important insights, primarily oriented towards revealing the hypocrises of "good white liberals." These are hypocrises that many of us have noticed all along, but which have been denied and/or rationalized away by the more illiberal of good white liberals, who fall into the very same "us vs them" thinking that they are so quick to criticize in others. In essence, Sullivan's book is an attempt to bring reflections about race into more maturity and less simplistic and dualistic thinking.
Principally, Sullivan points out 4 problem areas in "good white people's" thinking on race -- postures through which they attempt to shore up their own "racial goodness" by casting blame on others.
(1) Dumping on white trash --- in other words, "it's those stupid, uneducated, racist people over there who are the problem, not me." We can see this strategy in action when millions of Trump supporters are called a "basket of deplorables" or are conveniently designated to be the "real" racists --freeing good white liberals from having to examine themselves and their own hypocrises.
(2) A process of "othering" -- expanding on the former -- finding various groups of white "others" whose morality or even humanity can be called into question, making "good white liberals" pure in comparison. White slaveholders, white supremacists, fit the bill nicely. We can point to them and feel that we are pure and they are the bad ones. How nice.
(3) Engaging in "color blindness" --- pretending not to notice color, because noticing color isn't "nice." (Who said that?) We can see this in action in all those people who feel morally upstanding when they post a comment about a crime that took place in their neighborhood, strenuously avoiding mentioning the race of the perpetrator, or who argue that they themselves "dont' pay attention to race" -- as if there is virtue in proceeding through life only half noticing the people passing by.
(4) Cultivating white guilt, shame and betrayal -- the twisted and perverse viewpoint involved in this strategy is that , if I feel bad, and hate my own white race, then I must be the most virtuous possible white person, since white people are so horrible! This strategy is probably the one which results in the most derisive laughter among those not afflicted by the psychopathic torments of good white liberal self-hatred -- eg the moderates and conservatives who like themselves just fine, thank you.
Sullivan does an excellent job of exploring each of these problematic good white people strategies: each strategy gets its own chapter.
This said, there are some serious conflicts within Sullivan's own views and philosophy of race as well. Two of the most problematic aspects of Sullivan's philosophy of race, which unfortunately often seem to characterize "white studies" , are these: (1) the tendency to blame white people for the actions of their ancestors -- either their direct ancestors, or those who are simply racial ancestors. (2) the view that white people should "do something" for racial justice -- but -- tellingly-- she can't say just what that is.
On point (1), Sullivan seems to want, or rather, to need, white people to carry the burden of their ancestor's misdeeds -- which she apparently views as far greater than those of any other race of people. I have to wonder what motivates Sullivan to feel that such oppressive burdens are justified? This is particularly hard to understand against her view that what whites need most is "self-love" and to NOT feel shame or "white guilt." This viewpoint would burden all present-day people (not just whites, but by extension all people) with the "sins of their fathers." This is an ironic viewpoint because it's backward -- in Christianity for instance, there is an evolution from an Old Testament view that God would hold them responsible for the sins of their fathers, to a more modern view that it's one's relationship with God that matters, not what one's parents or great-great-grandparents did. In Buddhism and mindfulness teachings, this removal from any individual being burdened by actions of the past -- those of their ancestors --- or even their own -- is even more liberating, as to live in presence means that we can liberate ourselves from the "programming" of past events. Psychology too, object relations psychology, would take a dim view of anyone who asserted that people are receiving (as Sullivan claims) "enigmatic messages" (What is that?) from the acts of their ancestors, and that this burden is something good and right -- like some form of proper punishment for original sin, enduring through generations.
There are many problems with this viewpoint that justifies people, but apparently for Sullivan and others, white people in particular, as needing to be oppressed by their ancestral past. One of the most obvious problems is that psychological dynamics cannot be race-particular: what is true for one race must be true for other ethnicities, and so if we argue that present day whites must be morally and psychologically burdened by the acts of white slaveholders and colonists, we'd also have to acknowledge that present day and future time blacks must carry the moral and psychological burdens of past and present day black slaveholders, female genital mutilation in Africa, black genocide in Africa, corruption and tyranny among nations in Africa, and the epidemic of black on black murder, nihilism and despair in inner city black neighborhoods. In essence, there is hardly a group of people on this earth that has not committed atrocities, and it's facile and offensive to try to attribute evil more to any one race than another.
As well, white people, like those of any race, have a great number of themes and stories in their ancestry. I see absolutely no justification for anyone to focus on one of these themes over others, if indeed they are interested to explore their ancestral history -- which no one is obliated to do. One of the biggest problems in the realm of "white studies" is the extent to which the number of valuable contributions of white individuals to human history is ignored, in favor of the stories about "the bad stuff." For instance, far more compelling than the fact that white people owned slaves (people of every race have owned slaves) is the fact that whites of European descent were the first to prohibit slavery and call for its end in our nation. The focus on white slaveholders by white studies theorists, is extremely myopic, and this myopia is not consistent with a substantive philosophy.
As well, consider that the very word "slave" comes from "Slav", because so many Slavic people -- white people -- were enslaved by Muslims -- "people of color" -- in the 9th century. Before this, Jews were enslaved by Egyptians. So, one could look at these phenomena and say -- the original offense of slavery, was one inflicted upon white people by people of color. How things can change when you ignore the vast majority of world history and selectively focus only on the last 300-400 years in one nation!! Many white people in Europe were murdered or terrorized by Stalinist forces or invading armies during World War II -- for instance, millions of Ethnic Germans and Lithuanians were forced from their homelands in Prussia by invading Russian armies. It's ridiculous to assert that this trauma would be less significant for a descendent of such people, than the existence of white slaveholders in another continent. Simply put, to reduce white people around the world to the phenomenon of white slaveholders in the American south, is completely untenable and offensive.
On point (2) Sullivan, like so many others in the white anti-racism or good white liberal movements, urges good white people to "do something" for racial justice -- but she has trouble saying just what that something is. Examples are given, such as talking to a racist co-worker or neighbors -- and while Sullivan certainly has a point that it's easier and more reasonable to expect a white male to speak to another white male about a racist joke, for instance -- than for a black female to confront that same white male -- I cannot see any legitimate philosophical or even practical basis for insisting that any person, regardless their race, be responsible for what any other person says or does. Of course, political activism is valuable-- and pursuing justice is valuable -- but not all of us are political activists. As well, in my view where the philosophy of race fails most is in its failure to view our human behavior and motivations in a significantly deep manner. For instance, it would be facile to say that a particular political leader says the offensive things that he does because he is "racist" or doesn't care about people of color. Rather, it is often the case that a person suffers from a psychological limitation -- such as narcissistic personality disorder, or limited psychological developmnet and excessive egotism -- in the context of which, it would be unreasonable to expect a person to show a real compassion for others.
The general problem with a philosophy of race, is that it doesn't go deep enough in its view on human nature --- it looks at the symptoms, and declares the symptoms of the disease to be the cause. People don't do bad things because they are racist -- as if racism were some deep defining characteristic of the human psyche-- rather they do racist things because they are psychologically limited human beings.
In her final chapter, Sullivan urges white people to look for a healthy model of self-love that "provides an alternative to both multicultural and oppositional love" (pg 159) and urges white people to "figure out new ways to take up their white identities." I'd like to suggest that a great way of taking up one's identity is to cease to be so fixated on race -- I think our present cultural fixation on race is neurotic. While we shouldn't ignore race and ethnicity, we need to be able to see more deeply and expansively beyond it. We are much more than our race. This is something that can be found quite powerfully by engaging in meditation and mindfulness practice, and spiritual unfolding, which is after all a process of letting go of all manner of egoic "identities" to find that our real selves, our essence, lies beyond all these shells and layers of ego identity.
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