BOOK NEWS: 21st century American authors grapple with the construct of whiteness

Ugly White People: Writing Whiteness in Contemporary America

BY STEPHANIE LI

University of Minnesota Press, 2023

ISBN 978-1-5179-1574-2

https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/ugly-white-people

Ugly White People explores representations of whiteness from twenty-first-century white American authors (Dave Eggers, Sarah Smarsh, J. D. Vance, Claire Messud, Ben Lerner, and others) as they grapple with whiteness as its own construct rather than a wrongly assumed norm. Revealing white recognition of the ugly forms whiteness can take, Stephanie Li examines the tension between acknowledging whiteness as an identity built on domination and the failure to remedy inequalities that have proliferated from this founding injustice.

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The questions posed in Ugly White People about the nature and future of whiteness are vital to understanding contemporary race relations in America. From the election of Trump and the rise of white nationalism to Karen memes and the war against critical race theory to the pervasive pattern of behavior among largely liberal-leaning whites, Li elucidates truths about whiteness that challenge any hope of national unity and, most devastatingly, the basic humanity of others.

"Ugly White People is not about the 'racists' but about the way whiteness shapes the subjectivity of all white people. Relying on an elegant and parsimonious textual analysis of the work of contemporary authors, Stephanie Li shows how whites manage to evade while they acknowledge their whiteness, how they consume people of color through racist love, and how they accept whiteness in a way that neglects addressing racism. I highly recommend this book to readers interested in understanding contemporary whiteness." — Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University

"The best writing critically studying whiteness today intensely engages imbrications of race with other identities, especially class, gender, nationality, and disability. No one does all of that better than Stephanie Li. Addressing literary moments with a sure grasp of history and an adventuresome readings of texts, Ugly White People speaks compellingly to the persisting strength of Trump and white nationalism and to the desire for social media celebrity as something authors both explore and share." — David Roediger, author of The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History of Debt, Misery, and the Drift to the Right

Stephanie Li is Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis. She is author of Pan-African American Literature, Playing in the White, and Signifying without Specifying.