Overview

White supremacy and American-style individual autonomy are mutually supportive and co-dependent. Attacking white racism will not dislodge white supremacy, which the author contends is the greatest danger facing America. That can only be accomplished by making concurrent and significant modifications in American individualism. Yet, white supremacist thinking, feeling, and acting and American individualism are protected by what the author describes as The White Supremacist Collective Unconscious, a culturally determined mental construct that Americans assimilate as they grow into adulthood, which endows all Americans, regardless of race, with a white supremacist mental orientation to one degree or another. Drawing on his personal experiences as an African American growing up in the United States, and on his research, the author details the development and workings of that unconscious, and the impact of white supremacy on the national character. In this provocative, personal, and engaging volume, so timely in its intervention, Ronald Richardson gives us a new way of looking at ourselves, how we came to be, and the inescapable role white supremacy has played in the unfolding. —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University This is a brave and candid book centered on the psychology and vexed history of race and the white ascendency in the United States. The gaze is unblinking, the analysis rigorous, and the conclusions judicious. Professor Richardson has composed a most impressive study, drawing on the provocative ideas of varied thinkers—among whom Fanon, Jung, Kierkegaard, Kakuzo Okakura—and his own experience, stretching from childhood to youth to distinguished scholar. —David Mayers is Professor, History Department, Political Science Department, Boston University

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9781433194146

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Reviews

In this provocative, personal, and engaging volume, so timely in its intervention, Ronald Richardson gives us a new way of looking at ourselves, how we came to be, and the inescapable role white supremacy has played in the unfolding. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Alphonse Fletcher University Professor Harvard University This is a brave and candid book centered on the psychology and vexed history of race and the white ascendency in the United States. The gaze is unblinking, the analysis rigorous, and the conclusions judicious. Professor Richardson has composed a most impressive study, drawing on the provocative ideas of varied thinkers—among whom Fanon, Jung, Kierkegaard, Kakuzo Okakura—and his own experience, stretching from childhood to youth to distinguished scholar. David Mayers Professor History Department, Political Science Department Boston University

Author Information

Ron Richardson is Associate Professor of History at Boston University, where he teaches courses on Japanese history Black and Asian populations in comparative perspective, and racial thought. Between January of 2000 and September of 2008 he directed the African American Studies Program in global and comparative perspective. His books include Moral Imperium: Afro-Caribbeans and the Transformation of British Rule. He is completing a study of Winston Churchill as white supremacist.

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