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The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege

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Review of The Heart of Whiteness

For those who choose to take the trip, Professor Jensen has charted a course, in plain English, and with few pretensions, to fuller understanding of the depth of the scars that American racism has left on our humanity. It has infected our individual and collective psyches with a disease that is difficult to overcome: the disease of color prejudice, white privilege, white supremacy, white superiority, and white racism.

In the same vein as that of Lillian Smith's "Killing the Dream;" or Tim Wise's "White Like Me;" or indeed with the same skill and moving passion as the F. H. Griffith classic, "Black Like Me," professor Jensen has used his own life experience, and his considerable intellectual skills to shake not just the white conscience, but the conscience of America. And while he cannot be blamed for not solving all the problems he raised, we must all be grateful to him for having the courage to raise them, and for doing so in such a clear-minded, passionate and committed manner.

In this short volume, the University of Texas at Austin Professor, Robert Jensen, has demonstrated that he has acquired the necessary self-knowledge (the escape velocity needed to propel himself beyond the orbit of "naïve white supremacy" into the orbit of "fully self-conscious white supremacy") to break away from the comforts of white privilege. This is an important and necessary, but as he so eloquently noted, an insufficient step on the road to overcoming the disease of white privilege, and its larger manifestation, American style white racism.

Jensen has let the cat out of the bag: White humanity is just short of a fraud built on the quicksand of propped up privileges, unfair advantages, unjust prerogatives, structural injustices, four-century-old myths, four centuries of violence and genocide, and lies, all insulated and protected by a system of soft tyranny and spatial Apartheid. In short, if one understands Jensen correctly, America has sacrificed all of the little humanity it has, on the altar of skin color superiority.

As Jensen has discovered, in this his much-needed second thrust -- re-entering the old orbit of white supremacy armed with self-knowledge -- is a much trickier step than being a content, "naïve white supremacist." For, as the author has discovered, the invisible power of systemic racial hegemony is the ultimate goal, and the real name of the game of white supremacy.

Jensen makes clear a truism seldom recognized: that American racism is no longer personal. It no longer matters how many committed anti-racists we can summon to a given cause; or who hates or does not hate blacks; or how many skinheads roam the streets, the anti-racists cannot acquire (nor will they ever constitute) a critical mass in American society.

The consolidation and preservation of white privilege through systemic racist power is self-defining, self-promoting, and now all but a self-regulating and self-sustaining process. There is no longer a need to consolidate white privilege, for there can be no better consolidation than having it built in to all the structures of American power. Destroying white privilege, on the other hand, represents a "clear and present danger" to American Society as we know it. Taking Jensen's arguments to their logical conclusions, white identity, the very basis of white self-esteem, and white humanity are all built on the sand castle of exaggerated heroics, violence and color myths -- enforced meanings that favor puffed up interpretations of white history, and the de-valuing and denigration of blacks and other non-white peoples contributions.

As is implicit in this brief but deeply moving confessional, if one looks deeply enough, one will discover that systemic racism transcends and thus resists all attempts at re-adjustments designed to overcome its negative aspects. It has evolved in such a manner that it now can be seen to operate on autopilot: The laws of American social physics and of American racist power mechanics are simple and virtually immutable. They dictate that there can be no absolute black progress relative to whites; that is, that the racist system must remain in a virtual steady-state: Black progress must ALWAYS be compensated for with equal and offsetting amounts of white progress, otherwise whites become agitated and uncomfortable.

It is consider bad sport to attempt to close the absolute distance between the races -- either socially, economically, or politically. Power is the name of the game. As Jensen makes clear, it hardly matters any more what individuals on either side of the racial divide do: The script of the drama has been written, signed, and sealed through the interlocking mechanisms of racist power: lockstep, we all have learned to play out to the last letter, our respective ascribed roles. No deviations are allowed.

To step outside the racist norm as Dr. Jensen has done, is to be considered a "race traitor," and to be brutally jerked back in line and reminded that America's benign and soft racist totalitarianism is neither benign, nor soft. And, in the end, although everything is designed to look different on the surface, taking on different textures and colors, depending on the angle, the brutal fact remains that all power alignments are fixed, immutable and must stay exactly the same -- consolidated under the insulated and ever-protective umbrella of white supremacist hegemony.

Put yet another way, in the end, and at a much deeper level, all moves on the American chessboard have been pre-determined to promote, enable, and consolidate the "ways of white power," and the "ways of white supremacy." Whether it be of the "naïve" or of the "profoundly self-conscious" white supremacist sort that Professor Jensen exhibits, is really of little or no consequence.

As Jensen alludes to himself: by making a virtue out of emerging demographic and moral necessity, the white supremacists have used their favorite unconscious (conscious) tactic: that of redefining and renaming racial discrepancies - this time as multiculturalism and racial and cultural diversity -- and realigning minority interests so that they look much like the chauvinistic white supremacist imperatives they are allowed to mimic.

Once meaning has been drained, redefined, refilled and then realigned, white supremacy is then put firmly back on track; the challenge has been averted, successfully squashed: everything can then be returned to normal but with a different cosmetic look, made to look different (even positive) while at the same time remaining exactly the same. This "co-optation through redefinition and re-incorporation" is the newest systemic way of deflecting all new challenges to racist hegemony.

No matter what the moves are on the American chessboard, white supremacy remains the same old Black Hole that it always has been: a closed insular mean-spirited, evil, structurally violent system from which nothing enters or escapes that does not get altered to promote, consolidate, or enable "the ways of racism." In the end, we are all Condoleeza Rices and Clarence Thomas': closet white supremacists, pretending that we do not know how we are being used to advance the evils of a bankrupt system.

Jensen makes clear that racism, as expressed through the insular world of white privilege, is the gravity that holds the whole stinking system of white supremacy together. The idea that there may yet be an anti-racist world "out there" somewhere where whites will someday voluntarily give up their power and privileges is fanciful and a highly theoretical notion that may in the end be just another illusion, or mirage (like real multiculturalism is).

No one has yet seen, inhabited, or can even describe the steps needed to get to such a world. And while Professor Jensen has made a heroic effort to push us out of our comfort zones -- to the frontiers of a new kind of non-racist thinking and understanding -- in the end even he admits that this will not crack the nut at the center of this peculiar American disease. Even self-conscious white supremacy is perhaps too little, too late. He of course cannot be blamed for this.

What then to do?

Even though everyone seems to understand that systemic problems cannot be solved at non-systemic levels of analysis -- that is, beneath the system as a whole -- they nevertheless seem more comfortable attacking problems of racism at these lower inherently ineffectual levels (at the community and interpersonal levels, for instance) rather than at the national level. I think this is a strategic as well as a systemic mistake.

If we stopped only for a moment to think, we would realize that if any of the laws we have on the books regarding racism were ever to be enforced to the letter, without deviation, racism in America would soon wither away. And, there would be no need to have to re-enact the same ineffectual laws over and over again. "Paper or legal equality" does not work because it is not worth the paper it is written on, and that includes the U.S. Constitution. The failure to enforce a law, over time makes it a "dead letter," an inert symbolic fraud, like the flawed white humanity that has been used to underwrite it.

When will whites begin to understand, that it is not just a "lack of progress" to fail to enforce the Constitution, it is a sharp stab in the heart of American humanity; it renders the Constitution a "dead letter," a paper fraud.

Thus, the first step we need to take is to plug the holes between democratic theory and everyday American practice; between our stated ideals, which sit on pedestals to be lauded as they collect dust, and our everyday American practice. If disincentives were built-in to discourage this kind of leakage, we could solve the problems of racism over night. No need for Affirmative Action or grand theorizing or any other special programs. The Constitution either has what is needed, and thus embodies the meaning it was intended to have; or it has been commandeered by racists for a different meaning, and for entirely different purposes. It cannot be both; whites cannot have their cake and eat it too.

When black people have confidence that the playing field is fair, they come out of their shell of disgrace and self-destructive behavior to excel. In fact, there is no evidence to the contrary. Likewise, when whites see fairness over the horizon, they begin, almost instinctively and always unconsciously, to back up like crabs looking for a place to hide, ways to cut corners; in search of angles to play and advantages, privileges, prerogatives, and offsets to use to give themselves an edge. Just as blacks seem to thrive in environments of fairness, whites seem to fear them.

Enforcing laws TO THE TEE is a simple systemic ways of building the proper incentives into the system that promote and counteract these inherent tendencies.

Professor Jensen sits at the top of my "must read" list. Everything he writes is timely, incisive and worth at least five stars.

This book is a good starting primer for those who are unfamiliar with white privilege. I especially like how the book is footnoted, so you can immediately look at his sources, and also how he suggests further reading. A must for every white person.

A quite good book. I found some of his terminology rather off-putting on first read ("white supremacy"), and his perspective is obvously colored by his upbringing in a very "white" area of the country. But the book is thought-provoking and well-worth reading and discussing with others, probably in small groups.

A very thoughtful, insightful, honest, and disturbing book about the heart of racism; the oppression and injustice of white privilege and the need for whites to understand these things and the nature of "whiteness" - a socially constructed lie that has been deeply destructive. Jensen addresses the destructive results of this lie in perpetuating 3 genocides by the US on Native Americans, African Americans, and the poor of the "3rd World." He also gives us some tools for bringing about learning, understanding, and transformation.

In The Heart of Whiteness, Robert Jensen ruminates in a very conversational matter on being white and the ideology of whiteness. More specifically, Jensen writes about white privilege in generally and how white privilege has benefited him. Further, he criticizes how many whites explain historical and contemporary racial matters as well as down play the extent of white privilege. Jensen has also discusses some of the emotions he has felt while recognizing that he benefits from a system of white supremacy. Moreover, he names certain events in his life where he felt a sense of superiority to a black person and has been complicit in the system of white supremacy. He concludes this book by stating that it is not sufficient to act in non-racist ways in your personal life, rather, you must fight against the system of privilege. Further, he notes that whites still view "American" as being synonymous with "white American" and that only by recognizing "whiteness" as the problem will we achieve a racially just society.

Although this book is very short (less than 100 pages), Jensen gives a lot for the reader to think about. It is a great book that can help whites realize what it means to be white in American society and how whiteness influences how we view history and non-whites. This is definitely worth reading.

Having read the book, and now reading the negative comments, it is clear to me that this book strikes a cord, and those who are most outraged are those who are afraid of losing the power and privilege their race affords them. Their reaction is all the more reason you should read this book. I say this as a college educated white woman. The analysis is in depth and historically spot-on. Anyone who wants to understand the predicament we, as a society, find ourselves in - in terms of race relations and class stratification - should read Jensen's book.

Of course, be prepared to go on a personal, as well as intellectual journey, because if you read this book with your heart open, you will have to face the truth about how you (we all) have internalized racism. That's not a bad thing. If you want to change the world, the best thing you can do is to first change yourself. I suspect the reviewers who are reacting the most are those who are afraid of what they will find on their personal journey. Thank you to Jensen for lighting the way for those of us who are willing to be honest and do the self-reflection necessary to deal with these issues.

Excellent book detailing the exploits which built this country. It's an easy read with several references for further exploration on the topic. This country continues to prosper from the exploits of people here and in other countries.

It's predictably laughable to see the self-righteous negative reviews of a work, though not perfect, nevertheless is courageous. I have grown up with, and have been negatively affected by the white supremacist attitudes ingrained in this country. It permeates every aspect of life, yet those who benefit the most, vehemently deny its existence. Of course, any system which places your group on top is worth fighting for. Who can be surprised at white males' use of every means at their disposal, i.e.(redlining, job bias, exclusive networking, full control of top corporate management positions, whining about affirmative action, benefiting yet complaining about illegal immigration, racial profiling, re-segregating the school systems, etc...)to maintain their place on top of the economic and social pyramid. This book simply proposes a bit of introspection and sensible awareness of the overwhelming privilege the white race enjoys.

I love Mr. Robert Jensen's books. In fact, I love his books so much that they have their place on a shelf in my closet next to my clamps, ropes and whips.

Yes, I don't know what it is about me, whether it is my gender, my national origin, the color or my skin or my spiritual beliefs, but so much about me is well-deserving of abundant punishment and self-flagellation. And so, I dutifully carry out my moral obligation to self-flagellate, methodically and leaving no rocks unturned, so to speak. And I do it publicly, on paper.

Don't get me wrong, though. I don't do any of this for the pleasure. No, I do not derive any pleasure from my flesh being tormented or from anything about me suffering tremendous vilification. I do it only because of the commands of a higher law. You see, being me comes with certain metaphysical duties. And if the witnesses of my own abnegation are delighted, or edified, by the pathetic spectacle of my extreme self-abasement, so be it. (If I sell a few books along the way and get tenure in a booby-hatch of a university, that is ok too).

R. J.

This book is a brief wake up call to whites, asking them to confront their own privilege. It's honest and to the point, but does not provide too much analysis (it's less than 100 short pages, I finished it in a couple hours). My lower rating is due to the lack of analysis, not the quality of ideas, with which I mostly agree.