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George LipsitzThe Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary: “California: The Mississippi of the 1990s”
Historically, whenever the possessive investment in whiteness is threatened, white people will find some regulation or new rules that will preserve the privileges of white people at the expense of people of color. In the last decade of the 19th century, the state of Mississippi gave registrars the discretionary authority to deny Black people the right to vote and thus the registrars would protect the investment in whiteness.
The theme in American life that is consistent is the combination of disavowing racist intent while deliberately pursuing policies that would have deleterious and racist consequences. Lipsitz argues that Roosevelt invoked antiracist ideals while instituting racist policies. The main legislative features of the New Deal didn’t contain overtly racist provisions but there were racialized categories that would obstruct people of color from receiving the same benefits and opportunities as white people.
When Lipsitz refers to California as “the Mississippi of the 1990s,” he highlights the long arc of interracial conflict and oppression and makes clear that Mississippi is “not the only state with ghosts from its past and skeletons in its closet” (244). Lipsitz argues that the “Mississippi of the 1960s” that has been conveyed through “political discourse, popular journalism, fiction, and motion pictures” has stripped the struggles of those years “of all context and complexity” (233). He mentions Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi as particularly egregious examples of diminished and overly simplified filmic representations. Lipsitz refers to the simple “good whites over bad ones” stories in which passive Black people look on with expressions of fear and gratitude, or representations of “vigilante violence by poor whites” without reference to the disciplined struggle by Black people for jobs, housing, and political power (233). Moreover, Lipsitz argues that these portraits not only distort the past but also give the false impression that the worst, most violent iniquities of racism have been confined to the past and therefore these narratives distort the present.
The transformation that occurred in Mississippi in the 1960s is not unlike the changes taking place throughout the country today due to the restructuring of the economy, globalization, and the persistent cuts to social services. Lipsitz contends that politicians reassure white Americans that even if they find themselves diminished in socioeconomic status, they will still retain the possessive investment in whiteness. The role that racism played in Mississippi in the 1960s is also relevant today in terms of the resurgence of white supremacy and white nationalism.
Lipsitz contends that James Woods, the Hollywood actor who stars in the film Ghosts of Mississippi, “offers proof of the intellectual paralysis that the iconic status of Mississippi in the 1960s engenders” (233). The film, Ghosts of Mississippi, is a historical drama about the Medgar Evers’s widow’s attempts to bring the white supremacist, Byron De La Beckwith Jr., to justice for the murder of her husband. The real life Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was brought to justice 30 years later after a groundswell of public pressure persuaded the courts to hold a new trial. James Woods plays Byron De La Beckwith Jr. in the film. Lipsitz recounts that while Woods discussed preparation for his role in the film with a reporter, he mentioned that he had “encountered” De La Beckwith but refused to meet with him. While Lipsitz regards Woods’ contempt for De La Beckwith as a person understandable, he finds that “the actor’s own understanding of racism leaves a lot to be desired” (233). The reporter asked Woods if he thought the south had changed since the murder of Evers, and Woods replied pointing out that De La Beckwith was convicted while O. J. Simpson was not in California. Lipsitz provides a detailed explanation for the many reasons that the trials of De La Beckwith and O. J. Simpson are in no way similar. Lipsitz concludes that Woods’ response betrays a defense of white privilege in that the actor “relegates Black grievances against whites to the past while situating white complaints about Blacks in the present” (235).
In the 1990s, California witnessed a campaign of propaganda aimed at affirmative action. The familiar combination of racism and disavowal was employed in the project to discontinue diversity programs in the University of California system. Affirmative action was compared to slavery due to the claim that both necessitate dependency. Lipsitz draws a parallel between 1960s Mississippi and 1990s California because both mobilized white grievance against people of color and immigrants. Lipsitz argues that this mobilization of racist passion was a way to avoid a careful consideration of neoliberal policies that reduced opportunity and the quality of life.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Change the Focus and Reverse the Hypnosis”
Lipsitz introduces the chapter with an anecdote about George W. Bush visiting New Orleans in the wake of the Katrina disaster. Bush recalls his visits to New Orleans in terms of revelry and excess, then says that when the city is rebuilt it “will be a better place to come to” (246). New Orleans is often framed as a place to visit, a place of revelry and excess that serves as an escape for the bourgeois from daily lives of respectable domesticity.
To counter this notion of New Orleans as merely a place for libational and culinary excess, Lipsitz describes the rich cultural traditions of New Orleans in terms of music, political activism, and its multi-cultural, multi-racial, and pan-Caribbean identity. Lipsitz suggests that people look more closely at the history of New Orleans as a place where multiple groups of people of color have converged over the last century to reverse policies of discrimination and disenfranchisement. Lipsitz posits a dialectical portrait of the city: “The pleasures of New Orleans come from a crucible of undeniable pain” (248). The people of color who produce much of the art that provides the backdrop for the pleasures of New Orleans come from its impoverished neighborhoods. The experience of persistent police brutality for working class Black people is part of their struggle for self-determination, and it is through artistic collectives that they provide self-help and solidarity for their neighborhoods. From protesting segregation by defying the Louisiana Separate Car Act in 1891 to opposition to Jim Crow segregation in the 1960s and to the reaction to the fallout of Hurricane Katrina, Lipsitz argues that the city has remained a site of self-determination and struggle.
Systemic discrimination and segregation have prevented Black people in New Orleans from acquiring assets that would create the opportunity to move to neighborhoods with more services and benefit from homeownership. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina hit the poorer neighborhoods the hardest because these were already spaces of disenfranchisement. The way these neighborhoods responded was by what Lipsitz describes as turning “segregation into congregation” (251), which refers to the networks of mutual aid among diverse groups in neighborhoods that lack amenities. In other words, even though the people in these neighborhoods were “resource poor,” they were also “network rich” (251).
Lipsitz emphasizes the importance of Mardi Gras Indian masking by New Orleans Black people as a site of interracial solidarity. For Lipsitz, the “ferocious theatricality and aggressive festivity” of Mardi Gras Indians hold a special significance in terms of self-help because neoliberal policies have relegated “different races to different spaces” (250-51). In the wake of Katrina, neoliberal policies served to exploit the poor by relocating people of color and subsidizing building projects in their neighborhoods. To demonstrate the effects of this restructuring, Lipsitz quotes Bush’s secretary of housing and urban development: “New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again” (254). Lipsitz advocates that people “reverse the hypnosis and shift the focus from the richest to the brokest” (253). In this statement, he is referencing the rich tradition of mutuality, self-affirmation, solidarity, and the dynamism of intercultural and interracial cooperation.
Chapter 13 Summary: “White Lives, White Lies”
The election of Trump has ushered in a new recognition of the possessive investment in whiteness as it pervades political culture. Lipsitz argues that Trump won the support of a block of white voters by appealing to their most base and racist impulses. Some of these appeals were couched in lies, beginning with the lie that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, but there were a host of other lies, large and small, that were the hallmark of his candidacy and presidency. Lipsitz argues that the more consequential lies are embedded in the possessive investment in whiteness. In this case, whiteness is way of perceiving the world in a manner that compels people to live with racism, injustice, and hatred; to accept this iniquity; and then to cover it up by lying about it. This functions first through “methodological individualism” (261), which simplifies social relations to individual acts outside of the complex processes and practices of social life. Second, “historical amnesia” assumes that the racism and discrimination of the past bears no relation on the present (278). Finally, there is the premise of white innocence and the corresponding notion that white people are the victims of reverse racism. Lipsitz argues that the possessive investment in whiteness is grounded in these three false premises that must be supported by more lies. The evasions and disavowals of whiteness foster a way of perceiving the world that is ignorant to the actual social institutions and complex social relations that have material effects on people’s lives.
Lipsitz contends that the foundation lies for the possessive investment in whiteness are “empty lands” and “just wars” (265). The lands inhabited by Indigenous people were deemed empty and unoccupied, which justified the seizure, possession, and exploitation of said lands by Europeans. The kidnapping of Africans and institution of “hereditary chattel slavery” were justified by framing the slave trade as part of a just war (265), the prisoners of which were justifiably forced to labor. The 13th Amendment was also used to justify forced labor through the exception of people who were imprisoned.
Lipsitz applies some of the aforementioned false premises to frame the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, beginning with the lie that the officer who shot Brown was actually the victim. Lipsitz claims that the laws passed by the state legislature that limited the tax obligations of the wealthy led to the defunding of local schools, which disenfranchised students like Brown who lacked the means to overcome these deficiencies in the education system. By using the premise of methodological individualism, it was easier to draw negative inferences regarding Michael Brown because his past transgressions would be scrutinized without considering the larger, more complex, social situation in which he lived and died.
The stoking of racial hatred and violence coming from the Trump White House, for Lipsitz, is “not a departure from the plan. It is the plan itself” (262). Sadism and violence are “expressive performances” designed to force oppressed people to accept “the discretionary power over life and death maintained by their dominators” (262). Lipsitz characterizes the possessive investment in whiteness as the passive choice to accept and benefit from whiteness while ignoring the pernicious material consequences.
Lipsitz explains that the unexpected electoral victory of Trump is rooted in coordinated efforts to suppress voting in communities of color, which was made possible by the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. Lipsitz adds that the “nightmare from which we cannot wake up” (283), which is the world of Trumpism, should also not be a surprise. As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, Trump garnered support by catering to the “vile and violent impulses and aspirations” of his voting base (260). But in concluding, Lipsitz portrays Hillary Clinton as similarly abhorrent by listing a catalogue of her policies and their malevolent effects, to justify why she didn’t receive enough votes to win the election.
Chapter 11-13 Analysis
While in previous sections Lipsitz focuses on denial, in this section he examines explicit lies and false narratives portrayed in popular culture and in the media. Looking at films about Mississippi that obscure or denounce Black activism, he writes: “It gives us a history that hides the present rather than illuminating it” (233). This argument is reinforced when he examines Trump in the final chapter. He writes that “lurking beneath the surface of many of the little lies that may not matter to his constituency at all are Trump’s big lies” (261). He concludes that these big lies are “the lies inherent in the possessive investment in whiteness” (261). The possessive investment in whiteness is structured in a way that seems natural rather than obvious or overt. Lipsitz’ use of the phrase “big lies,” which in ordinary speech would refer to something concrete such as election fraud, carries an alternative meaning that alludes to a more sinister “way of knowing and perceiving the world” (261).
Lipsitz discusses the colloquial phrase, “white lie,” which is part of the chapter title, to again draw out a resistant or alternative reading that emphasizes the pernicious consequences of lies. The white lie, in Lipsitz’s terms, “refers to an untruth told to protect someone else’s feelings” (261). But in this context, the implication is that the white lie protects or shields someone from becoming aware of the baleful material conditions in American society that are often overlooked within the confines of methodological individualism.
Lipsitz introduces the final chapter with the election of Donald J. Trump, which constitutes a “frightening new understanding” of this “poisonous presence” in the political culture of the United States (260). Lipsitz claims that Trump secured the support of white voters by “catering to their most vile and violent impulses and aspirations” (260), which is another example of The Persistence of Racism in America. The reason that people were comfortable with the lies is that these lies resemble the lies embedded in the possessive investment in whiteness and were already accepted as the natural state of American social life.
Lipsitz examines another president in Chapter 12, highlighting the way racism is perpetuated from the top. The anecdote about George W. Bush, in particular the comment that New Orleans would be a better city once it is rebuilt, provides a foreshadowing of the “exercise in neoliberal social engineering” that comes later in the chapter (253). Many people of color never returned to their neighborhoods as developers took over the rebuilding process. One of the consequences of Neoliberalism and Race in New Orleans is the “disinvestment, economic restructuring, and the co-optation of Black elected officials by powerful white elites” (250). Neoliberal policies have stripped resources from people of color and Lipsitz describes the ways in which Black people have formed collectives.
Lipsitz echoes the rhyme of “races” and “spaces” when he examines such collectives in terms of the “racialization of space and the spatialization of race” (251). He incorporates rhythm and rhyme in his prose throughout the chapter, including in the title, “Change the Focus and Reverse the Hypnosis,” which is a tribute to hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill, and a play on her lines “opus to reverse the hypnosis” and “the focus from the richest to the brokest” (248). Hill refers to the function of art in New Orleans, the histories of piano playing, and the theatrical innovations that offer solace and hope for those who are “living poor and Black in the Big Easy” (248). Lipsitz examines how the intersection of Neoliberalism and Race led to disinvestment, segregation, and discrimination in communities of color. The subsequent reaction of these communities is to turn “segregation into congregation” (251), a phrase employing a rhyme scheme again to portray people who are “resource poor but network rich” (251). In this manner, Lipsitz’s prose both performs and portrays the cultural richness of New Orleans.
