56 pages • 1 hour read
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.
Essay Topics
Consider the pathway of neoliberalism and its effects on disenfranchised Americans. How does neoliberalism as an ideology correspond to possessive investment in whiteness in terms of visibility and intentionality?
What role did white masculinity have in the surge of the new patriotism of the Reagan years? Discuss the fictive visions of masculine patriarchy that Lipsitz portrays. How do cultural tropes distract from the underlying structures that preserve the possessive investment in whiteness?
What does Lipsitz mean by “sadism in search of a story” (82)?
Discuss the ways in which Black culture is romanticized by white people. How does Lipsitz convey the relationship between romanticism and the possessive investment of whiteness?
Consider Lipsitz’s analysis of the film Lean on Me and the character, Joe Clark, on which the film was based. How does his portrayal relate to his ideas about sadism?
Discuss the communities of color in New Orleans in terms of their collectives and alternative academies. What is the significance of the setting of New Orleans in the text?
How does Donald Trump feature as a character in this text?
Examine the ways in which Lipsitz critiques films like Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi. What is the significance of filmic representations of important historical junctures in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness?
Consider the representations of Nicole Piasecki and Luke Charles Harris. How does Lipsitz compare and contrast them?
What does Lipsitz mean by using cultural explanations to understand structural social problems?
