Dying of Whiteness

A difficult book to read, since it mostly talks about how people are harmed, and how society fails to protect & support them. The three main topics covered are gun ownership leading to (especially) suicide, opposition to government-provided healthcare leading to worse healthcare outcomes, and school funding cuts leading to many negative outcomes. Whiteness is a political doctrine which contains many jagged bits and pieces of ideology which don't necessarily fit together neatly. One of the things this book did for me was articulate that at least in the policy areas of guns and healthcare, white people aligned with the white political project are not ignorantly voting for harmful policies. The people interviewed know that widespread easy access to guns leads to more gun deaths, and they accept and acknowledge that as a reasonable cost of maintaining their rights. Likewise healthcare: there is no confusion about the fact that moving closer to universal healthcare would help them and their communities. But they are willing to forego that benefit in order to withhold it from other, mostly non-white, disfavored groups. These are deliberate calculated choices, not ignorant policy-against-self-interest. These people have simply decided that the individual and community costs of these policies (gun access and individualized healthcare) are worthwhile. Education seems like the exception. The voices highlighted seemed to reject the legitimacy of education funding cuts after seeing the negative outcomes of those policies. They previously believed that education was inefficient and overfunded, but amended those beliefs after funding cuts hurt schools. This outcome was not consistent, but it was noticeable for happening at all in contrast to guns and healthcare. However, even when it came to education, that policy objective was less important than other objectives more closely centered around the project of whiteness. Hence interviewees who objected to local and state school-defunding decisions but were still excited to vote for Trump's ethno-nationalist policies despite disagreeing with his education policy. Overall, it is abundantly clear from these interviews and analyses that whiteness is a doctrine of exclusion, perceived scarcity, and hatred. It is probably not surprising to hear that whiteness has racial animus at its heart. What was most interesting to me was that ignorance was not a key pillar of policy decision-making. White politics entails full awareness of the harm done by white policies to white communities. It is simply calculated that these lives lost are an acceptable cost.