White Studies

During the first hundred years of Chinese immigration - from 1848 to 1943 - San Francisco was home to a shockingly extensive underground slave trade in Asian women, who were exploited as prostitutes and indentured servants. In this gripping, necessary book, best-selling author Julia Flynn Siler shines a light on this little-known chapter in our history - and gives us a vivid portrait of the safe house to which enslaved women escaped.

For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power.

Best-selling novelist, memoirist, and biographer Edmund White displays his sharp wit and boundless erudition in 37 portraits of the writers, artists, and cultural icons who have captured his curiosity and imagination for the last 20 years. White is as compelling as he is unpretentious in these stories of his encounters with some of the most provocative writers, artists, and personalities of our time.

Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where straight guy-on-guy action is not a myth but a reality: There's fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other's penises and stick fingers up their fellow members' anuses; online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men.

Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the role that White Christian Nationalism plays in American society. As White Christian Nationalism has become a major force, and as racial and religious attitudes become increasingly aligned among whites-for example, the more likely you are to say that the decline of white people as a share of the population is "bad for society," the more likely you are to believe the government should support religious values-it has become reasonable to wonder which of the adjectives in the phrase "White Christian Nationalism" takes precedence.

Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a White woman who asked what she could do for the cause, "Nothing." Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how Black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.

Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House is the life story of Elizabeth Keckley, a shrewd entrepreneur who, while enslaved, raised enough money to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Working as a seamstress and dressmaker for the wives of influential politicians, Keckley helped organize an auction of dresses that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln, the former first lady. The auction elicited strong criticism from the Washington elite.

Acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior broke new ground when it was first published 35 years ago, weaving autobiography, history, folklore, and fantasy in to a candid and revelatory story about the daughter of Chinese immigrants in mid-20th century California.

The Hairstons is the extraordinary story of the largest family in America, the Hairston clan. With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family.

Just like we do today, the writers and chief actors of the Old Testament felt a deep longing for the presence of God. It is symbolized in the temple ruins, and before it the temple itself, and before that the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle that housed it, and before that the Garden of Eden. In response to this longing, God shares his ultimate mission, in which his people play a part: the expansion of Eden, the temple of God's presence, to all peoples throughout the earth.

Along with his groundbreaking essays that redefine politics, language, identity, and friendship in the light of gay experience and desire, this magisterial collection of 25 years of White's nonfiction writings includes dazzling subversive appreciations of cultural icons as diverse as Truman Capote and Cormac McCarthy, Robert Mapplethorpe and the singer formerly known as Prince.

The iconic Black hood, like slavery and Jim Crow, is a peculiar American institution animated by the ideology of white supremacy. Politicians and people of all colors propagated “ghetto” myths to justify racist policies that concentrated poverty in the hood and created high-opportunity white spaces. In White Space, Black Hood, Sheryll Cashin traces the history of anti-Black residential caste - boundary maintenance, opportunity hoarding, and stereotype-driven surveillance - and unpacks its current legacy....

Practicing white magic brings with it an opportunity for inner growth and the spreading of your natural light through healing and protection. It’s a craft that teaches you compassion, love, understanding, and many beneficial ways to defend yourself and others.

A profound new rendering of the struggle by African Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counterrevolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.

Based on the belief that there's more to women's lives than just getting a date, Gilman's stories tell of struggling to get a life and a clue, and engaging in some spectacularly demented behavior along the way. At turns heartbreaking, insightful, and screamingly funny, it uniquely chronicles a generation and heralds a talented writer of note.

When Julia Lee was fifteen, her hometown went up in smoke during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The daughter of Korean immigrant store owners in a predominantly Black neighborhood, Julia was taught to be grateful for the privilege afforded to her. However, the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, following the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean shopkeeper, forced Julia to question her racial identity and complicity. She was neither Black nor white. So who was she?

As America begins to come to terms with the costs of White privilege to Black lives, this book urges a soul-searching examination of the role American Christianity has played in sustaining everyday white supremacy by assuring White people of their innocence. In Mormonism and White Supremacy, Joanna Brooks offers an unflinching look at her own people's history and culture and finds in them lessons that will hit home for every scholar of American religion and person of faith.

Unlikeable Female Characters traces the evolution of highly memorable female characters, examining what exactly makes them popular, how audiences have reacted to them, and the ways in which pop culture is finally allowing us to celebrate the complexities of being a woman. Anna Bogutskaya, film programmer, broadcaster, and cofounder of the horror film collective and podcast The Final Girls takes us on a journey through popular film, TV, and music, looking at the nuances of womanhood on and off-screen to reveal whether pop culture—and society—is finally ready to embrace complicated women.

With 40 tracks, this premium audiobook gives you the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of certified soundscapes. If you want to quickly relax and melt stress away at the push of a button, keep reading... The constant sound of white noise, pink noise, and brown noise can work wonders for us in daily life.

SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality instructional study guides for challenging works of literature. This audio study guide for White Rage by Carol Anderson includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes such as redlining, redistricting, and the sanitization of racial hatred. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.