Chapter 27 - Presidential Race

Summary

The works of George Saunders and J.D. Vance suggest two paths forward for white American writers in the twenty-first century. While both acknowledge whiteness as foundational to the organization of contemporary society, Vance ignores the privileges that Saunders seeks to interrogate. The elections of both Obama and Trump have profoundly shifted how we talk about race in the United States, and their presidencies have made clear that whiteness can no longer operate as an invisible, presumed position of authority. Amid our often frightening moment of political unrest, we have an opportunity to speak of whiteness as the historical force of domination and exclusion that led to centuries of injustice and which continues to define so much of contemporary American life. Though white writers have not led the way on progressive representations of race in U.S. fiction, they may at last complete the important task of making whiteness visible.