ABSTRACT
But in an analysis on identity politics in the academy of the 1990s, Charles A. Gallagher (1995) discusses the recent “racialization” of whiteness, and the erosion of white invisibility among American university students. He describes the contemporary process of white reconstruction taking place among a sizable part of the white population, particularly among young people. “Whiteness is no longer invisible or transparent as a racial category because it is in crisis” (168). Whiteness as the “normalizing” center is no longer defensible or sustainable in the face of multiple attacks on white privilege by racially defined minorities. White identity is being reconstructed as an explicit, salient category of self-definition emerging in response to the political and cultural challenges of other racialized groups.
