Mike Hill (2) (1964–)

This collection of essays delves into the creation and culture of whiteness and the way it has become the universal norm while avoiding critical examination. What is whiteness and how has it been popularized as a social construct to oppress and divide people of color? These essays are wide-ranging and cover a number of topics ranging from music, literature, politics, and media. There is much to consider and digest.

Introduction: Vipers in Shangri-la: Whiteness, Writing, and Other Ordinary show more Terrors - A helpful framing of the problems inherent with writing about whiteness. How to discuss the culture of whiteness in a culture dominated by whiteness? How to critique an attribute that gains its power by fading into the background? How to judge the motives and agenda of the status quo? To discuss it, one must first notice, recognize, and define it.

Sympathy for the Devils: Notes on Some White Guys in the Ridiculous Class War - The author comments on the odd behavior of white men to pursue their own wisdom and spirituality by appropriating and bastardizing the wisdom and culture of other ethnic groups. White supremacy has stripped ethnic culture and identity even as it grants power.

White Looks: Hairy Apes, True Stories, and Limbaugh's Laughs - An examination of the way whiteness steals the narratives of people of color for the purpose of profit and lampooning, all while providing no meaningful commentary. The television personality of Rush Limbaugh is used as a specific case study.

The Whitest I: On Reading the Hill-Thomas Transcripts - A deep reading of the Hill-Thomas hearings and an examination of the way whiteness stood in judgement of a dispute between two Black people while weaponizing intersectionality, stereotypes, and general racism to shore up power and appear anti-racist.

Bulletproof Settlers: The Politics of Offense in the New South Africa - An examination of the post-apartheid slogan, "One Settler, One Bullet" which gained cache among the Black resistance. The slogan itself isn't discussed as much as the white response to it. What does this phrase mean to the white South Africans who hear it and how does their response inform us of the shifting status of whiteness?

The Whiteness of Film Noir - An incisive interrogation of Noir film and its portrayal of white corruption by way of racially charged locations, images, and characters. What moral meaning is being subtextually ascribed to dark bodies, dark places, and dark themes and how do all of these facets work together to portray the white fear of the changing racial power dynamics in the society of the time?

Basketball, Rodney King, Simi Valley - An examination of the white fears and stereotypes that influenced the Rodney King decision and how these might have been shaped by prevalent media around basketball.

The Possum, the Hag, and the Rhinestone Cowboy: Hard Country Music and the Burlesque Abjection of the White Man - An examination of the way Country music performs whiteness and specifically white masculinity.

"Story Untold": The Black Men and White Sounds of Doo-Wop - A look into the complex performative racial and gender intersection of Doo-Wop and its relatively unexamined history. This unique art form gave men rage to flexibly play with the natural fluidity of gender and racial norms and expectations.

One of the Boys? Whiteness, Gender, and Popular Musical Studies - This essay examines the racial exchanges within rock music as women begin to make rise in the genre. What is the reception of white women's vs. Black women's performance of their sexuality? It also looks at the way male rock headliners construct and express their gender.

What Is "White Trash"? Stereotypes and Economic Conditions of Poor Whites in the United States - A dissection of the origin of the racial epithet and its evolution to encompass a certain romanticized victim identity among marginalized white populations.

The Unexamined - This essay dives deeply into what whiteness is, and how it constructs itself to remain unnoticed and unexamined by othering all groups outside of itself. Whiteness is not a race, it is the absence of race. It is not an agenda it is the absence of an agenda. Or so its member claim and behave.

Outing Whiteness: A Feminist/Lesbian Project - A critical examination of a lesbian performance art group and the way their productions challenge white womanhood while failing to properly center women of color. How are white feminists continuing to invest in whiteness while confronting misogyny? How are white and black bodies oppressed differently by patriarchy and how can white women come to their activism with a better understanding of their privilege?

If Uncle Tom is White, Should We Call Him "Auntie"? Race and Sexuality in Postbellum U.S. Fiction - An examination of the intertwined roots of racism, homophobia and the racially coded blandness of the ideal white man. In order to be accepted as white, men must endeavor to restrain themselves and if the do not they become the targets of homophobia and generalized racial fear.

Performing Men of Color: Male Autoperformance, Highways Performance Space, the NEA, and the White Right - This essay compares and contrasts the autoperformances of masculinity in both lgbtq theater and American politics. Specifically looking at the campaign of Pat Buchanan as a quintessential cis white heterosexual male performance vs. the performance of gay people of color who tell their stories through the medium of theater.

Conditions of Immigration - A poetic meditation on the immigrant identity and the way writers choose to express this identity. The writings of immigrants about their own experience is compared to the hateful rhetoric of white Americans stereotyping and racializing them.

The Universalization of Whiteness: Racism and Enlightenment - This essay examines the origin of whiteness and how it became a universal facet of humanity. How was whiteness codified and how did it respond to the introduction of other humans who did not neatly fit into the white universal. Did it classify these as animals? Another (lesser) form of humanity?

Racial Politics and the Pedagogy of Whiteness - A comparison of two movies that deal with race construction and the normalization of whiteness. The author examines the racial messages of Dangerous Minds and Suture.

The "Look" Returned: Knowledge Production and Constructions of "Whiteness" in Humanities Scholarship and Independent Film - This essay examines the othering "look" of the white gaze upon people of color and how some are weaponizing media and other forms of expression to return this look. How can whiteness be critically viewed and reduced to another category rather than being the unconscious norm?

Literature in the Country of "Whiteness": From T. S. Eliot to The Tempest - An examination of the stratification of racial concepts like black and white and the classist concepts of master, servant, slave as depicted in Western literature.

Toward a New Abolitionism: A Race Traitor Manifesto - This brief essay explains the purpose of white abolition that is espoused by the journal Race Traitor. show less