The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea
News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Show More Make a contribution Subscribe Search jobs Holidays Digital Archive Guardian Puzzles app The Guardian app Video Podcasts Pictures Newsletters Today's paper Inside the Guardian The Observer Guardian Weekly Crosswords The long read The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea Statues of former US presidents in Croaker, Virginia. Photograph: Randy Duchaine/Alamy Before the 17th century, people did not think of themselves as belonging to something called the white race. But once the idea was invented, it quickly began to reshape the modern world by Robert P Baird Tue 20 Apr 2021 06.00 BST Last modified on Mon 26 Apr 2021 21.33 BST 5,454 I n 2008, a satirical blog called Stuff White People Like became a brief but boisterous sensation. The conceit was straightforward, coupling a list, eventually 136 items long, of stuff that white people liked to do or own, with faux-ethnographic descriptions that explained each i
