My comment #51
April 06, 2009 9:20 am
Link
Summers' 'versatility' and his 'success' at the hedge fund owes much to an identity available to whites in the US political economy, especially white males. I might add that it took Jews, like the Irish, a while to become "white" -- to exchange ethnicity and culture for US racialized dominant default identity.
Summers embodies how WHITENESS works. Persons of color can recognize it on a visceral level especially if we resist the US Whiteness system. We live it every day.
Summers adeptly performs Whiteness. Whiteness goes beyond white (male) skin privilege. Whiteness is a System of dominant racialized, unshared, inequitable, unearned POWER.
Summers was kicked out of Harvard because he made male chauvinist statements about the abilities of female faculty, both of which groups, at Harvard for sure, are mainly white. In fact an African male anthropologist led the charge against Summers.
What does Summers get for his sexist statements, unsupported by scientific evidence? He resigns from Harvard and gets More money, more prestige, more power!
Did Obama perform Whiteness by appointing Summers? It's a system, remember.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
Theory of Systemic Whiteness
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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A Rich Education for Summers (After Harvard)
After leaving Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers earned nearly $5.2 million advising elite math wizards and scientists at a New York hedge fund.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/business/06summers.html?_r=1
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