White Supremacy and Racism in Progressive America

This book explores the connections between race, place and space, and their role in maintaining racial hierarchies. Focusing on White residents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, it employs interviews, participant observation and content analysis to unveil the enduring racial inequality in this supposedly progressive area.

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This book examines the connections between race, place, and space, and sheds light on how they contribute and maintain racial hierarchies.


The author focuses on the White residents of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which, according to the Cooks Political Report Partisan Voting Index, is the most liberal district in the state and 15th in the United States of America. The book uses settler colonialism and critical race theory to explore how self-identified progressive White residents perceive their gentrifying neighborhood and how they make sense of their positionality.


Using the extended case method, as well as in-depth interviews, participant observation, content analysis and visual/media analysis, the author reveals how systemic racialized inequality persists even in a politically progressive borough.