REVEALING THE HIDDEN FACE OF RACISM IS GEORGE LIPSITZ's GOAL IN The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the 'White' Problem in American Studies. Anchoring American racism, Lipsitz says, are benefits, rewards, and favors that accrue to European Americans because of their whiteness. Hostile antiblack attitudes, within this philosophic context, are merely the flip side of an elaborate and largely covert system of exclusion that places white over black in the allocation of jobs, opportunities, and wealth. Racism, then, is built on a foundation of privileges that European Americans receive because of their skin color. Whites, in this setting, are stakeholders in a racist social order that pays dividends on their possessive investment in whiteness. This reality causes American racism to have a persistent, enduring character. George Lipsitz has put forward a powerful and provocative theory of race relations in the United States. His model of racism differs from others in the emphasis that it places on white skin privileges-rather than ignorance, Western cultural flaws, or innate bigotry-as the foundation upon which racism is built.' Whites are racist, Lipsitz states, because they benefit from it-and therein lie the strength and power of whiteness.