142

ters sufficient space to develop. His extensive use of newspaper archives, court records, and,
most importantly, oral histories allows him to render the story of the lynching and its after-
math, revealing the complex attitudes towards race, the diverse responses to trauma, and the
lingering memories for both individuals and the community.
Unfortunately, this narrative brilliance is incor\sistent. The vibrant narration early on makes
the relative flatness of later passages surprising. In several places, sentence structure is re-
petitive and plodding, but the major weakness of the text is the constant sense that the author
is not providing all of the details in the stories of post-lynching Marion. Although Madison
conducted oral histories with forty-one residents, their voices are too often absent from the
text, as when he only tells us that the first African-American teacher in Marion "talked of
'painful' memories and 'a lot of scars' from his first retum to Marion." In a book that explores
the nature of memory, knowing what those memories were, what caused them, and how they
were linked to the lynching would add substance and texture. This lack of texture is most
evident when Madison explores the history of lynching in America. Although it does not
purport to provide a definitive history, because the book strives to complicate conventional
notions of what lynching was, and where and why it happened, the statistics, facts, and sum-
marized theories thatfillthe twelve-page chapter provide insufficient background In the cul-
tural politics surrounding lynching. As a result, A Lynching in the Heartland should perhaps
best be read in conjunction with a more general survey of lynching. However, this criticism is
made with the recognition that the text examines history in its most useful context: in the
communities where it happened and among the people who lived it. Overall, Madison's is a
thoughtful, readable book that does the important job of complicating the cultural memory
of one of America's darkest legacies, and the complexities of the creation, transformation,
and continuing influence of memory. David Kieran, George Washington University

Pamela Perry, Shades of White: White Kids and Raeial Identities in High School (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2002), xi + 268 pp., $18.95 (paper).

Cooper Thompson, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod, eds.. White Men Challenging Rac-
ism: 35 Personal Stories (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), xxxvi + 353 pp., $21.95
(paper).

Over the past decade, whiteness has crystallized as a distinct subject of concern in Ameri-
can Studies due, in large measure, to the increasingly sophisticated scholarship attentive to
the articulations of race, gender, and class animating the formulation of Euro-American iden-
tities, ideologies, and institutions. Shades of White and White Men Challenging Racism make
welcome contributions to the ongoing discussions in this area. Avoiding Äe temptations of
simplistic condemnation and the dangers of fixing whiteness, both of these texts do some-
thing rare. Along with Ruth Frankenberg's White Women, Race Matters and John Hartigan's
Racial Situations, they do not merely enumerate problems and rethink. Rather, Shades of White
and White Men Challenging Racism render challenging critiques of whiteness that illuminate
the means and meanings of being white and doing whiteness by treating the words and
deeds of Euro-American actors with sensitivity.
Shades of White offers an engaging, comparative ethnography of white identity in two
northern California high schools: one located in a predominantly white, if economically di-
verse, suburb, the other situated in a multiracial urban community. To probe the complexities
of whiteness as articulated within the lives and practices of youth. Perry participated in and
observed the social worlds - the symbols, ceremonies, cliques, and structures - animating the
seemingly mundane realities of each school. Interviews, both in-depth and brief, with stu-
dents and administrators, supplemented her traditional ethnographic techniques and greatly
enrich her findings. Throughout Shades of Whiteness, she asks a series of big questions: How
do white youth talk about race? Do they think of themselves as racial subjects? Is there a
white culture? Is white identity fixed or singular? How might diversity and daily interactions
with cultural differences shape the kind and quality of responses given by white youth? With
theoretical sophistication. Perry provides illuminating response to each of these queries. Not
surprisingly, she finds that the white youth in the predominantly white, suburban high school

American Studies International, February 2004, Vol. XLII, No. 1

 143

do not see themselves as a urüque race. Taking whiteness for granted, they conceive of white
practices and idioms as normative rather than a distinct culture. In contrast, she discovers
that white youth at the multiracial urban high school have much fuller, critical, and compara-
tive understandings of themselves as racial subjects, who participate in a social world that
they conceive of as grounded in their whiteness. Against this background. Perry argues that
whiteness is complex, contradictory, multiple, andflexible.She concludes with a discussion
of the relevance and signiflcance of diversity in schooling and society as a foundation for
social justice. Scholars interested in doing ethnographic research, whether on whiteness, youth,
or topics beyond, will find the methodological appendix helpful.
White Men Challenging Radsm concentrates not on identity formation among white youth,
but on anti-racism as enacted by white men. Aware that their project may strike some as
problematic, the editors. Cooper Thompson, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod, take great
pains to explain that their collective is meant to promote social action, complement the pio-
neering antiracist work and thought of women and people of color, and fill existing gaps in
discussion of race, justice, and change. Following a wonderful foreword by James W. Loewen,
the editors outiine the rationale and significance of listening to antiracist white men talk
about themselves, their lifework, their strategies and initiatives, their successes and failures.
On this foundation, they let 35 white men who have dedicated their lives to working against
racism and toward social justice largely speak for themselves, unencumbered by editorial
commentary save for brief framing statements at the start of each chapter. Although this ap-
proach may leave some readers fumbling to grasp important details, it does much to enhance
readability and intimacy of the text. Importantly, through these interviews that foster moving
reflections and inspiring commentaries, a diverse set of life stories is brought together. The
editors have organized the interviews into six sections: Movement Elders, Grassroots Orga-
nizing, Art and Politics, Challenging the System from Within, Changing the System from the
Margins, and The Next Generation. Throughout, WTiife Men Challenging Racism not only illu-
minates well knownfigureslike Stetson Kennedy, Chip Beriet, Tun Wise, and Richard Lapchick,
but also introduces to a broader audience relatively unknown activists. Thompson, Schaefer,
and Brod are not content to simply sketch out biographical portraits of nearly three dozen
individuals. Happily, they have assembled an anthology that celebrates and challenges its
subjects, directs attention to achievements and shortcomings, and seeks to record, model,
and inspire anti-racist work. Although the editors do not offer a full summary or analysis of
the themes cutting across the lives and reflections of the participants, readers will surely walk
away with a fuller understanding of the history of antiracism, a better sense of how and why
individual white men have challenged the system, and likely find themselves moved to act
differently in their lives.
There are many strengths to celebrate in these books. In Shades of White, these strengths
range from the nuanced portraits of youth cultures afforded from Perry's ethnography to her
finding that Euro-Americans put together white identities in complex, contradictory, and
multiple ways. In White Men Challenging Racism, these include the diverse of voices and expe-
riences gathered together by Thompson, Schaefer, and Brod and the inspirational examples
of anti-racist practice revealed in the lifestories. Shades of White and White Men Challenging
Radsm share a fundamental strength that others studying whiteness would do well to em-
brace: They offer intimate and approachable interrogations of whiteness that balance critical
reflection about race, power, and identity with sensitive portraits of how individuals make
concrete, reproduce, and resist dominant articulations of these abstractions.
Oddly, Shades of White and White Men Challenging Racism suffer from a shared flaw: insuf-
ficient attention to context. As an ethnography. Shades of White paints vibrant, detailed por-
traits of students as they grapple with finding themselves and their way in racialized social
scenes. It never satisfactorily links the formulation of identity to broader discursive fields.
This lack of analysis may derive from Perry's insistence that schooling constitutes the pri-
mary site for the negotiation of racialized identities or the limitations irüierent in ethnographic
research that often cause one to lose sight of the big picture as s/he endeavors to make sense
of local realities and small worlds. VJhite Men Challenging Racism falls victim to a similar prob-
lem. It rightly lets its subjects speak, producing, as a result, narrative that are at once evoca-
tive and illuminating. Urvfortunately, little effort is made beyond a delightful foreword by

American Studies International, February 2004, Vol. XLII, No. 1

144

James Loewen to discuss the history of anti-racism in the United States or the contours of
race, culture, and power in post-civil right America. Readers are left to guess how white men
(and women) have worked against racism in the past, wonder about the kinds of alliances
and animosities that have joined them in struggle with people of color, and speculate about
the shape and significance of race and racism today.
In spite of these weaknesses. Shades ofV^ite and White Men Challenging Racism deserve
wide circulation, meriting attention from scholars concerned with whiteness, ethnic identity
and race relations, as well as those thinking about cultural politics, youth culture, social move-
ments, and gender in the contemporary United States. Shades of White, as an approachable
monograph, undoubtedly can be easily integrated into upper level undergraduate courses
concerned with education, race, and youth. At the same time, instructors of introductory
courses would be well advised to consider excerpts from White Men Challenging Racism pre-
cisely because they are readable reflections on whiteness and all that it entails, but arguably
more importantly because it offers concrete and inspiring examples of individuals working
against the privilege and oppression central to the United States as a white-centered, white-
focused, and white-dominated society. In an increasingly multiracial society, students and
scholars would be well advised to read Shades of White and White Men Challenging Racism. C
Richard King, Washington State University

William C. Meadows, The Comanche Code Talkers of World War II (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2002), xxvi + 280 pp., $24.95 (cloth).

The Comanche Code Talkers of World War 11 by William C. Meadows is filling an important
gap in existing scholarship. As Meadows demonstrates, the much publicized Navajo code
talkers were not the only or even the first Native American code talkers employed by the
United States Army in the two world wars. In fact, enlistments had started already in World
War I and in World War II the Comanche program predated the Navajo. When shifting the
focus from the Navajos to other Native American groups (mainly the Comanche) Meadows
both enlarges and deepens modem understanding of the Native American role in the United
States' participation in the wars. Being able to interview some surviving Comanche code
talkers, and incorporating that firsthand information with existing government documents
and secondary literature. Meadows builds an insightful, informative, and innovative study
of cultural interaction and interdependencies.
Meadows starts his book by discussing Native American code talking and talkers in World
War I, especially focusing on the Choctaws. He also sets the code talking in larger nülitary
and national perspective by including a chapter on all Native American code talkers of World
War II. When it comes to the Comanches in World War II, Meadows analyzes the multifaceted
motivations behind their enlistment, their experiences of military training, their actual com-
bat activities in Europe, and the aftermath of their military service.
The Comanche code talkers, never numbering more than a handful, made important
contributions to the victory of the allied forces in Europe. Meadows is especially strong when
discussing the motivations behind the code talker enlistment or when he is analyzing the
kind of social world the Comanches encountered in the U.S. Army. Adaptation to American
culture or aspirations to gain legitimacy in eyes of the dominant society by no means repre-
sented the orily or even the prevalent reasons behind Comanche enlistment. Instead, Mead-
ows argues the code talkers enlisted out of a complex combination of reasons that included
traditional cultural influences, or warrior-based themes, acculturative influences like their
boarding school experiences, contemporary econorrüc considerations, patriotism, chances to
fight in Native American imits, and possibilities for using their own languages. It is interest-
ing to see how apparently successfully the code talkers integrated into the Army and how
little prejudice they encountered. Although the Army expressed some concerns for the use-
fulness and loyalty of Native American troops, the everyday life of Comanche code talkers
seemed to be relatively free of racism. Meadows also does a fine job discussing different
forms of code talking and the linguistic difficulties code talkers faced with the special mili-
tary vocabulary that did not have a component in their own language.

American Studies International, February 2004, Vol. XLII, No. 1

Copyright of American Studies International is the property of American Studies International and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express
written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.