The Liminality of Whiteness and Its Problematics for Race Politics in the United States
Whiteness is unraced and unmarked. How is it, then, that poor whites do not experience their whiteness in the same way as their upper-class counterparts? Is it true that poor whites experience something other than privilege, the otherness of “whiteness within,” that is, the liminality of whiteness? Can whiteness as the signifier be re-signified because of its liminality? Furthermore, what does this re-signification teach us about race? In light of these questions, I will discuss the liminality of whiteness by offering a rereading of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mocking Bird through the prism of critical race theory and whiteness studies.