Beyond the Pale

By Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker, April 5, 2010

Sanneh uses a viral TV moment to open a wider question: what do people mean by “whiteness” or “white culture”? He argues that it’s less a shared culture than a historically constructed identity—one that has expanded and changed over time to protect power.

He revisits the 19th‑century origins of race science and the invention of the term “Caucasian,” and explains how groups once excluded (Irish, Italians, others) were gradually folded into “white.” He also looks at the late‑2000s moment—Obama’s election, Tea Party politics, media focus on “overwhelmingly white” rallies—when whiteness became unusually visible in public debate.

Sanneh engages key thinkers to make sense of it: James Baldwin on the fragility of the white “we”; Nell Irvin Painter on how ideas of beauty and delicacy were attached to “Caucasian”; and David Roediger on whiteness being defined by its borders and exclusions. Pop culture examples, like The Blind Side, show how white identity can be centered and affirmed without being named.

The takeaway is not that whiteness is a fixed essence, but that it is a moving target shaped by history and politics—more noticeable when challenged, and less powerful when it can’t remain invisible.

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Citation: Kelefa Sanneh, “Beyond the Pale,” The New Yorker, April 5, 2010 (print issue April 12, 2010).