Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be

Melissa Steyn is Director of the Professional Communication Unit at the University of Cape Town and the coeditor of Cultural Synergy in South Africa: Weaving Strands of Africa and Europe.

"This book is exemplary in many aspects: the theoretical approach, the clear and transparent treatment of difficult and sensitive issues that surround discourses of race, the un-emphatic self reflexivity and the style: Steyn illustrates and enriches her arguments with mottos from fiction and non-fiction, poetry and songs." — L'Homme. Z.F.G."This seriously argued and sensitive book adds a fresh perspective to the discourse on white racism in South Africa. Confronting 'whiteness' from within, Melissa Steyn charts the only journey that promises to free white South Africans in any profound way from the full implications of the nightmare of their own making." — Njabulo S. Ndebele, author of South African Literature and Culture: Rediscovery of the Ordinary

• Preface Acknowledgments Section One: Early Tales 1. A Master Narrative of Whiteness 2. "White" South Africans Section Two: Shades of Whiteness 3. Things Bad Begun: Growing up "White" 4. Narrative One: Still Colonial after All These Years 5. Narrative Two: This Shouldn't to A White 6. Narrative Three: Don't Think White, It's All Right 7. Narrative Four: A Whiter Shade of White 8. Narrative Five: Under African Skies (or White, but Not Quite) 9. Conclusion: Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used to Be Appendix 1: Methodology Appendix 2: Brief Chronology of South African Political Events Notes References Index