Description

---

A comprehensive collection on the topic of whiteness from writers in the field of mental health and activism.

Whiteness is a pervasive ideology that is rarely overtly identified or examined, despite its profound effects on race relationships. Being intentional about naming, deconstructing, and dismantling whiteness is a precursor to responding effectively to the racial reckoning of our society and improving race relationships, addressing systemic bias, and moving towards the creation of a more racially just world.

In this collection of essays, scholars from a variety of backgrounds and trainings explore how the longstanding centering of whiteness in all aspects of society, including clinical therapy spaces, has led to widespread racial injustice. Contributors include: David Trimble, Lane Arye, Jodie Kliman, Ken Epstein, Toby Bobes, Cynthia Chestnut, Ovita F. Williams, Gene E. Cash Jr., Carlin Quinn, Christiana Ibilola Awosan, Niki Berkowitz, Jen Leland, Mary Pender Greene, Hinda Winawer, Bonnie Berman Cushing, Michael Boucher, Robin Schlenger, Alana Tappin, Timothy Baima, Jeffery Mangram, Liang-Ying Chou, Irene In Hee Sung, Ana Hernandez, Robin Nuzum, Keith A. Alford, Hugo Kamya, and Cristina Combs.

About the Author

---

Kenneth V. Hardy, PhD, is President of the Eikenberg Academy for Social Justice and Clinical and Organizational Consultant for the Eikenberg Institute for Relationships in NYC. Dr. Hardy provides workshops, training, and consultations to a host of organizations and institutions throughout the United States and abroad. He is a former Professor of Family Therapy at both Syracuse University, NY, and Drexel University, PA. He is the author of Racial Trauma: Clinical Strategies and Techniques for Healing Invisible Wounds, and The Enduring, Invisible, and Ubiquitous Centrality of Whiteness, both from W. W. Norton. He is also co-author of Culturally Sensitive Supervision; Promoting Culturally Sensitive Supervision; and Revisioning Family Therapy.

Praise For…

---

Whiteness is the socio-political default. To disrupt whiteness, it must be exposed. This collection, curated by visionary Dr. Ken Hardy, brilliantly and accessibly takes up this weighty task. This is a revelatory and essential new work, clear-eyed and instructive, yet also deeply personal and eloquent. Oh, that it may be required reading for anyone in human services!
— Robin DiAngelo, Ph.D., author ofWhite Fragility and Nice Racism

Seething and triggering, yet brilliantly analytical and refreshingly timely. This book should become a national treasure, because it makes visible the ubiquitous tyranny of whiteness, the effects of which occupy the minds and bodies of People of Color and to a more detrimental degree, Black People. Dr. Hardy and the other contributors speak a fiery truth to the centrality of whiteness in a way that has yet to be done. This book activates our duty as people of whiteness and People of Color to use simple, salient, and profound remedies to increase racial sensitivity and to create a path toward more constructive cross-racial conversations.
— Michelle Cromwell, Ph.D., author of Racism: The Challenge of Dismantling Lies in the Dilemma of Definition

Dr. Kenneth Hardy’s book, The Centrality of Whiteness, is shocking, provocative, clear, inspiring, and personal. It is deeply touching as well as disturbing in a most blessed way, and it absolutely achieves its purpose: the demystification of whiteness. Hardy has brought together a strong, broad, clear and very astute group of authors to help challenge us on this topic, which is so essential to our very survival. This is the book we have been needing to help us work together to cultivate a society where multiple ideologies can coexist without domination, marginalization, annihilation, or indoctrination.

— Monica McGoldrick, Ph.D., Director of the Multicultural Family Institute in Highland Park, NJ, author of Genograms