People increasingly need to cross racial lines in our society, Hitchcock explains, but white people often flounder in multiracial settings because they lack a basic awareness and understanding of their own culture. I tried to write a lively, informative and down to earth book that speaks to the average white American who wants to understand how he or she can fit within a multiracial society, says Hitchcock. Many feel he has succeeded. The book explores how United States society is structured by race, and how white culture is part of that structure. White Americans want to be part of a larger, multiracial society, according to the book, but our own cultural blindness gets in the way.
Later chapters discuss history, cultural studies, psychology, and emerging trends.
Calling the book a major contribution, Dr. Katz adds that All too often people try to use guilt and blame, or they write in a way the average person can t understand. This book does neither. The author describes himself as a middle aged, middle class white man married to an African American woman for twenty years. A father of two sons, he has worked variously in corporate America and for nonprofit organizations. He presently is Executive Director of the Center for the Study of White American Culture, Inc., an organization he co-founded to explore white culture and how it shapes our experience in the United States.