In The Making of White American Identity, Ron Eyerman provides an explanation for how whiteness has become a basis for collective identification and collective action in the United States. Drawing upon his previous work on the formation of African American Identity, as well as cultural trauma theory, collective memory, and social movements, Eyerman reveals how and under what conditions such a collective identification emerges, how collective action around an
ideology of whiteness and white superiority happens, and considers the prospects of the ideology of white supremacy as a political force in the United States.