content: Noel Ignatiev's well-researched and well-argued book is incredibly important to understanding the way race has been constructed in the United States and the way that white people are deeply involved in that racial hierarchy - whether they want to be or not. Looking at the reviews of the book it is clear that many of my fellow white people are incredibly uncomfortable with these realities, but their discomfort only proves the point of how important this book really is. Cycles don't change unless we interrupt them, and this book is one such interruption. Hopefully more of us will be willingly to interrupt the current cycle of white supremacy (through colonialism/capitalism/patriarchy/cis-hetero-normativity, and the white-middle-class-ideal that Ignatiev deconstructs so artfully in this book) and not defend it by turning away from the role we play in it.