When Americans think about race, “white” is often the furthest thing from their minds. Yet whiteness colors so much of social life in the United States, from the organization and maintenance of social structures to an individual’s sense of self.  White has long been the invisible default category against which other racial and ethnic groups are silently compared and marked out as “different.” At the same time, whiteness is itself an active marker that many bitterly fight to keep distinctive, a