This book blends psychological analysis, cultural critique, and literary journalism to understand the unconscious dynamics perpetuating white supremacy, white fragility, and white Christian nationalism.

It focuses on the white American response to Colin Kaepernick and the 2016 NFL anthem protest to unpack the white entitlement and shame that underlie the fantasy of white supremacy. It also uses Jungian concepts to illuminate the ways the social invention of race and enslavement of blacks cast a transgenerational shadow that drives anti-black racism and its denial—both of which protect the fragile white sense of self, white privilege, and the power dynamic that places whites above non-whites. The author explores how white Christian nationalism is seen to fuse religion, white supremacy, and patriotism into a power that gains sustenance from the death of black bodies. Providing readers with psychological tools oriented to sociocultural change, the book ends by discussing the transpersonal, mythological patterns that Kaepernick and his protest evoke and the crucial nature of individuation—becoming accountable for our shadow—to the work of ending racism and white supremacy.

This will be a valuable read for scholars and researchers of depth psychology, politics, sociology, social justice and diversity.

Dennis Pottenger is a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist who works with trauma, identity, and diversity issues. He is the author of Alchemy, Jung, and Remedios Varo: Cultural Complexes and the Redemptive Power of the Abjected Feminine, a research monograph published in Routledge’s Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies series in 2021.