People who are oppressed tend to know it and are familiar with their oppressors . We Should take them seriously. White is not a race. It’s a social invention for the purpose of social control. I agree that “whiteness “ is a misleading term. What we’re really talking about is white supremacy and what I call the “white emotion” that defends it.Every racist act is a defense of white supremacy.
People who are oppressed tend to know it and are familiar with their oppressors . We Should take them seriously. White is not a race. It’s a social invention for the purpose of social control. I agree that “whiteness “ is a misleading term. What we’re really talking about is white supremacy and what I call the “white emotion” that defends it.Every racist act is a defense of white supremacy.
"People who are oppressed tend to know it and are familiar with their oppressors"
I agree. But then I suppose we need to talk about how we're definig oppression. I find the notion that white people are black people's de facto oppressors forevermore, just because we have black skin and they don't, to be deeply condescending. There was a time when you could make that argument convincingly. But that time is not 2022.
In 2022, some black people are still oppressed by systems and the legacy of those systems. Some white people too actually, thogh far fewer I'd say. But white people as a demographic are not that system.
Most of the peope I see claiming that they're oppressed today are generally extraordinarily privileged and have no idea what oppression is. Which is why they can make such a mistake.
I agree. There are many varieties of oppression. In this particular case I was referring to racial oppression, acts that strengthen the system of white supremacy under which we live, a system that burst open under Trump. These acts lie on a spectrum from “microaggression” to the murder of George Floyd. Likewise banning Black-authored books and Black history in general, gerrymandering away the right to vote, etc. I’m not talking about demographics or individuals, and definitely not a system that must last forever. A system of power exercised and supported by millions of white Americans, sometimes unconsciously, to the general detriment of Black people. The degree to which people buy into the system depends on how they intersect with structural racism. My experiences in the civil rights and farmworkers’ struggles taught me that not all whites are racist, but most all racists are white. Many white people have risked and given their lives in the Freedom Movement. Unfortunately, they are the exception.
Even racist acts from POC towards other POC (or even white folks) is "a defense of white supremacy"?
So a Han Chinese person being racist towards a Uighur Chinese person is somehow a defense of white supremacy?? Or an African-American person towards an Asian-American person? Or a Filipino in Manila towards a indigenous person from one of the Philippine provinces? Come on. Racism does not automatically equal white supremacy. This is why it's hard to take discourse around "white supremacist" acts seriously because definitions are being expanded, limited, or changed depending on the goal of the person changing that definition.
Definitely agree though that white is not a race and that it's a social invention for the purpose of social control. An invention that changed over time to allow more Europeans like Italians and Poles to enter the precious group of Americans that could call themselves white while also forcing descendants of slaves and immigrants from Asia to continue remaining outside of power.
Very curious to hear more about "white emotion" - what does that mean?
I definitely agree with your paragraph that begins “Definitely agree...”
In your opening paragraphs you put your finger on a serious point: not what is a race, but who is a race. European colonists in America at the end of the 18th Century invented a convenient way of thinking about race: a color code. White, Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow. Whites to own property and dominate the others, Black slaves to grow and harvest cotton, Brown to defeat and grab their land, Red to slaughter and grab their land, and later, Yellow to build the Transcontinental Railroad (and refuse to leave). It was convenient for the non-Black settlers to identify, but it took a while: Italians and Swedes were considered “swarthy races” and Irish were “degraded,” until they were needed to increase the political and economic power of the dominant class.
The problem arises when we try to apply trivial biological differences. (skin color, head shape, and so on) to the rest of the world, most countries of which do not impose racial color codes on the people around them. Uighur is not a race, nor is Filipino, nor is Han, nor do they think of themselves as races. The Japanese did not attack Pearl Harbor because Americans were white but to establish a Japanese empire. James Baldwin recognized the difference between foreign and domestic “races” when he wrote, “the Negro is a race that exists only in America,” backing up our agreement that race is a social invention. If every oppressive deed were racist, we’d have no need for the word.
Now to your “come on” paragraph. I think you have the wrong end of the stick. It’s white supremacy that automatically creates racism, not the other way around. Individual persons are not the issue; it’s the system of white supremacy that shapes the acts and opinions of a people. Racism doesn’t arise spontaneously; children are not automatically racist; they have to be taught by their families, teachers, friends, etc., Or they read
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who declared:
"I think it cannot be maintained by any candid person that the African race have ever occupied or do promise ever to occupy any very high place in the human family. The Irish cannot; the American Indian cannot; the Chinese cannot. Before the energy of the Caucasian race all the other races have quailed and done obeisance." That’s white supremacy and racism all rolled together, defining American thought for two centuries, beginning with Jefferson’s authoritative definition of Black people as inferior in every way. Europeans who had been slaughtering each other for centuries gradually came together under the white umbrella when they immigrated to America, in order to distinguish themselves from the non-white people who already lived there, particularly Black slaves, whom they bought in American slave markets.
“White Emotion.” I came up with that term because I considered race and racism to be too rigid and at the same time too flexible. Too flexible because the charge of racism gets applied to everything from schoolchild taunting to the murder of George Floyd, too rigid because it takes no account of context. A child’s microaggression is one thing, the KKK’s aggression entirely another. I use “white” because not all whites are racist, but most all racists are white. “Emotion” for its ability to shapeshift, influence people’s feelings and acts, and persevere despite the nonexistence of race in the physical world. This spectrum of emotions is what I mean by the “white emotion.”
Further, the white emotion requires the reader to define what kind of racist act has been committed. Grand Theft Racism? Staring oddly at a Black colleague’s new hairdo? Individuals do not create racism, systems do.
"White is not a race. It’s a social invention for the purpose of social control."
Oh, nonsense. Just because a lot of people of European extraction have some genes of other races mingled in doesn't mean that "white" is an invention for social control. That is postmodernist nonsense. Yes the world has a long history of colonialism and racism but that doesn't mean that people got together and secretly created a fictitious white race out of nothing just to control others.
Although technically/legally, the term "free white person" included Eastern Europeans, Irish, Italians, and Jews, ethnically those groups were certainly seen as different & less than other white ethnicities, and were treated accordingly i.e. subject to gross generalizations/racialization and excluded from holding sociopolitical power. The idea of "whiteness" here is that white anglo-saxon protestants held the most power for the longest period of time in the US. Not so much about genes but about (perceived) ethnicity.
People who are oppressed tend to know it and are familiar with their oppressors . We Should take them seriously. White is not a race. It’s a social invention for the purpose of social control. I agree that “whiteness “ is a misleading term. What we’re really talking about is white supremacy and what I call the “white emotion” that defends it.Every racist act is a defense of white supremacy.
"People who are oppressed tend to know it and are familiar with their oppressors"
I agree. But then I suppose we need to talk about how we're definig oppression. I find the notion that white people are black people's de facto oppressors forevermore, just because we have black skin and they don't, to be deeply condescending. There was a time when you could make that argument convincingly. But that time is not 2022.
In 2022, some black people are still oppressed by systems and the legacy of those systems. Some white people too actually, thogh far fewer I'd say. But white people as a demographic are not that system.
Most of the peope I see claiming that they're oppressed today are generally extraordinarily privileged and have no idea what oppression is. Which is why they can make such a mistake.
I agree. There are many varieties of oppression. In this particular case I was referring to racial oppression, acts that strengthen the system of white supremacy under which we live, a system that burst open under Trump. These acts lie on a spectrum from “microaggression” to the murder of George Floyd. Likewise banning Black-authored books and Black history in general, gerrymandering away the right to vote, etc. I’m not talking about demographics or individuals, and definitely not a system that must last forever. A system of power exercised and supported by millions of white Americans, sometimes unconsciously, to the general detriment of Black people. The degree to which people buy into the system depends on how they intersect with structural racism. My experiences in the civil rights and farmworkers’ struggles taught me that not all whites are racist, but most all racists are white. Many white people have risked and given their lives in the Freedom Movement. Unfortunately, they are the exception.
Even racist acts from POC towards other POC (or even white folks) is "a defense of white supremacy"?
So a Han Chinese person being racist towards a Uighur Chinese person is somehow a defense of white supremacy?? Or an African-American person towards an Asian-American person? Or a Filipino in Manila towards a indigenous person from one of the Philippine provinces? Come on. Racism does not automatically equal white supremacy. This is why it's hard to take discourse around "white supremacist" acts seriously because definitions are being expanded, limited, or changed depending on the goal of the person changing that definition.
Definitely agree though that white is not a race and that it's a social invention for the purpose of social control. An invention that changed over time to allow more Europeans like Italians and Poles to enter the precious group of Americans that could call themselves white while also forcing descendants of slaves and immigrants from Asia to continue remaining outside of power.
Very curious to hear more about "white emotion" - what does that mean?
I definitely agree with your paragraph that begins “Definitely agree...”
In your opening paragraphs you put your finger on a serious point: not what is a race, but who is a race. European colonists in America at the end of the 18th Century invented a convenient way of thinking about race: a color code. White, Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow. Whites to own property and dominate the others, Black slaves to grow and harvest cotton, Brown to defeat and grab their land, Red to slaughter and grab their land, and later, Yellow to build the Transcontinental Railroad (and refuse to leave). It was convenient for the non-Black settlers to identify, but it took a while: Italians and Swedes were considered “swarthy races” and Irish were “degraded,” until they were needed to increase the political and economic power of the dominant class.
The problem arises when we try to apply trivial biological differences. (skin color, head shape, and so on) to the rest of the world, most countries of which do not impose racial color codes on the people around them. Uighur is not a race, nor is Filipino, nor is Han, nor do they think of themselves as races. The Japanese did not attack Pearl Harbor because Americans were white but to establish a Japanese empire. James Baldwin recognized the difference between foreign and domestic “races” when he wrote, “the Negro is a race that exists only in America,” backing up our agreement that race is a social invention. If every oppressive deed were racist, we’d have no need for the word.
Now to your “come on” paragraph. I think you have the wrong end of the stick. It’s white supremacy that automatically creates racism, not the other way around. Individual persons are not the issue; it’s the system of white supremacy that shapes the acts and opinions of a people. Racism doesn’t arise spontaneously; children are not automatically racist; they have to be taught by their families, teachers, friends, etc., Or they read
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who declared:
"I think it cannot be maintained by any candid person that the African race have ever occupied or do promise ever to occupy any very high place in the human family. The Irish cannot; the American Indian cannot; the Chinese cannot. Before the energy of the Caucasian race all the other races have quailed and done obeisance." That’s white supremacy and racism all rolled together, defining American thought for two centuries, beginning with Jefferson’s authoritative definition of Black people as inferior in every way. Europeans who had been slaughtering each other for centuries gradually came together under the white umbrella when they immigrated to America, in order to distinguish themselves from the non-white people who already lived there, particularly Black slaves, whom they bought in American slave markets.
“White Emotion.” I came up with that term because I considered race and racism to be too rigid and at the same time too flexible. Too flexible because the charge of racism gets applied to everything from schoolchild taunting to the murder of George Floyd, too rigid because it takes no account of context. A child’s microaggression is one thing, the KKK’s aggression entirely another. I use “white” because not all whites are racist, but most all racists are white. “Emotion” for its ability to shapeshift, influence people’s feelings and acts, and persevere despite the nonexistence of race in the physical world. This spectrum of emotions is what I mean by the “white emotion.”
Further, the white emotion requires the reader to define what kind of racist act has been committed. Grand Theft Racism? Staring oddly at a Black colleague’s new hairdo? Individuals do not create racism, systems do.
"White is not a race. It’s a social invention for the purpose of social control."
Oh, nonsense. Just because a lot of people of European extraction have some genes of other races mingled in doesn't mean that "white" is an invention for social control. That is postmodernist nonsense. Yes the world has a long history of colonialism and racism but that doesn't mean that people got together and secretly created a fictitious white race out of nothing just to control others.
Although technically/legally, the term "free white person" included Eastern Europeans, Irish, Italians, and Jews, ethnically those groups were certainly seen as different & less than other white ethnicities, and were treated accordingly i.e. subject to gross generalizations/racialization and excluded from holding sociopolitical power. The idea of "whiteness" here is that white anglo-saxon protestants held the most power for the longest period of time in the US. Not so much about genes but about (perceived) ethnicity.
My grandfather personally experienced NINA, No Irish Need Apply.