"Where is the line between actual white supremacy and everything white is white supremacy? Why is that so hard?"
As I understand it, white supremacy differs from good old-fashioned racism in that it isn't just hatred, it presupposes that white people are superior to other "races" and works to ensure that white people hold the ascendancy i…
"Where is the line between actual white supremacy and everything white is white supremacy? Why is that so hard?"
As I understand it, white supremacy differs from good old-fashioned racism in that it isn't just hatred, it presupposes that white people are superior to other "races" and works to ensure that white people hold the ascendancy in society through legal and other means.
There's a strong argument to be made that America in particular was built on that premise. The superiority of white, land-owning men was literally built into the constitution.
The conversation we're having today is, have the various efforts to correct that gone far enough? And if not, what else needs to be done? I've yet to hear a coherent policy plan from anybody talking about white supremacy today. It's all, "mathematics is built on white supremacy," or "capitalism is white supremacy."
The question of whether too much emphasis is still placed on the contributions of white people in history is fair enough. Just as the question of whether too much emphasis is placed on the contributions of men. The point J raises about his son drawing blond-haired, blue-eyed "self-portraits" is really meaningful. But describing this as white supremacy, and acting as if all white people today are responsible for the various factors that affect his son's self-image, is a recipe for not fixing the problem.
The multi-racial have self-image issues beyond those served to them by the zeitgeist. I didn't give enough thought to that for my daughters as they grew up. Now one of them has grown very interested in ancestry. Perhaps on behalf of her children who will have to deal with it.
You probably know who Rhiannon Giddens is, but if you don't, here. She has a levelheaded approach. I think that many white people resist the issue because it is perceived as being served in a goblet of venom. There's an old expression about it not always being about what you say, but how you say it. Some truth in that but not that simple.
“The multi-racial have self-image issues beyond those served to them by the zeitgeist.”
Absolutely. So do some black people. So do some women. So do some gay people. So do some white people. I don’t think identity issues are unique to multi-racial people. Especially today. Society seems to have become pathologically focused on which group of people in history we should align ourselves with.
I think the belief that our skin or even our genes define us is inevitably toxic, because it tempts us to take credit for things we didn’t do, and to compete with others over things they didn’t do.
I’m much more focused on what I personally achieve than what a black person 100 or 1000 years ago did. I’m much more interested in wisdom in general than the skin colour of the person who expressed it. I object to that skin colour being *lied* about, of course, but mainly because lying about it is simply a different way of focusing on it.
Agreed. Just as the mother in the story paid too much of the wrong kind of thought/action to the issue, I probably paid too little.
As an indication of how much, or little, ancestry/ethnicity can mean to people and how quickly it can change recently happened under my roof. One of my wife's dearest friends (the whole family actually) for over 20 years is Vietnamese. One day my wife mentioned that that friend was Chinese. When I said, she's Vietnamese, my wife said, "That's what country she's from but she's Chinese. Chinese people are all over the place you know." I'm not sure what inspired that, they are still best of friends. No foul. The people of Southeast Asia are more inclined to see themselves as cousins than siblings in ancestral/genetic closeness than outsider can see.
Thanks to my daughter's interest in such things, she did the 23&me DNA thing and asked us to. My wife thinks of herself as Thai with a Laotian paternal grandmother. The DNA said that she is also about a quarter Vietnamese/Chinese Dai. The Dai are from the south of China and are widely scattered throughout Southeast Asea but mostly in Vietnam (the chinese people all over the place). That piece of information changed nothing about my wife's thoughts on who she is. She's never been to Vietnam and has no cultural history there. Her poker face indicated that her Vietnamese friend's history and cultural influence is in Vietnam, she's never been to China, was dissonant with, "She's Chinese." I didn't rub her nose in that, it occurred to her.
Three takeaways from that. We often hold contrary notions so far in the background that it is without cognitive dissonance until a light is shined on it. What is important or unimportant at one moment can change quite suddenly. Your own personal experience and cultural influence is more important than that of your ancestors (your thought above). A very good reason for the conversations you inspire here. Thinking about that mass of contradictions in our heads.
"Where is the line between actual white supremacy and everything white is white supremacy? Why is that so hard?"
As I understand it, white supremacy differs from good old-fashioned racism in that it isn't just hatred, it presupposes that white people are superior to other "races" and works to ensure that white people hold the ascendancy in society through legal and other means.
There's a strong argument to be made that America in particular was built on that premise. The superiority of white, land-owning men was literally built into the constitution.
The conversation we're having today is, have the various efforts to correct that gone far enough? And if not, what else needs to be done? I've yet to hear a coherent policy plan from anybody talking about white supremacy today. It's all, "mathematics is built on white supremacy," or "capitalism is white supremacy."
The question of whether too much emphasis is still placed on the contributions of white people in history is fair enough. Just as the question of whether too much emphasis is placed on the contributions of men. The point J raises about his son drawing blond-haired, blue-eyed "self-portraits" is really meaningful. But describing this as white supremacy, and acting as if all white people today are responsible for the various factors that affect his son's self-image, is a recipe for not fixing the problem.
The multi-racial have self-image issues beyond those served to them by the zeitgeist. I didn't give enough thought to that for my daughters as they grew up. Now one of them has grown very interested in ancestry. Perhaps on behalf of her children who will have to deal with it.
You probably know who Rhiannon Giddens is, but if you don't, here. She has a levelheaded approach. I think that many white people resist the issue because it is perceived as being served in a goblet of venom. There's an old expression about it not always being about what you say, but how you say it. Some truth in that but not that simple.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/firing-line/video/rhiannon-giddens-kkiuzf/
“The multi-racial have self-image issues beyond those served to them by the zeitgeist.”
Absolutely. So do some black people. So do some women. So do some gay people. So do some white people. I don’t think identity issues are unique to multi-racial people. Especially today. Society seems to have become pathologically focused on which group of people in history we should align ourselves with.
I think the belief that our skin or even our genes define us is inevitably toxic, because it tempts us to take credit for things we didn’t do, and to compete with others over things they didn’t do.
I’m much more focused on what I personally achieve than what a black person 100 or 1000 years ago did. I’m much more interested in wisdom in general than the skin colour of the person who expressed it. I object to that skin colour being *lied* about, of course, but mainly because lying about it is simply a different way of focusing on it.
Thanks for the video, I’ll check it out.
Agreed. Just as the mother in the story paid too much of the wrong kind of thought/action to the issue, I probably paid too little.
As an indication of how much, or little, ancestry/ethnicity can mean to people and how quickly it can change recently happened under my roof. One of my wife's dearest friends (the whole family actually) for over 20 years is Vietnamese. One day my wife mentioned that that friend was Chinese. When I said, she's Vietnamese, my wife said, "That's what country she's from but she's Chinese. Chinese people are all over the place you know." I'm not sure what inspired that, they are still best of friends. No foul. The people of Southeast Asia are more inclined to see themselves as cousins than siblings in ancestral/genetic closeness than outsider can see.
Thanks to my daughter's interest in such things, she did the 23&me DNA thing and asked us to. My wife thinks of herself as Thai with a Laotian paternal grandmother. The DNA said that she is also about a quarter Vietnamese/Chinese Dai. The Dai are from the south of China and are widely scattered throughout Southeast Asea but mostly in Vietnam (the chinese people all over the place). That piece of information changed nothing about my wife's thoughts on who she is. She's never been to Vietnam and has no cultural history there. Her poker face indicated that her Vietnamese friend's history and cultural influence is in Vietnam, she's never been to China, was dissonant with, "She's Chinese." I didn't rub her nose in that, it occurred to her.
Three takeaways from that. We often hold contrary notions so far in the background that it is without cognitive dissonance until a light is shined on it. What is important or unimportant at one moment can change quite suddenly. Your own personal experience and cultural influence is more important than that of your ancestors (your thought above). A very good reason for the conversations you inspire here. Thinking about that mass of contradictions in our heads.