that thing white ppl do when they disparage 'white ppl'

as per the very post you replied to "I still recognize that some might treat me differently because I have light pigmentation..." xp to tracer

to soref: "the world" is not the world.

Like assuming you see 'whiteness' as a pernicious construct, what aspect of it are you identifying with such that you still need to define yourself on those terms?

when I talk about 'identifying' with it, I don't mean that I choose or want to identify with it necessarily, but that it defines me and is therefore a part of my identity whether I want it to be or not

in what way is it part of your identity?

for instance "i can get a taxi quicker than a black person" says something sad about the society in which i live but tells me nothing important about myself

As an aside, it often fascinates me to think of the court case of Bhagat Singh Thind. There was something almost touching in his sincere belief that the SCOTUS of 1923 would recognize the obvious-to-him 'whiteness' of upper-caste Hindus.

xp but there's no 'me' that can be separated from 'society', all I am (and all anyone is) is the sum of a billion little facts like "i can get a taxi quicker than a black person" (or "I can't get a taxi as quickly as a white person" or whatever), I guess? I only exist in terms of how I relate to the world and society, there's not a 'real me' outside of that

Hopefully there’s more to your identity than the privileges you receive in a racist society but if there isn’t I can understand why one might be drawn to identify as those privileges

Mordy OTM ITT

soref, personal identity is largely self-selecting and malleable, at least to the extent that we acknowledge it as such. Yes, there's some messiness inasmuch as it's often influenced by e.g. our demographics, others' notions of us, etc., but we have an astounding degree of latitude in defining who we are. That doesn't mean it's necessarily easy, particularly to the extent that expressions of self-identity clash with societal norms and whatnot, but it's certainly possible.

This book just came across my radar recently, looks interesting:

https://www.amazon.com/Wages-Whiteness-Making-American-Working/dp/1844671453/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=wages+of+whiteness&qid=1563471609&s=books&sr=1-1

In fact he argues that the emerging industrial worker of the mid to late 19th century who was low skilled and often times a recent immigrant from Ireland or Germany had an even more powerful interest in distancing themselves from the degradation that was associated with Blacks and the jobs that they performed. While this wold seem counter intuitive, Roediger argues that many unskilled white workers gained a type of social legitimacy from separating themselves from non-white labor and gaining for themselves the status of being seen as White American workers. While the beginning of the book is a little dense as the author tries to tease out the changing meaning of different terms for labor and racial categories in the pre and post Civil War period, this only sets the stage for more concrete example in the second half when he examines the experiences of Irish immigrant laborers in the later chapters. This is and interesting book in that it examines race from the perspective of what it means to be White and the social implications of that. It reminds the reader that the social categorization of race is dependent on opposition and that this opposition is in no way a natural or concrete boundary but rather a a dynamic social construct that all Americans should be aware of.

xpost That said, I think attempting to cast off one's white identity in toto (which I acknowledge no one is actually suggesting itt) is a notion that's both irresponsible and just as pernicious as the uncritical embrace of white identity. If you're born of an ethnicity that's recognized as white at this historical moment, you're saddled with whatever has been done to perpetuate that identity for better or worse. Your personal choice, then, becomes (by way of extreme oversimplification) whether you're just gonna ride that wave of privilege toward whatever ends best serve you or whether you're going to actively consider how others are adversely impacted by the privilege you've inherited and try to offset or correct that as much as you can. The latter path is kind of at odds with the reasons why a white identity exists at all.

The French model is an interesting case-study in that it explicitly condemns any and all references to 'race'. The baseline is simple: there is no such thing as race and anyone who sees it is racist, period, which effectively puts the cart before the horse, as it were, since this very logic is often used to silence visible minorities whenever they wish to draw attention to the treacherous, insidious racism they experience on a daily basis. I think it's fair to say that as a utopian goal, the obliteration of the concept of 'race', which the French Republic takes for granted, is precisely what we should be striving towards, but in practice it is impossible not to identify on some level with a category that others routinely ascribe to us, even when we ourselves disavow it. Many assimilated German Jews with no interest in Judaism were suddenly forced to acknowledge their Jewishness in the 1930s. The right to fully determine one's own identity is unfortunately a privilege.

The other's defining gaze varies greatly from country to country and continent to continent. I am light-skinned and hence assumed to be 'white' in the US, where appearance trumps all and Europe is simply Europe, but in a Western European context my whiteness is suddenly 'in question' whenever a certain class of cretins discovers that I'm from the Eastern part of the continent, thus complicating the race/ethnicity distinction.

Where in Western Europe are Eastern Europeans not considered white?

in britain no-one would suggest that eastern europeans and mediterranean europeans aren't white, but they're definitely a lower order of white to many

but that's more a xenophobic thing than a racial thing i suppose

You're still white, just less so. Like the Irish in 19th century America or French Canadians being told to 'speak white' (i.e. English) by English Canadians.

2xp

If your genes are deemed a problem, it's more than just xenophobia.

anti-irishness in the 19th century was explicitly based on racial theories of irish inferiority prevalent in northern europe (especially the UK) and anti-catholicism which i don't think is what is really happening when people in britain don't like the polish or whatever.

I agree with you, I'm just saying that the dividing line between race and ethnicity is less obvious than first meets the eye, as whiteness can easily be redefined and redeployed by bigots as needed to further discriminate against 'foreign' elements.

I don't see much evidence of whiteness being redefined and redeployed by bigots against white Eastern Europeans in the UK though. I don't know what's happening in the rest of Western Europe tbf.

The notion of whiteness is ultimately just another way for an oppressive majority to specify who constitutes 'us' and 'them', and those parameters can (and have) easily shift on a whim, without warning or reason. Or can just as easily be undercut by the application of an arbitrary sublabel ('communist' and 'socialist' seem to be picking up steam again these days).

US and them, pla

I don't think I've ever spent more than 10 seconds thinking about myself as a white guy and what that means to my own personal identity. I guess that's white privelege in a nutshell. My identity - the part that defines 'who I am' - is that I've spent nearly my entire life in Wisconsin.

Tom, would you say it's fair to speak of an anti-Eastern European racism in the UK? Or is the term 'racism' not precise enough in your book? Because it's used quite often regardless, including by sociologists, which goes to show how porous the notion of 'race' (by contrast with ethnicity in particular) is in general.

I've spent my entire life in Wisconsin and I think about it a whole lot.

I thought it was interesting how people reacted to Beto O’Rourke’s admission that his ancestors owned slaves. I think a lot of white folks in the US probably have slaveowning ancestors and don’t realize it.

... not just in the US btw!

Tom, would you say it's fair to speak of an anti-Eastern European racism in the UK? Or is the term 'racism' not precise enough in your book? Because it's used quite often regardless, including by sociologists, which goes to show how porous the notion of 'race' (by contrast with ethnicity in particular) is in general.

I'm going to have to think about that!

let's rehash that old thread with D-40 while we're at it

I think that old thread with D-40 was... this thread!

I've spent my entire life in Wisconsin and I think about it a whole lot.

weird, I've never seen you around

I think that old thread with D-40 was... this thread!

haha oops time has looped back in on itself

I'm going to have to think about that!

Me too tbh.

I would never make the case that the kind of racism (if this term is to be maintained) Eastern Europeans experience in the UK or elsewhere in Western Europe is on the level of what (highly) visible minorities have suffered, but I do think 'race' is a less clear-cut and hence static notion that we tend to think.

And yeah, this is totally the beef with D-40 redux.

Well, my Huguenot ancestors who were early colonisers of Staten Island not only owned slaves, but left them to younger family members in their wills (I’ve seen copies of the records). Yes, it makes me feel awful to know that there are black Americans carrying the name Mercereau for this reason. It’s super-important to point out that for 100+ years, slavery was not just a ‘southern’ thing. These are the same ancestors that turned over their horses, carriages and wagons to the Revolutionary War effort and devised the strategy that flummoxed the British at Trenton.

I was very disappointed to learn that there were Jewish slave-owners in South Carolina

Yeah New Paltz, NY has this historic Huguenot street that they've preserved, and their potted history points out that fleeing Huguenot refugees brought slaves WITH them, so that community had Black enslaved members for exactly as long as it has had white ones: since the very beginning. The framing of their historic society & museum direction is publicly recognizing that now, which is heartening to see.

I’m unsure whether my ancestors in Staten Island arrived with slaves in tow - they only went there because their ship couldn’t carry on to Philadelphia because of storm conditions.

Being a white american, as an ethnic identity, has very few points of pride that go with it after you get rid of everything built on the backs of slaves or appropriated from black culture. It’s mostly stunt cooking, country music and plastic cups. And being the ruling ethnic majority in the country. So it’s no wonder a lot of people are frothing at the mouth about the transition to becoming a minority-majority nation.

you can scratch country music from that list fwiw

also for the millionth time white is not an ethnic identity

Of course it is

+ modern country made in Nashville is white af, nobody else listens to that shit

I don't think I've ever spent more than 10 seconds thinking about myself as a white guy and what that means to my own personal identity. I guess that's white privelege in a nutshell.

This is OTM and IMO why there is so much "but what does it MEAN to be white?" angst; you live in a world where white people almost never have to think about or reflect on this, certainly not in order to succeed/survive, whereas the rest of us need to figure out how to translate ourselves into an extension of your default setting to get anywhere, whether that translation turns out to be assimilation ("acting white"), rejection("insert-ethnicity-here power"), domination ("I excel at my chosen vocation so hard you cannot deny me"), or some combination of the three.

(And, to be clear, race is not the only axis this operates on, hence intersectionality and why people who haven't lived their entire lives navigating these conflicting facets of identity want to throw up their hands and proclaim the entire thing invalid)

My bf (black) and his social circle (mostly black) use the term "spicy white" to describe white folks who aren't white-white-whitey-white-white-- Albanians, Portuguese, Persians, etc. Fun!

I don't think I've ever spent more than 10 seconds thinking about myself as a white guy and what that means to my own personal identity. I guess that's white privelege in a nutshell.

I think about whiteness pretty often, mostly when I'm in social situations where white people are being disparaged by POC friends, or race is being discussed. It was a notable transition tbh to move from a predominantly white/East Asian social circle to a predominantly black/South Asian social circle; race was not a factor in most discussions in the first social group, and race was always a factor in the second. These days I'm very-often conscious of how I move and behave at parties, and even which parties I should go to.

A few years ago, I was dating a dark-skinned biracial man in L.A. when I was living there, and we had been talking about going to this party for a couple weeks. I was on my way there, and he called me and told me that he had second thoughts about me coming. He said that it was going to be a largely black crowd and it might not be "my scene". I got off the phone with him and cried about it for a minute: "my black boyfriend is ashamed of my white ass". I texted a couple of friends about it, and they were both "wow, what a jerk!"

Then I texted another friend about it-- in fact, my current boyfriend, as we were close friends before we began our relationship. I told him what had happened. He said to me, "you need to understand that if you're going to be dating a black person, there are going to be spaces that he is allowed to enter, things he is allowed to say, activities he is allowed to do, that you and your white body are not going to be allowed to enter, say, or do. You have to accept this if you're going to be in a relationship with him." I'm still conscious of that in my current relationship, about once a month there is just something I won't go to. (And at least four times in the past two years, I've been singled out at mostly black parties and mocked, physically attacked, or made fun of. Big fucking deal. It's nothing compared to what some of my friends experience.)

when uh.... discussing .....the wite american guilt/pride dilemma (that tombot sketches out well up above) with d40 prev i typed an effort at a post that still sits in my evernote ffs but at some point between copying and pasting i actually thought (or maybe you had posted in interim dan): "i agree with this and i think its worth making the point but do i need djp to read another effort at an irish (proper irish) person explaining to a wite american on ilx that what they mean by witeness doesnt apply to entire nations of colonised white ppl" and for about the second time ever on ilx i think i made a good decision to not post.

maybe thats how prods feel all the time idk

He said to me, "you need to understand that if you're going to be dating a black person, there are going to be spaces that he is allowed to enter, things he is allowed to say, activities he is allowed to do, that you and your white body are not going to be allowed to enter, say, or do. You have to accept this if you're going to be in a relationship with him." I'm still conscious of that in my current relationship, about once a month there is just something I won't go to. (And at least four times in the past two years, I've been singled out at mostly black parties and mocked, physically attacked, or made fun of. Big fucking deal. It's nothing compared to what some of my friends experience.)

I don't think this is "nothing" to me or would feel like nothing if it had happened to me and I'm generally not too keen on excusing interpersonal violations by recourse to racial or political in/outgroup distinctions in general - my feeling is that this isn't the kind of world I'd want to inhabit or at least aspire towards, but you're the one in the relationship navigating these waters and there is some obvious nobility in yr approach as well (ultimately compassion/kindness instead of resentment even if it took some venting first). i'm just registering that despite how progressive it may sound to you, to my ears it sounds regressive + hostile and makes me sad.

If I come to a party with my boyfriend and, an hour in, a drunk black woman aggressively asks me to leave, then I will do so; I resent your statement that this is the kind of world I'd "want to inhabit or at least aspire toward". I am behaving according to what I feel is correct, given the circumstances.

Fwiw, I do think that being physically attacked for any reason is a big deal, fgti.

for my sins i read back some of the ludicrous last bump and its worth making a full and frank admission of being overly dickish to oûtiç (cant do the accent) during moments of high dudgeon with other unnamed affiliates of his during that spat

apologies for same etc

but at same time there was a lot of good 2011 energy in the room for a few days there