Tuesday, June 17, 2008

see white analysis of whiteness as a form of self-hatred

As I analyze whiteness, here on this blog and elsewhere, I often encounter white people who wonder if I'm really white, and if I am, why in the world I hate myself so much.

"How in the world," these white folks often ask, "could you say such things about white people? And thus about yourself? Why do you hate yourself?"

Since I'm aware of this portion of my audience, I often slow down to point out, again, that

(1) I'm talking about common white tendencies, not white people;

(2) I believe that while white people are often nice, well-meaning folks, there's very little that's positive, in historical or contemporary terms, about racial whiteness itself;

(3) white people are subtly, yet thoroughly, trained into becoming the bearers and enactors of common white tendencies, many (or all?) of which are negative, and yet, most of which most white folks aren't even aware of;

(4) and that on the other hand, most non-white people are very aware of these common white tendencies, and they often wish white folks would wake up and stop enacting them.

I recently received another e-mail asking about my self-hatred. I'm reposting it here, with my further thoughts (which the sender requested) afterwards. I welcome, very much, your further thoughts in the Comments section:

I was reading through Stuff White People Like one day and the thought came to me to check for other sites like it, focusing on other ethnic groups. Of course, there were many. So I stumbled upon your website.

The main question I need to ask you is: Are you really a white person? If so, I really don't understand the self-loathing.

Sure, white people have done some ridiculous things in the past and can all make fun of themselves. As a race, they are also responsible for some great tragedies throughout history. However, I find your own blog blatantly racist, not only to whites but people of other races.

Most offensive is the fact that you somehow believe you exist outside of racial lines, whereas everyone else does. You present yourself as some omniscient raceless judge, completely above criticism. You also group everyone into lump categories, then proceed to chastize [sic] white people for relying too heavily on stereotypes.

In one post, you mention white people interact with blacks very little, which causes them to think of them in stereotypes...not as people. However, your blog title alone "Stuff White People Do" throws 500 million people into a uniform group, you being the only outsider of course.

You paint African and Asian Americans as the lowly victims of white evil, stereotyping them as weak and moldable, something that I think you would agree is not true. You contradict yourself in many other instances as well. You have two consecutive posts that illustrate this best.

The first is that whites avoid the topic of race. Immediately following this, you accuse whites of bringing up the topic of race too often around minorities. One of your posts is also (not so) subtly demeaning to the Jewish people, impying [sic] that anger should be redirected at them.

You write as though you have just taken a college black history course and need to atone for the sins of the white race. Honestly, there is no way you could have always thought like this.

It's okay, we are all people. However your groupings of all societal functions into racial boundaries shows that you are unable to see outside of them. I'm not saying that all of my opinions need to be taken as fact, I am just offended that you do. Maybe the best way to heal the wounds of racial strife is not by placing all blame on the hands of the white race. Or maybe you are stuck with the notion that nothing unites like a common enemy. Either way, you are not going to [be] made an honorary minority.

I would love to hear a response back from you.


Okay, here's a response, in addition to what I said above:

Thank you for your e-mail. Such criticisms, and the chance to address them, help me think through what I'm doing with this blog.

Yes, I really am a "white" person, and have been all my life, even though my skin is actually more like a slightly pinkish beige color. One of the things I'm still trying to do is understand why the color (or lack of color) of a piece of paper got applied to the very non-"white" skin of people like me.

Regarding some of your more specific points, you wrote:

Sure, white people have done some ridiculous things in the past and can all make fun of themselves. As a race, they are also responsible for some great tragedies throughout history.

You write as if the ridiculous things that white people have done are all in the past, and that whatever white people do now that can be identified as "white" is so trivial that it merits little more than laughter. I've written before about some of the problems that I see with discussing today's forms of whiteness in terms of laughter. I think it's mostly white people who want to laugh at white people in terms of their being white, rather than take that whiteness seriously. And I think it's mostly non-white people who wish white people would take their own whiteness, especially their own common white tendencies, more seriously. Mostly in the hopes that they'll stop inflicting them on non-white people, and also in the hopes that they'll see just how thoroughly white favoritism still permeates American society and its institutions.

You also wrote:

In one post, you mention white people interact with blacks very little, which causes them to think of them in stereotypes...not as people. However, your blog title alone "Stuff White People Do" throws 500 million people into a uniform group, you being the only outsider of course.

Thanks for pointing this out. I know the blog's title is monolithic, and I've considered adding a subtitle along the lines of that in the epigraph to Langston Hughes great book, The Ways of White Folks: "The ways of some white folks, that is." (In fact, I've even considered changing the title of the blog to the title of Hughes' book, and adding that epigraph as the blog's tag-line/subtitle.) Again, I continually emphasize that I'm talking about "common white tendencies," and not ALL white folks; I don't think I should have to do that everywhere and always--it would get redundant.

I'll address your other point here, about my supposed claim to being an outsider to whiteness, below.

You also wrote,

You paint African and Asian Americans as the lowly victims of white evil, stereotyping them as weak and moldable, something that I think you would agree is not true.

I don't understand how I do that. In fact, I think I do quite the opposite. As I have repeatedly said, black people, like other non-white people, often know far more about white people than white people know about both themselves, and about black people. I think white people should listen more to black people, and also think about their own white selves as they do so.

To say that black people and other non-white people continue to suffer from the naive and often unconscious actions of white people is not to say that they're the weak, lowly victims of white evil. It's to say instead that white people should wake up to what they often do, and one source of information in that regard could be non-white people. I also think, though, that white people should do that work on their own, and among themselves--finding ways to understand our white selves better should be OUR job.

You also wrote,

One of your posts is also (not so) subtly demeaning to the Jewish people, impying [sic] that anger should be redirected at them.

I think you misread this post. What it says instead is that during election coverage, the corporate media in general has found much to look down upon and laugh at in the common attitudes about race that are held and expressed by rural white folks. However, they generally ignore some very similar attitudes to be found among elderly Jewish Americans. The post points out a disparity in media coverage, rather than claiming that anger should be "redirected" at Jewish people. Uneducated white people are seen as an available target for "classist" criticism and derision, and when other white groups express similarly objectionable opinions, they seldom receive similar criticism.

Finally, you also wrote,

You write as though you have just taken a college black history course and need to atone for the sins of the white race. Honestly, there is no way you could have always thought like this.

Honestly, there are many other routes besides a black history course to white self-understanding (and in fact, I've never taken such a course). I've been a student of African American issues and Asian American issues in some college courses that included them, but in terms of racial whiteness, I'm self-taught. There are at least one hundred scholarly books out there from that last fifteen years or so on racial whiteness, and hundreds more essays, stories, movies, and so on, and most of them nod to earlier African American studies of whiteness.

I'm not trying to atone for the sins of the white race. I'm trying to understand whiteness, and all that it has encouraged people to do, and all that it still encourages people to do.

More generally, I'm surprised that from your readings of non-white blogs, you didn't gather that a lot of non-white people don't find common white tendencies at all laughable. In fact, they often find common white tendencies quite a pain to deal with. So if you can see that, then don't you think that white people should try to understand that which makes them less than "nice" sometimes? And less than "fair"? That's basically what I'm trying to do here.

One thing I'm not doing is trying to claim is the status of "honorary minority," whatever that is. I realize that in America (although not in the world as a whole), I am in the racial majority, the "white" people. I'm not trying to escape that status--I'm trying to face up to it.

I often say in my posts, such as the one immediately below this one, that I'm a white person who enacts many of the white tendencies that I write about. I write at times from a personal perspective, partly in order to demonstrate this point. So I don't consider myself somehow "outside of racial lines." I'm trying to learn what being placed inside the racial lines, in the white group, has meant for me. What it's done to me, and what it encourages me to do.

So I in turn encourage you to do the same. I assume that you're white, so I have a couple of questions for you--what does being "white" mean for you? Do you see yourself as an enactor of any of the common white tendencies that I've described on this blog, or perhaps of others?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings, and I look forward to hearing from you,

macon d

31 comments:

  1. Macon, viewed from my own context, it is an act of God that enables one to look truth straight in the face and not turn away from it, no matter how ugly and unpleasant it may be. Exposing hidden lies to the light brings healing, resolution and peace. When one is naked and unashamed with God, He directs the soul into harmony with the perfect flow of the universe. And ALL is well. Always!

    May God continue to act out His will - in you.

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  2. I'm surprised that from your readings of non-white blogs, you didn't gather that a lot of non-white people don't find common white tendencies at all laughable. In fact, they often find common white tendencies quite a pain to deal with. So if you can see that, then don't you think that white people should try to understand that which makes them less than "nice" sometimes? And less than "fair"?

    THANK YOU!

    This is brilliant.

    I think you did a fine job answering the email. I am curious to see more reponses to this.

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  3. Who elected you spokesperson for all minorities? You need to stop telling people what black people, as well as other minorities, know and think. Plus, saying something is true for most people IS stereotyping in the most basic form. It is like the stereotypical racist white man who says some black people are "the good ones." Furthermore, you can't criticize me for referring to you as white by pointing out that isn't your real color. The blog is built around the use of the term white. You have some serious high and mighty issues. By the way, I agree with you that I misworded my "white people have done some bad things in the past" diatribe. Obviously it is an ongoing problem. Nonetheless, you seem to think all bad things done by a white person, group, or nation reflect negatively on the total race, and do not apply it to other races. For instance, it is not the fault of the Asian race that human rights are witheld in Tibet. Lastly, you did not respond to your "damned if you do, damned if you don't" paradox I pointed out...the one about white people both avoiding the topic of race and bringing it up too much. That being said, I appreciate you responding to me in a timely manner. Sorry for the typos.

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  4. as a woman of color, i don't think of this blog's writer as 'speaking for' minorities at all. i think he's just being more astute in picking up on things that most of us discuss amongst ourselves.

    (we discuss it amongst ourselves because to discuss it with white people in public would paint us as 'angry.')

    in fact, i think the main audience for this blog should be white people (not that i don't enjoy reading it.) to discuss whiteness is not to indulge in guilt or self-loathing, just as it's not playing the victim for people of color to talk about the ways institutional racism have impacted them.

    if we don't discuss these things then racism and skin privilege will never be questioned and will remain hidden malefactors behind our daily interactions, policies and thoughts. 'whiteness,' as a collection and structure of behaviors and thought, exists. to deny that, and to avoid discussing it, would mean that discussing race in any significant way is only half complete.

    IMO.

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  5. Dylan, if you're annoyed by the things Macon writes, you should pass by www.hlafricanrevolution.blogspot.com. I'm almost certain to piss you off even more.

    I think a useful way to approach your comments is to bear in mind that there is a difference between white people and whiteness as a concept. If you take away the concept of whiteness, e.g. the socio-political construct that has been created over the last 500 years or so, white people would remain. Our existence is not dependent upon the continuation of this worldview.

    As such, to criticize or even condemn whiteness is not at all the same thing as condemning white people. Whiteness is not intrinsic to white people, it is an ontology that has been created by man, sometimes purposefully but often inadvertantly, and has to be instilled into children through social programming. Children may be born white, meaning of European descent, but they are not born into the state of whiteness: that has to be acquired through socialization.

    I would submit that the better and more positive aspects of white people have been corrupted by the concept of whiteness. If we can recognize whiteness for the elaborate construct that it is, we can move beyond it, and, hopefully, greatly improve our culture in the process.

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  6. Sorry to double post, can't edit comments. The right url is http://www.halfricanrevolution.blogspot.com (it comes up in my Blogger profile).

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  7. Macon. Thank you for not letting guilt/fear get in the way of your being an ally to people of color. It sounds like the points you bring up, bring up A LOT of feelings for (some) white people. Domo arigato for scaring the sh*t out of them and making them reevaluate their "realities."

    Bless
    C

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  8. One Drop, I will not be reading your blog. I do not search for things on the internet to "piss me off." Besides, I was under the impression that Macon wanted this to be a dialogue. So, if I write something in descent, it does not mean I am in close-minded denial of the bad aspects of "whiteness." By the way, I assume that you are white due to your statement of "our existence," meaning you are suffering from the same problems as a lot of the people who visit this site.

    You need to stop insulting yourself so much. The culture of "whiteness," while certainly having negative effects, has brought a lot of great things into the world. Things that people around the globe are grateful for.

    Now, I would not even consider the culture I live in to be that white dominated. I live in a very diverse part of town and I am one of the few white people in my workplace. I think you may have the wrong impression of my thoughts.

    I am not in denial of anything. I am just not delusional enough to think that whining about the tragic mental and emotional toll white American society has taken on me through a little publicized blog is going to remove the culture of whiteness from the world. By the way, are you suggesting that the white race remove its cultural identity entirely? That it should be the only culture-less ethnicity on the planet?

    Furthermore, if you are so adamant about the "white privelege" we all enjoy, I find it interesting that you feel free to enjoy the entitlements your whiteness provides, yet turn around and criticize it at the same time.

    Now, I lack the ability to travel to "exotic" locations around the globe only to learn what an imperialist I truly am, so maybe it is a good thing priveleged guys like you are around. Yes, there are injustices everywhere and ignoring them is no way to solve them. But what is your blog accomplishing? Making people feel terrible about themselves may be fun, but it yields very little.

    Dude, basically you all need a hug. You are not Morpheus unplugging people from the brainwashing of contemporary society, even if that is how you wish to view yourself. But if self-hatred works so well for you, by all means hold on to it.

    Feel free to respond, I will read it but this is the last post I will be making. You completely avoided every point that I made in your "response" anyway. And for those of you that disagree...this is just my opinion, we all have our own. And if you can't defend your own opinion, who can?

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  9. That's DISSENT...bear in mind I'm at work. Meaning THIS is my last post.

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  10. Dylan can you quote a place where macon acts as the minority spokesperson? Macon isn't stereotyping whits - 60% of whites admit to being racist (see Tim Wise's essay on prototypical denial.) Furthermore, your white/Asian comparison doesn't work. Whiteness is not a geographical or cultural construct, it was created in order to unite whites of different classes and cultures so that precolonial white indentured servants would stop fighting along side black servants/slaves. Whiteness has always been about the protection of power. Inventions by white people don't justify whiteness as a power construct. Do inventions by Nazis justify Nazism?There is no such thing as white culture- there's Irish, French, of Basque culture however. Whether or not you think that America is white dominated the fact is that it is see Tim Wise's uh-obama essay:What does it say that Obama apparently can't bring himself to mention, for fear of likely white backlash, that whites are over seventy percent of drug users, but only about ten percent of persons incarcerated for a drug possession offense, while blacks and Latinos combined are about twenty-five percent of users, but comprise roughly ninety percent of persons locked up for a possession offense?

    Why no mention of the massive national study by legal scholars Alfred and Ruth Blumrosen, which found that at least a third of all businesses in the nation engage in substantial discrimination against people of color--hiring such folks at rates that are well below their availability in the local and qualified labor pool, and well below the rates at which they are to be found in non-discriminating companies in the same locales and industries? Indeed, according to the Blumrosen study, at least 1.3 million qualified people of color will face job discrimination in a given year. Or what of the study of temporary agencies in California, which found that white women who are less qualified than their black counterparts, are still three times more likely to be favored in a job search? And what are the odds that he'll be likely to mention, to any significant degree, the recent EEOC report, which notes that in 2007 there was a twelve percent jump in race-based discrimination complaints in the workplace relative to the previous year (almost all of which were filed by persons of color): bringing the number of such complaints to their highest level since 1994?

    As Obama talks about change and making the "American Dream" real for all, why is he unable to mention the fact--let alone propose specific remedies for it--that thanks to a history of unequal access to property and the inability to accumulate assets on par with whites, young black couples with college degrees and good incomes still start out at a significant disadvantage (around $20,000) relative to their white counterparts? In fact, the wealth gap between whites and blacks--with the average white family now having about eleven times the net worth of the average black family--continues to grow, even as income gaps for similarly educated families with similar background characteristics have shrunk.

    Furthermore, poc's aren't able to participate in the healthcare, educational, criminal justice, housing, or employment systems the way ppl with white privilege can. You simply want to ignore injustice -- you can bury your head in the sand all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that it exists.

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  11. I often encounter white people who wonder if I'm really white, and if I am, why in the world I hate myself so much.

    Yeah, it's a puzzle. Because usually when someone is comfortable discussing the facts, that's because they are not paralyzed by negative emotions about those facts.

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  12. Dylan, again you misunderstand the distinction between European, Euro-American, and/or Western Culture, and the construct of "whiteness."

    Whiteness is not, in and of itself, a culture. Rather, it is a cultural artifact, the product of a culture (predominantly British culture, if one wants to be specific). Deconstructing the conceptual framework of "whiteness" is not, in any real sense, the same thing as asserting that Euro-American culture has no value.

    For one thing, look at the sheer folly of referring to a unified white culture. In America, we associate whiteness with European heritage, but Europe has no unified culture. French culture, Spanish culture, German culture, all of these are very different from one another. Even within the British Isles, the cultures are very different from one another. Why do you think the Welsh are so adamant that they not be called English?

    Whiteness is not about culture. Whiteness is about supremacy, and control. It was created, artificially, as a justification for the creation of and continuation of African slavery.

    America was founded upon Enlightenment principles of individual equality. The only way to reconcile that concept with the existence of slavery was to categorize the slaves as something separate and apart from "men", something not endowed by the Creator with the same inalienable rights as white people. If African slaves were not part of some inferior "other", then they would logically have to be entitled to those aforementioned inalienable rights.

    Over time, slavery was transformed into a hereditary status arising out of African ancestry. Maintaining one's status as "white" was necessary to maintain one's status as a free man. To be "tainted" by Afrian blood was to be subject to enslavement.

    Whiteness was (and is) a tool of control, not just control over non-white people, but control over non-privileged whites. In a way, it's a sick form of social contract: the superior status of whiteness is conferred, in exchange for loyalty to the doctrines underlying whiteness, namely that white people are naturally entitled to certain privileges, and non-whites must accept a lesser role in society.

    It is also a means of keeping the white lower class in line: by throwing them the "bone" of whiteness, the upper classes distract them from paying attention to just how much they have been exploited. "I may be poor, but at least I'm white" was a substitute for a more dangerous line of reasoning: "I'm poor...and why am I poor? Who benefits from my poverty? Who is working against my interests?"

    And yes, under the mainstream racial paradigm, I am considered "white."

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  13. @One Drop
    For one thing, look at the sheer folly of referring to a unified white culture. In America, we associate whiteness with European heritage, but Europe has no unified culture. French culture, Spanish culture, German culture, all of these are very different from one another. Even within the British Isles, the cultures are very different from one another. Why do you think the Welsh are so adamant that they not be called English?

    You can't separate whiteness from European culture. Yes you are right, the different countries of Europe have different languages, histories as well as cultures, but one thing they all have in common: Eurocentrism, with that comes othering and whiteness.

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  14. one thing they all have in common: Eurocentrism, with that comes othering and whiteness

    That is a good point. I was wondering how one really would disentangle the two, European culture (even with its numerable subcultures) and whiteness.

    I agree with one drops description of whiteness, although I also see it as being an expansion of something more, as JW described above.

    I have been reading this blog for several days now. I even decided to start at the beginning and try to read it up to present. One thing I have been wondering about is the rather unified description of whiteness, its traits and characteristics, the ethnic tendencies and habits that it carries, and yet I have also seen it consistently denied as a unifying theme. It isn't a culture has been hammered home pretty effectively on here. Yet I just can't help feeling like what is being described is something awfully similar to a culture, to the point where I sometimes wonder at the "apparent" discrepancy between the descriptions of whiteness and the denial of it as a culture. I would really like to see that discussed.

    Oh, and this is my first comment, so I feel like I'm calling into a radio show or something, "first time caller, long time listener..."

    Lots of thanks to Macon for this blog and all of the effort that has gone into it.

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  15. Good discussion here so far, thank you all. And hello, linden branch--I'm glad to have provided you with what sounds like a lot of hours of intriguing reading material.

    The claim that there is no such thing as white culture is a common presumption in recent analyses of whiteness. I guess whether that's strictly true depends on one's particular definition of culture. When I say there is no such thing as strictly white culture, by "culture" I mean any set of consciously agreed-upon and enacted behaviors and traditions that is commonly referred to as "culture" with an adjective before it--Irish culture, corporate culture, African American culture, Japanese culture, country club culture, Appalachian culture, Southern (which in America, usually means White Southern culture), Goth culture, biker culture, and so on. Whether some of those are actually "cultures" is also debatable, but more to the point, any of them that is practiced by white people is a usually a certain kind of white culture, not simply white culture.

    I think this lack of "simply white culture" happened because whiteness itself was often defined by negation--as what it's not, rather than what it is. I. H. Lopez's book White By Law, for example, is especially good on this. As he explains, until 1954, for immigrants to become American "citizens," one of the things tha they had to prove about themselves was that they were "white." But they could not do so by proving that they fit a list of "white" attributes--there was no such list. They instead had to prove that they did NOT fit into any other non-white category; if they didn't, then they could be declared "white," and thus were granted citizenship. So this is another case where whiteness itself is an empty category--it exists by not being something else, rather than something that it specifically "is."

    Assimilation for Europeans has worked the same way, largely as a process of specifically not being and acting in the ethnically/nationally markable ways that one displayed before, and by picking up vaguely "American" ways of being instead, rather than specifically "white" ways.

    I mean to write on this blog mostly about common white tendencies, many of which are enacted across the white participants in various cultures, or subcultures, and across various (though not always all--perhaps never all) social classes, genders, and sexualities. So again, I don't see those tendencies or habits as examples of a single "white culture."

    I hope that helps, and if you have a definition of culture that you see at play on this blog that would mean there is a purely "white culture," I'd be glad to hear of it.

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  16. Who elected you spokesperson for all minorities?

    You got jokes, Dylan. At least Macon doesn't feel like you're ordering him to respond to you. But then that kind of analysis would put a wrench in your fabricated and all so typical nonsense of Blacks, etc. as the "weak victims" Macon is angling to be a spokesperson for even as it supports another aspect of your critique.

    So, obviously, I won't knock all of your observations. Some are either readily apparent or, if nothing else, to be expected. I will debunk the one bit of silliness, though.

    You speak out of that common ignorance that assumes that generalizations are inherently wrong but there is no way to even begin have a concept of a race or culture without making generalizations.

    There are such things as common tendencies. There are public opinion polls published all the time that stipulate to them. In order to dispute something you figure Macon has made some error in reporting said common tendencies then its incumbent on you to illustrate how that is not so. You failed with your crack about his post regarding Jews.

    I'd imagine I'd be troubled by some of the language if I was White. I'm troubled by it as an African-American who appreciates the whole Whiteness project. But then I question a lot of the ways people tend to say things -- i.e. the common ways in which people tend to speak about certain things often with thinking about what they are saying.

    I'll just say that my understanding of Whiteness is that it's about a consciousness or a lack of consciousness among so-called Whites that has to do with race and culture. So, if any thing, it's a certain dysfunctional or less than optimal consciousness rather than culture per se that's being examined and ultimately rejected when necessary.

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  17. Perhaps a more effective way of looking at this would be to say that whiteness is not a culture, it is a particular way of viewing and placing value upon culture.

    Whiteness is the assumption that what is normative and acceptable without question is Euro-American culture, or, even more specifically, Anglo-Saxon culture. I think a case could even be made that the concept of whiteness is specific to the Anglo-Saxon Protestants, hence all of the "controversy" over the idea of electing an Irish Catholic President in 1960.

    According to the normative model of whiteness, all other cultures, all other peoples, are measured in comparison to Anglo-Saxon criteria. If you look back at the reactions to various European ethnic groups coming into America, the negative statements were virtually always observations of ways in which these cultures diverged from Anglo-Saxon culture, starting first with language, then with religion, then with varying modes of expressive behavior. These new groups only gained acceptance by adhering to Anglo-Saxon standards.

    Most perniciously, though, whiteness is the notion that there is something pure, and sacrosanct, about European blood (and in this context we are talking more broadly about European heritage, not solely Anglo-Saxon heritage) that must not be tainted by the blood of the "other", namely Africans. It is the idea that there is a superior social status to which one is entitled if, and only if, one is not impure in the sense of having African blood.

    This notion that African blood carried with it a built-in lower social status was a core justification for the persistence of African slavery after the Revolution. African blood, by definition, placed a person outside of the circle of "all men" who are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights.

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  18. So again, I don't see those tendencies or habits as examples of a single "white culture."

    The same that there is no single Black culture, Middle East culture, Asian culture etc., even if some/many whites think that way.
    But there are common roots of every white culture, this roots go back to Europe, Eurocentrism (again;-)
    There are similar or even equal attitutes - how to see the world and how whites as a group interact with other people, nature etc. Regardless where Europeans went - they conquered and forced their culture and belief system on others. Let this be Australia, South Africa, Congo, Namibia, America, Canada etc.
    Culture exists based on traditions which are passed on from one generation to the next. Europeans took their culture whereever they went, they never gave it up. They never assimilated or integrated into an already existing native people's culture.
    Political systems, economic systems, Christianity, architecture, art, clothing, values etc, there is something like a European culture = white culture, only with specific differences due to different living conditions.

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  19. Macon, I have learned new things about how whites think from reading your blog since discovering it several weeks ago. For this I am appreciative.

    I'm not surprised you're beginning to get blowback from some of your own people; if anything I'm surprised it took this long. It will continue and get worse if you write a book - which I encourage you to do.

    I believe there's an audience for it, but also an audience who have bought into one of greatest lies of the century: anyone who criticizes racism is a racist.

    We saw this happen recently with Rev. Wright and Father Pflegar. They spoke the truth and were beaten with it. I'm not comparing them or you to Jesus, but keep in mind what happened to him for doing the same thing... and thus, you are in good company.

    Stay strong,

    ~ Kit

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  20. The book is writing itself!, Macon. May you be amazed to see it happen!

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  21. Macon -

    I'm white (British). I've been reading this blog for a week or 2 now and have read all the back posts.

    I haven't found anything you've written to show self-hatred and it hasn't made me feel hatred for my white self. It has, though, made me consider many things things that my whiteness (my privilege) can often blind me too. Because privilege in all its incarnations works to do just that. You rarely notice when you have it, rather you notice when you do not (I feel that it is like everyone is driving down a road which is incredibly bumpy, but some of us have better suspension in our cars, so we just don't notice).

    The invisibility of it (to the privileged) is the reason that the conversation needs to take place. I don't want to be blind. I don't see how this makes me hate myself...

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  22. I think it's mostly white people who want to laugh at white people in terms of their being white, rather than take that whiteness seriously.

    Thanks. I've never thought about it like that, but I think that statement is 100% accurate.

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  23. hey macon, i've been following you here and over at racialicious. i think you have some great observations, but as i said there, my greatest quibble is that you often conflate race with class. you address that a bit here, by pointing out that you are looking at a certain "whiteness," but i wonder if by doing so you blur the stripped down universal issues that surround "public perception by others as white" with the equally relevant issues of class privilege. but i apreciate but you do, please keep on doing it.

    and briefly, @one drop ... re:
    "Most perniciously, though, whiteness is the notion that there is something pure, and sacrosanct, about European blood ...that must not be tainted by the blood of the "other", namely Africans." ... naw. i just don't think so. i'd argue whiteness is about presentation, if we're going to get into it. this is a little too arcane to really explain knee-jerk responses to the "other." i think the other stuff you said was pretty spot on, but reading your comments, when you drop this in, it just sounds like "a big theory" you have. skews your credibility.

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  24. ..i forgot to tick 'email follow-up comments ... ok.

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  25. I just came across this and wanted to affirm what you are doing -- the honesty especially.

    I am white, and see whiteness as a status, comparable to aristocracy. As with aristocracy, there is a myth that all whites are related or have some common roots. But no one was white before around 1600 or so, and before that certainly Greeks, now considered white, had much more in common (genetically as well as culturally and historically) with say Iranians, let alone Syrians, than they did with Scandinavians. For that matter, we know that people have in various ways been declared white despite previously having a different racial status (not just the Japanese in apartheid So. Africa, but it's a good example.)

    Since this is a status based largely on myths, it's certainly nothing to be proud of or even to connect to. If I found out tomorrow I was the twelfth Earl of Pomfreyshire, I wouldn't feel a sudden kinship with the rest of the House of Lords.

    But of course, I do have to come to terms with my whiteness, because it is still being created every day. The insistence in this discussion that it isn't about whiteness, it's about money or gender -- when it is clearly about all of them - is an indication of the constantly self-reproducing defense of whiteness.

    Sorry to go off into jargon. I am kind of self-taught too.

    Some folks may be interested in my journey, at my (nonblog) site www.user.shentel.net/llyates

    Also, a group that I belong to and have learned a lot from deals with (watch out) reparations
    www.reparationsthecure.org

    One aspect of my journey is that I went to school as a child in Southeast Asia. I think someone referred to the difference when you are among people of other races/cultures/statuses for a reason, rather than as a consumer of differences.

    Anyway, enough for now. I will be back.

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  26. Hi Larry,

    Thanks for sharing the historical perspective. I certainly agree that whiteness is a "relatively" new construct, but do you think that we could still understand it as being rooted in, or branching out from, the larger trunk of eurocentrism? I think that this is something of what JW was getting at.

    Also, I don't think anyone is denying the effects of whiteness. But talk about money and gender is part of the discussion, especially since these can be factors that influence our behavior in similar ways to whiteness (i.e., elitist attitudes and a certain blindness caused by feelings of superiority). I think, rather than distracting from the conversation about whiteness, a careful consideration of these other influences will both illuminate the interconnectivity between them as well as heighten the distinctions that make whiteness what it is and help us to better understand and counter act it in our own lives and within the wider social context around us.

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  27. @linden branch ... that's a good way to make the distinction, thanks.

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  28. I just now noticed Larry Yates post. Thanks for dropping by, Larry. I guess I'll have to see if CURE has some new content.

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  29. Nquest, why are you thanking Larry for dropping by someone else's blog, as if it's your own blog? That's just, weird.

    And you still can't see why people would get the impression that you dominate the comments here?

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  30. Me thanking Yates from dropping by equates to me "dominating" comments here?

    I'll accept that you can find my thanks "weird" but this idea that I dominate comments is absurd, especially you making the comment here.

    Frankly, I don't care what people say or what impression they get about me. I just like people to substantiate what they say and make sense when they say things.

    So here's your chance: explain how I "dominate" comments here.

    Me thanking Yates... weird, inappropriate, whatever... Not going to do it.

    As the saying goes around here... COME OUT WITH IT. I mean, do you feel "dominated"??? What??

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  31. Also, there are three sentences in my thank you post. The 3rd one answers your question.

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