Sunday, December 13, 2009

implicitly deny that other people are fully human

For many decades during the last century, Preston Wilcox was a Harlem-based activist, scholar, and community organizer. In 1969, Wilcox was leading a discussion group on "Black Heritage" at a summer camp for teenagers, and the topic was a cartoon book entitled Black Is (by Turner Brown, Jr.). Wilcox later wrote that the teenagers found the book unsatisfying, and so they proposed another as an answer to it. Their idea resulted in another cartoon book, White Is, which is about what it means to be white. White Is was published by Grove Press in 1970.

Wilcox served as the book's editor, and in his introduction he writes,

White Is is not a sequel to Black Is. It seeks to produce a different perspective. Black Is elicited white sympathy and Black self-pity. White Is is designed to provide white Americans with a mirror with which to examine themselves.

The full meaning of "white is" unfolded as the young people involved in writing the book began to see and identify the meaning of being white in America. The group, composed of Jews, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Indians, WASPS, and Chicanos, discovered that they were forming a portrait of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant "authentic American deception" that had blinded them all. . . . it was the first time that many of the young people had engaged the issue of their own right to be human in such an open setting.


At some points, White Is is a clear product of its time (for example: "White is allowing the blacks to fight for their freedom in Vietnam"). In many other ways, the book remains an effective and instructive mirror for today's white people. For the purposes of this post on a common and ongoing white tendency, I'd like to focus on this single image and caption from White Is:



"White is a flesh colored band aid"


The point that I see this 40-year-old, teenager-inspired cartoon making is that ordinary, everyday elements of daily life have been arranged to benefit white people, and not necessarily other people. If something as simple as a bandage indicates that "white" is the assumed default racial status in America, then in what other hundreds, even thousands of ways is that true? And what are the effects on non-white people, of this mountain of evidence that in their own country and society, they've been placed somewhere off to the side of center stage?

White people tend to assume, often without realizing that they're doing so, that the ways the world around them has been established, organized, and supplied are the most convenient and best ways for people in general. However, those ways are often instead the most convenient and best ways for white people, and not for others. And yet, white people usually fail to even see that.

The "band aid" that the black man in the cartoon is wearing is "flesh-colored." The problem (which you'd think the manufacturers of bandages would've seen early on as an obvious problem) is that a "flesh-colored" bandage doesn't match the skin color of a lot of non-white people. I don't know if the "band aid" in question was actually marketed as "flesh-colored," but I'm pretty sure if ordinary white people of the time were asked to describe its color, that's the term that many or most would've used. What this means is that many white minds accepted a delusion that many non-white minds did not -- the false notion that "flesh" is "white." The logical-but-absurd extension of that term is that if human "flesh" is actually "white," then non-white people aren't actually human.

Again, it's a profound set of points that Preston Wilcox and the teenagers he spoke with made over 40 years ago, points that can still be hard to see -- for white people, that is. Surely non-white people often have no trouble seeing that what white people think of as normal and natural ways of doing things are actually common white ways of doing things. Just as this conception of "flesh" actually stands for "white" flesh, so "white" commonly stands for "normal." The word "white" itself often gets replaced by the word "normal" -- in white minds. But again, often not in non-white minds, or so I'd guess.

The African American scholar and teacher bell hooks has noticed this difference between the minds of her white and her non-white students. While whites never actually forget that they're "white," many do tend to become so accustomed to thinking of themselves as "normal" instead of as "white" that when others point out that their being white has real significance in their lives, they're dumbfounded.

As hooks writes:

In those classrooms there have been heated debates among students when white students respond with disbelief, shock, and rage, as they listen to black students talk about whiteness, when they are compelled to hear observations, stereotypes, etc. that are offered as “data” gleaned from close scrutiny and study.

Usually, white students respond with naive amazement that black people critically assess white people from a standpoint where “whiteness” is the privileged signifier. Their amazement that black people watch white people with a critical “ethnographic” gaze, is itself an expression of racism.

Often their rage erupts because they believe that all ways of looking that highlight difference subvert the liberal belief in a universal subjectivity (we are all just people) that they think will make racism disappear. They have a deep emotional investment in the myth of “sameness,” even as their actions reflect the primacy of whiteness as a sign informing who they are and how they think. Many of them are shocked that black people think critically about whiteness because racist thinking perpetuates the fantasy that the Other who is subjugated, who is subhuman, lacks the ability to comprehend, to understand, to see the working of the powerful.

Even though the majority of these students politically consider themselves liberals and anti-racists, they too unwittingly invest in the sense of whiteness as mystery.


One of the crucial things that hooks highlights here is the validity of this racially critiquing non-white gaze upon white people. Why is it that whites are generally oblivious to that gaze? mthgk, a commenter on this blog, once wrote, with succinct precision, what I think is an answer: "White people don't seem to understand that the power structure they have created, predicated on whiteness itself, forces non-whites to categorize whites racially." It seems that white people don't know they're being watched because they don't know their own strength.

Again, just about every white American is of course aware of their group membership -- of their being "white." The point here is more that because their racial status rarely causes them problems, they don't think about it much -- in most cases, I'd bet, not even once a week, let alone once a day.  And to the extent that they don't think about it much, they instead think of themselves as just plain "people." They also think of other white people as just plain people. But then other people are certain kinds of people -- "black" people, or "Mexican" people, or "Asian American" people, and so on. So in that state of mind, who becomes just plain, normal people -- that is, "people" -- and who becomes abnormal -- that is, not quite "people"?

In that common white state of mind, to be able to perceive oneself as a member of the norm, instead of as a suspect-at-best and less-than-human-at-worst outsider, is a "privilege." Privileges are what they are because other people don't have them. More specifically, in terms of race, privileges are what white people have because they, as a group, have denied them to non-white people. As a group, they have had, and still have, that power. In this sense, then, the white "norm" actually isn't a norm -- it's a special, privileged, and empowered status. Again, though, the true, enormous significance of that status to their own lives rarely occurs to most white people. And in a lot of cases, when that significance gets pointed out to them, they react like bell hooks' students did, with disbelief, anger, and frustration.

Actually, for many decades, the company that made Crayola Crayons produced a crayon labeled "Flesh." As the company's web site now notes, that name "was voluntarily changed to 'peach' in 1962, partially as a result of the U. S. Civil Rights Movement."

In 1988, Peggy McIntosh published an article that eventually put the concept of "white privilege" on the cultural map. She identified and clarified the extensive presence of white privilege in America's social landscape, especially by providing a list of 46 examples from her own life. Here's just one of them:

I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.

Nowadays, 21 years later, it's easier for non-white Americans to find matching blemish cover and bandages. Indeed, the term "flesh-colored" seems a thing of the past, a relic as bygone as the equally nonsensical one-drop rule.

But then, what kind of slip-up was it when an Associated Press reporter recently described the color of a dress, worn by Michelle Obama no less, with that apparently undead term?



The first line of reporter Samantha Critchell's AP story about this night in the Obama's lives read, "First lady Michelle Obama chose to wear a gleaming silver-sequined, flesh-colored gown Tuesday night to the first state dinner held by her husband's administration." Critchell's mistake was later changed, to "cream-colored." That she wrote "flesh-colored" in the first place, and that the phrase got past at least one editor, both suggest that in some minds at least, the default color for skin, or "flesh," is still a color close to "white" skin. It's rather amazing that Critchell wrote that when the "flesh-colored" dress was worn by Michelle Obama, a person whose "flesh" is far away from that color, a seemingly obvious contrast that again renders the term "flesh-colored" absolutely nonsensical. 

So that term is easy enough to expose as bizarre nonsense (if you ever hear anyone use it, all you have to do is ask, "What? "Flesh-colored'? And just whose flesh would that color be?"). It's still very useful, though, as an example of the power of white presumptions. Presumptions, that is, of social, cultural, and political centrality. This is also the power to symbolically, and in some ways literally, obliterate the humanity of non-white people.

One way that obliteration occurs is when white people think they're talking about just plain "people," but they're actually talking about "white people." I used to do that, and I probably still do in some situations. But now I find that common white tendency chilling. Frightening. White speakers, and usually their white listeners, often fail to realize that their universalizing assumption that the group of unmarked "white" people they're talking about does not include all people. And that it actively excludes them. I suspect that on the other hand, non-white people often do realize that's what's happening -- that the "people" in question are actually white people, and that non-white people have been erased from the picture.

Recently, this presumptuous and obliterating white habit jumped out at me when I was watching a movie set in the American South. I sometimes like documentaries, and this one's actually supposed to be about "the South." It has an on-camera narrator, a white singer/musician who travels around rural areas and pontificates poetically on "the mood" of "the South," and by extension, on "Southerners." However, as I kept watching it became clear that those who this wandering narrator was really describing, but never identified as such, were "white Southerners."

I started watching for black people in this moody portrait of "the South" and "its people." By the end, after the wandering narrator had met dozens of individuals and crowds full of many more, only two black men had appeared. Each of these men surfaced briefly in the background, only to vanish without a word. Perhaps, although they'd probably lived in the South all their lives, the filmmakers didn't deem them "Southern" enough (and perhaps this was an unconscious thing -- perhaps), because they weren't "white."

I hope to write in more detail about that movie in another post. The typical white blindness that film displayed -- to whiteness itself by not actually naming it; to the underlying presumption that white people are the default for just plain "people"; and to the blithe power on display in its shoving aside of nearly all black Southern people, denying their very presence and humanity -- all of that eventually became infuriating.

When will my people ever stop acting like they're the only full-fledged human beings on earth?

82 comments:

  1. Many other products are marketed in the same exclusivist way. Foundation, stockings, eye shadow, underwear, are being marketed as "flesh-colored", "nude", or "natural". And you don't think about that until someone points it out. I made the same gaffe with my boyfriend (who is Black and dark-skinned), when he said he wears black undershirts under white shirts, and I told him (being used to dating White men) that a white undershirt might blend in better. It just didn't occur to me, because I automatically went to the clothing rules that apply to White people (white underwear under white clothes, etc). Automatisms can be very powerful, but once you realize them, I think it's a small effort to try to change that and avoid awkward situations in the future.

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  2. I will respond more to this tomorrow, but briefly right now:

    >> "Indeed, the term "flesh-colored" seems a thing of the past"

    My skin is so pale I am practically translucent, and the Willow-colored bras I buy are sold as, depending on brand, the colors "nude" and "flesh."

    Really.

    Although this gives me hope for humanity.

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  3. This is one of the areas of my anti-racism that I focus heavily on. And this comment is meant for other white people who may just be realizing that they do this from time to time.

    I'm now purposely hyper-alert to what is deemed normal but it's really just white. I say purposely because there have been times in the past where I thought "normal" or said "normal" when I really meant "white" and one day I finally caught myself. I actually sat there and thought about it. And I really explored it. To the point of now I can pick this sort of thing out left and right.

    I understand that the point of this was to also say that it dehumanizes POC when we name things "flesh" and "nude". That is implicit of a white humanness and draws the line to start the othering of POC.

    I'd like to add what I feel are relevant parts of "White is" or simply white privilege.

    White is - knowing that when you take a History class that the people who wrote the books and who are referenced in the books probably have the same color skin as you.

    Black is - knowing that there is an option to take a Black History class but that it's not required ...and that you will probably rarely to never see a white face in there voluntarily.

    To me, as a future educator, that is so tragic. That tells POC, in this case black people, that their history isn't a relevant part of our culture. It's not important for white to know as well as they know white history. It others and obscures black history - and white administrators think they're doing black people a huge favor by having the class when it just says "You're not part of our history." What whites will include is a blurb about slavery, do the ol' white guilt trip and move on to the next dead white guy's story.

    I have made a HUGE comment before on my beef along this line about my field - English and Literature. Shit like this, does so much to hurt EVERYONE but it's done in the name of "the right thing". What I would like to see is educators and administrators catering their history classes to the people who live in their areas. I want to know their histories too. I want my students to understand the people who live around them. I don't need them to feel sorry about slavery and act like there's nothing they can do about it. I need them to look at POC and see "normal" not "other".

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  4. Reply to Victoria:
    Snooping (or "trolling") about some extremist Republican forums a bit, one of the deflections to racism is that Black Pride is a false contrivance and that African Americans really have nothing to be "proud" about.

    Putting aside the fact that people should simply be proud because outside forces work to make them feel shame, that's actually one of the damaging effects of not teaching the history of African American figures as a norm in schools.

    Not to mention, only teaching the history of one group feeds that group's notion that America is "their" country.

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  5. an example of this (that whiteness is seen as "neutral") is when my white friends tell me that race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality shouldn't matter at all, that we're all human beings and they say I should stop calling myself Indian, Muslim, and South Asian, because I'm "denying myself as a human being."

    That kind of thinking always enrages me. No, it's because THEY consider being white to be NEUTRAL and they don't realize that it's different for me and for many POC living in a country where politics and entertainment (film, TV, music, radio, theatre, etc) are dominated by WHITE people.

    If THEY had to move to a different country and live there for the rest of their lives and struggle to learn a foreign language so unfamiliar to them, try to assimilate into a culture that'll never fully accept them, then they'll realize and understand how it feels to be different.

    I'm sorry if my comment makes no sense, but I'm not able to properly word my feelings today.

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  6. Subtle racism... the kind that people, when I say people I mean white people, will probably say, 'mountain out of a molehill', 'who cares', 'you're too sensitive' etc

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  7. The large irony is that white skin is genetically not "normal" or common and is a skin deficiency of melanin. The global racial minority is white people. Yet , everyone else is a "minority"? Craziness...

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  8. Hello, I read this blog often, but never comment. I live in Jackson, MS and I read a new article today about a man(assuming he is white)painted himself black to rob a pharmacy and was caught. It is funny how the story just calls him a "man" and not a white man. So I thought it went along with the discussion here. http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20091214/NEWS/91214002/1263/RSS

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  9. I used to work at a well-known American department store. One thing that I noticed was that even though they sold some things in variations of "light nude" and "dark nude", white people would always call the paler one "nude" and the one darker than their skin "brown", even if it was only a few shades off from their own.

    DIMA, I hear you. It makes me so angry to hear people say this, they underlying message is always "Just be like me and there won't be any problems!" Most white people will never have the experience of walking into a room and being the only 1 out of 100 to be different.

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  10. I really liked this post.

    I've recently been thinking a lot about the assumption of white as default, ever since my white friend who insists he's not racist got mugged on the bus by a black gentleman.

    He didn't seem to understand that his emphasis on the fact that the guy was black was racist in itself, because if he was mugged by a white guy, the guy's race would be a non-issue.

    Although, I've never considered that the "flesh" colored band aids and "nude" colored makeup and stockings reinforce the concept of white as default. It really gave me a lot to think about.

    It almost makes me relieved that my make up is not called nude, but rather pale ivory. =]

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  11. Awesome!

    I think tons of white american people also equate "Americans" with "white people" without thinking about it and I think the deeper meaning is what is said in this post.

    Privilege to me was best described as a one-way mirror with the privileged individual on the reflective side and all under-privileged being able to see the "other side". It's really hard for privileged identities to see the non-privileged identities side but easy going the other way.

    I firmly believe that the understanding of privilege and how it works systematically, institutionally, and individually is the solution to our problems.

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  12. @ DIMA:

    >> "my white friends tell me that race, religion, ethnicity, or nationality shouldn't matter at all, that we're all human beings and they say I should stop calling myself Indian, Muslim, and South Asian, because I'm "denying myself as a human being."

    Ah, well, clearly, the next time you hear one of them say, "Merry Christmas," remind her/him/zir that religion shouldn't matter and "you're denying yourself as a human being."

    Okay, yeah, that was sarcastic, but I have actually found that catching people saying "Merry Christmas" is a really good way to call bullshit on people who think they have transcended categories. Sometimes they give me the "but by now it's a secular holiday" (which is true to a certain extent), but you can usually bust that by pointing out that five seconds ago they were humming "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or something like that.

    ~~

    @ Victoria:

    I wish you so, so much the best of luck when you start designing and teaching your own English lit courses. I am only a lowly TA, but in my department no one else knows enough about African and African diaspora religions to teach a class in them, so I get to. And let me tell you, those discussions--the students being mostly POC--are a WORLD of difference from the when I do guest lecture stints for the other TAs' 101 courses. I took Af-Am history in high school (let's not give me too much credit here; I took AAH to get out of home ec), and, honestly, I don't remember the same gulf in student attitude between AAH and when we discussed African-American issues in White People History class.

    Oh, and just to go OT for a moment, let me just mention that AP offers history tests in U.S. History (which I took, and it's White People Plus Slavery; I'm not even sure the Trail of Tears gets a mention), World History, and European History. And top colleges pretty much expect applicants to have taken as many AP classes as possible. Now, even if you have some white kids who really dig Africa or Asia, or POC who would maybe kinda like to learn about their own history for once, if it comes down to getting that AP on their transcript and getting the bump to their GPA that goes with it...it's going to lose out.

    /tangent
    /vent

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  13. I love to purposefully use the descriptor "white" instead of just saying "people" and watching white people get really uncomfortable.

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  14. I love to purposefully use the descriptor "white" instead of just saying "people" and watching white people get really uncomfortable.

    What's funny about it is that I only omit "White" from "people" around White people. I know I do it, and it's deliberate because the vast majority of the time I can predict what's going to come flying out of a White person's mouth if I'm completely honest about my observations of White people. So I just say "people" even though I usually mean "White people" because I'm usually not up to a round of Let's Get On the Clue Train.

    Around POC friends and family, I'm pretty frank about it.

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  15. @ DIMA

    I never knew that being Indian, South Asian, and/or Muslim was MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE from being a human being.

    /sarcasm

    Idiots.

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  16. This is very true and powerful. I remember being in maybe first grade coloring with two white friends asked me for a flesh colored crayon and I asked if they wanted brown or peach... you'd have thought I had 15 heads. And that is at 6 years old! Jeez.
    I also remember once in college when a friend of one of my roommates was visiting for the weekend and though at that point in my life I let almost anything short of the "n" word or someting really bad go, this friend blew my mind and made me actually leave for the evening. Both of my roomies were white and one had extremely dark hair that could be called black and for some reason the two of them and their boyfriends had a constant argument about whether it was black or dark brown (I was in the black, but who the f cares and if you want to call it dark brown that's fine too camp) and this debate came up when girlfriend was visiting. Girlfriend's response "normal people don't have black hair!" I almost choked on my own saliva and at that I leapt off the bed, grabbed my wallet and coat and said I was going to the bar and left without another word and didn't ask if any of them wanted to come. If that was now, I'm sure I would have said something but at the time I just knew I had to leave before I became a stereotypical angry black woman. Could not BELIEVE she said that, and I'm sure neither she nor the others knew what got me miffed enough to just leave.

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  17. Oh @DIMA, you make perfect sense girl, perfect sense.

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  18. One time I said to a brown-skinned acquaintance, "Why don't they have a flesh-colored crayon? I'm tired of just using peach." She was like, "What about flesh like mine?" and I replied that there was already a brown crayon. Later I couldn't believe I'd said something so stupid and racist.

    What I was thinking was that peach was a little too dark and orange-y for the very pale skin tones I had in mind (like my own), but obviously, implicit in that thinking was that "flesh" was pale. And, having grown up seeing mostly white faces, I do tend to think of pale skin as the norm. It's a habit, but fortunately that particular habit is relatively easy to counteract once you know it's there.

    As for history, I do think of American history as mainly involving white people. Protestantism started among whites, and the US as a political body is descended from white colonies, and the founding fathers were all white, and the Enlightenment ideals they used came from white people. And so on, until you reach the Civil War, and even then the main actors are white. But I'm not a history buff, so for all I know, I'm just a product of white-centric history teaching. I think it's an excellent idea to teach history in a more integrated way.

    Macon, didn't you know? There's no such thing as a black Southerner - there are only black people. Regional identity only applies to whites.

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  19. RVCBard, If I'm not feeling particularly confrontational, I do the same thing. I just say "people" (unless I'm in a POC space).

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  20. This post about white equally normal/default just reminded me of something that happened over the weekend that ticked me off. I was browsing through the Christmas decorations at Target, when I came upon a young (20s) white couple looking at angel tree toppers and sort of snickering about the large selection of black angels. One of them said something to the effect of, "that's weird/different," I guess because angels are white?! Well, when they saw me come around the corner, they suddenly changed their tones and began to say things like, "but uhhh, I guess that's cool; angels could be black or white" and then they scurried away. I wonder where that conversation would have gone if I hadn't come upon them.

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  21. Black is - knowing that there is an option to take a Black History class but that it's not required ...and that you will probably rarely to never see a white face in there voluntarily.

    To me, as a future educator, that is so tragic. That tells POC, in this case black people, that their history isn't a relevant part of our culture. It's not important for white to know as well as they know white history. It others and obscures black history - and white administrators think they're doing black people a huge favor by having the class when it just says "You're not part of our history." What whites will include is a blurb about slavery, do the ol' white guilt trip and move on to the next dead white guy's story.


    What that tells a lot of BLACK people is that for all their non-racist blathering, WHITE people do not consider us to be real Americans and therefore our history is not real American history. And this adds to the ocean of bad blood and bad faith that exists between Whites and Blacks.

    Another thing that Whites do that highlights how they view White as the default is how they describe beautiful people. Every time a White person has described a woman as beautiful to me they ALWAYS said "She's got blond hair and blue eyes." Often, they use no other descriptors. I'm supposed to accept that Aryan features are the pinnacle of beauty. They REALLY show their White supremacy when describing mixed Black folks or Blacks with non-Black (sub-Saharan, West African) features. Every time I've heard a White person describe their good looks, they've always stressed their non-Black features, their light eyes, their light skin, their non-kinky-coily hair.

    The thing is when they do it to ME. They're basically telling me that MY looks are definitely NOT beautiful to them. In fact, they're often hella confused when they DO find a non-mixed (and non-mixed-looking) Black person, especially a woman, attractive.

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  22. I can’t begin to tell you what its like to change the station on my television and see white face after white face, after white face. White people, selling everything from cars to feminine hygiene products. As a child I used to think black people neither bathed nor combed their hair because all I saw on television were white models in skin care commercials, or hair care commercials. Brylcreem and Alberto VO-5 come to mind.

    If a black woman was represented, she was usually cast as a heavyset woman who apparently loved to clean house; like the Pine-Sol Lady. But I got the feeling that she was being portrayed more like a domestic, because the target audience was white. That maybe the only way whites could relate to the black woman on screen was if she was viewed only in an inferior position; rather than being seen as an equal.

    On Saturday morning the kid commercials would be in full swing with white kids playing on endless tile and marble floors with their cars. You never saw a black child playing with any toy. If a white girl played with a baby doll it was always blond and blue-eyed. If on those rare occasions a black girl was included in the mix the black doll would be sitting in the background, but it was the white doll that walked talked peed and cried. To a child it was as if the black doll was broken, and just not as good as the blond haired baby doll. Commercials like Six-finger- Red Ball Jets, Johnny speed- and GI Joe only depicted white boys in the ads.

    As a black child you felt left out and unappreciated. Every cartoon- every comic book up until the late 60’s was all white. You felt frustrated but you were powerless to do anything about it. You can’t change anything and all you can do is take it. You can’t complain, because whites will tag you as angry- resentful and racist. I’m 52 and I remember my daughter and their black peers being sent home from high school for allegedly wearing risque clothing. Uniforms considered too tight fitting and such. I remember how often they complained bitterly that the white girls were permitted to wear clothing that would make your jaw drop and yet no action was taken. My girls developed a sincere dislike for the white teachers that allowed such behaviors, as well as the white girls they favored.

    I scoff at the white standard of beauty that tells me the only desirable thing on this planet is a waif-like nymph with the body of a teenage boy. You can complain, but because you’re black you’re not looked on as normal, so whites who disseminate these images don’t have to take you seriously. You’re the one who is in the wrong and it’s simply assumed that white women are normal and therefore more beautiful. Personally- give me a big-butted curvy black woman any day of the week. Just look at how white mainstream publications are portraying our first lady, as if she were a monkey, or that she is abnormal somehow because of her unique beauty. Her big butt is the object of scorn from a people who are used to their first ladies being demure and white.

    “In those classrooms there have been heated debates among students when white students respond with disbelief, shock, and rage, as they listen to black students talk about whiteness, when they are compelled to hear observations, stereotypes, etc. that are offered as “data” gleaned from close scrutiny and study.”

    In mandatory cultural diversity classes at work and in the Navy I have seen white people whom I thought I knew become enraged and outright defensive over the material being presented. They become abrasive and guarded; unable to speak on the subject without getting angry. The class is designed to be confrontational, to expose those long held prejudices that have never been aired. Some whites take it personally and come away from the classes only learning to avoid such classes in future. I hope I haven't offended anyone; its hard to speak on these subjects without feeling a sense of frustration sometimes.

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  23. I've probably banged on about this before here, but evidence of the "default setting" of whiteness pops up in the newspapers almost every day here in Australia. Anytime a POC commits a crime, there is a flurry of comments about ethnic criminality and how immigration rates are too high.

    A white person commits a crime and... it's just a crime. No one seems to ask whether it is a cultural trait of white people to commit crimes.

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  24. @bluey512: You said it - all that history knowledge you listed is the result of a white-centric educational system. I'm no history buff either, but reading 'People's History of the United States' by Howard Zinn (yep- another white guy) gave me a different perspective. Maybe someone else can chime in with some history written by POC as well?

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  25. Lindsay,

    My AP US History textbook was the Zinn book. Definitely different than most history books, but I don't remember it provoking any extreme reactions in the White students in my class. Maybe because there was a roughly equal number of Whites and POC in the class?

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  26. Victor basically hit the nail square on its head. Whiteness isn't normal. Rather, biologically, it's a pigmentation/melanin fault. The sad thing is how it's perceived as normal, despite the contrary. To not be a person of color isn't normal. Blond hair and blue eyes are recessive, not dominant, traits.

    Whites are the minority, not the majority of the Globe. So why are they considered the norm outside of the damaging attainment of violence? Tell an uneducated white person that and look at the shock and horror on their faces.

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  27. This brought to mind an experience from highschool I'd like to share. In one of the first few classes of grade 9 science, we were learning about scientific classification. The teacher had us play a game where one of us would describe three physical features of a classmate (out of a class of about 30) and everyone else would have to guess who it was. I got to describe someone, so I chose a girl that I was just making friends with, who I thought was quite distinctive looking, specifically for her long, slim face, long nose and very large brown eyes. She was Ethiopian. Nobody could guess who I was describing. When I revealed who it was, the teacher said, "Oh, well, uh, you probably should have mentioned the colour of her skin." I didn't tell the teacher that it was a deliberate choice on my part, just to see what would happen.

    To be fair, her skin colour did set her apart from most of the other students in the class,* and is probably something you'd use if you wanted to point her out efficiently. On the other hand, she had a unique face regardless of her skin colour. Highschool was the first time that I actually met and talked to black kids and even to me the proportions of her face stood out over her colouring. She clearly fit the description; assuming that the person described was automatically white unless I specified her skin colour wasn't entirely logical. So it was interesting.

    * It was a Catholic School in a strongly Eastern-European pocket of Toronto. I checked my yearbook, and out of 304 grade nines, 11 were black/had one black parent. Also, my grade had 14 hispanic students, 12 Fillipinos and Fillipinas, 3 Arabs, 2 Persians, and 2 Vietnamese. So approximately 14% students of colour. Additionally, about 15 or so particularly dark-skinned Italians, and dark/Asian-looking Ukrainians who likely don't experience the full range of white privilege.

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  28. Re: Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist

    How do you feel about the question "What are you?" or "Where are you from?" I know a lot of PoC who are upset by such questions because it seems to assume that they aren't Canadian because they aren't white. Although that situation has a different meaning from what you're talking about.

    It's interesting, though, as the bell hooks quote noted, how white people get even more upset when it's implied that they aren't the universal model of anything. I do surveys part time, and some of them end with the question, "In addition to being Canadian, what is your ethnic background? That is, what country did you or your ancestors originally come from?" It's a very carefully worded question, but some people still get really worked up over it. Since the surveys are over the phone, I can't say definitively that it's always white people who get upset, but it is typically people from rural area codes with English last names, who after some prodding sometimes end up choosing "Britain" or "Ireland" or occasionally "Germany". About half the time they refuse to answer anything but Canadian. Which is amusing because while some surveys do have "Canadian" as an option, (as a last resort) not all of them do. So when the respondant insists I enter "Canadian" I ask, "So is that Aboriginal, Metis, or Inuit?" There is a stunned pause. Then they'll begrudgingly admit "British."

    It's funny for me because though I'm white and third generation Canadian, I was brought up to identify as Ukrainian, as was the cohort of second and third generation Ukrainians that I went to school with. It took me a long time to start identifying as Ukrainian-Canadian, once I realized how little I have in common with people who are actually from Ukraine. I don't even speak the language. But for our parents it was very important that we retain that identity, in the face of Soviet attempts to erase Ukrainian nationhood.

    Since I was a kid, I always found it strange when other people didn't know where their family came from, and kind of callous that they didn't seem to care. When a white person told me that they were "just Canadian" I used to start to suspect that they were either ignorant or a liar.

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  29. Re: bluey512
    On American history being white history:
    It depends on how one defines what from history is worth knowing about. History as taught in the West (And I would assume most places, but that's an ungrounded assumption) has generally been the history of kings and politicians, the upper classes. This ignores the body of the nation, the lower classes, and in the case of the United States, slaves, without whom the actions of historical personalities would have been meaningless. Their lives, their work, mattered to the nation, and are a part of it's history. You could also study the history of a certain class of people as a topic unto itself, and important unto itself, rather than deriving its importance from what it meant to the powerful.
    Which is not to say that there were no traditional "historical personalities" who were black. But I'm not familiar with early American history, so I couldn't tell you anything about them.

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  30. "To not be a person of color isn't normal."

    What about people "of color" who are light-skinned (like, say, a lot of Asians)?

    "Whiteness isn't normal. Rather, biologically, it's a pigmentation/melanin fault."

    A "fault" that gave people who possessed it an advantage in certain environments...

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  31. Re: Stickler
    A "fault" that gave people who possessed it an advantage in certain environments...

    Sorry I can't give a source for this, but in a sociology class we read some scholarship that suggested that populations humans around the world differentiated in skin colour not because it provided some kind of evolutionary advantage, but because of sexual selection. That is, because different societies developed different subjective standards of attractiveness, that had little or nothing to do with survival. If you think about it, there is a correlation between skin colour and geography, but it's not the distance of the population from the equator. The boundaries aren't latitudinal, but physical - bodies of water, mountain ranges. Populations vary in colour not based on how close they are to the equator, but based on how isolated they are.

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  32. To me, this is the best explanation I've seen yet about how skin color evolved.

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  33. @ Willow
    What I hope to do is teach Lit with only the literature of POC. But I want to do it without calling it an African-American literature class. I want to see how far I can take that without someone giving me shit about it. I can't WAIT for someone to ask me to teach white literature. Like the students haven't grown up on that since birth. I can't wait for one of my students to ask me why all of the books involve non-white people. I plan to teach this way without saying a single word to anyone about it along the way. I refuse to call attention to race. Mind you, I'm certain with Florida's Sunshine State Standards this will be difficult, plus any school I teach in may have an agenda set up. But you can bet I will find a way to supplement that with what *I* want (poetry, theme, etc.) And what I want is a normal class (read: not a class geared toward white people) that learns about EVERYone. It's one thing to educate POC about themselves and think that you're doing something for them, but if we really want to do something for them and everyone else, white people need to learn this without being asked if they want to learn about it first.

    @ Witchsistah
    Yes! It's a really shitty thing whites do but they think they're "evening the playing field" by doing it. It's like saying, "But the dog has its own house." Yeah, but it's still outside, has no warmth and you wouldn't sleep out there if anyone asked you to. So WTF @ being "so nice" as to give black people their own history class. Please. White people need to learn black history too. If you make the class optional, they won't take it. If you make them take a separate class they resent it. So it just needs to be incorporated to SHOW that blacks are Americans, and they did a whole lot more than be slaves. And since slavery did a pretty fine job of hiding and squelching the achievements of blacks and obliterating as much culture as it could, I think that if we need to look back to Africa instead of just America, that's fine. White people are pretty damned confused about Africa too. We're still being told that we went into Africa to "help them become civilized". You know... kinda like how we're "bringing democracy" to the middle east. I'm going off on a tangent. Sorry.

    As for the ideal beauty subject, what I want to say will cause you to take a drink (it smacks of "I have black friends" and trivializes people I love) so I'll keep that part to myself. But I'll just say that I don't consider white anything the ideal in terms of beauty. I'm lucky to embody many non-white physical traits. And where I grew up my blonde hair wasn't considered a thing of beauty. In fact, it was considered limp and unfortunate that I could do nothing with it except brush and wear. I did so many things so my hair wouldn't look like white people's hair. I permed it, cut it REALLY short and angular, styled it in different ways. But the pictures of me at my prom with finger waves (teen of the 90s) are the quintessential "wow" moment for me. I did learn that there was nothing I could do about my hair, but to this day nothing/no one white crops up in my mind when someone says "beauty". I know that the standard default is white, but I kinda like not falling into that.

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  34. Stickler,

    Asians are people of color, no matter the skin tone variation.

    In addition, the "fault" that causes advantages over others is real, of course; but, it's not a cause celebre.

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  35. honeybrown1976 said...

    In addition, the "fault" that causes advantages over others is real, of course; but, it's not a cause celebre.


    I think Stickler meant environmental advantages (iow - it's better to have light skin in northern climates than dark skin because light skin absorbs more sunlight which increases production of Vitamin D) not advantages over other people.

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  36. We recently had a big celebration in our town and one of the projects was a coffee table type book about the history of the town.

    Many of the "founding families" were discussed, including my own, complete with historical pictures. My name was even mentioned, which was kind of odd, since I'm not that notable, and at 44, not exactly historical either.

    The first thing I noticed as I flipped through the book was that there were hardly any black people in it. Now, I can almost understand why they wouldn't want to highlight slavery times in this type of book. However, by the mid sixties when I was born, there were, and had been, several prominent black families that commanded much respect in our community.

    Many of them were part of the key reason that our town had a relatively smooth transition into the integration of our schools. My elementary school principal was specifically chosen for the job because of the respect he commanded among both black and white people in our town. The transition would surely have been much more difficult without his calm and intelligent way of dealing with people. I didn't see his picture in this book, despite his many years of hard work.

    There were also black men who served on the Town Board, black women who started successful community centers for our youth, black families who ran (and still run) successful business and farms, wonderful teachers who were beloved by many students, and many more. Why were so few of these people included?

    I'm sure it has to do with who was on the committee making the book. White people who went around and spoke to other white people about their history. As has been said, they probably didn't even think about the fact that they weren't being inclusive, but the result was a history that was almost completely "whitewashed".

    It's a history that doesn't even come close to accurately representing my town and many of the people that I grew up with. What a slap in the face to all of my POC friends and neighbors. It really made me think about history and how much the viewpoint of the writer can change the entire perspective of events.

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  37. Elsariel,

    I'm sure, during evolutionary times, it was a benefit in those northern regions. However, I'm referring to the here and now.

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  38. I don't think it matters when or why white skin evolved or whether it's in the global minority or not. People who live in white communities and/or see white people on TV all the time think white skin is normal, because normal is what you see every day.

    As for beauty, I have blond hair and blue eyes and very pale skin, and if you asked me what was pretty about me, I'd list those features. But I consider a wide range of looks to be awesome. From slender to curvy, chocolate-skinned to ivory, all sorts of hairstyles from straight to curly to dreadlocked - they can all be gorgeous. It's never made sense to me to exclude whole races from beauty, because there are beautiful people of all races.

    To say otherwise is like saying that only bunny rabbits are cute, but not kittens. Probably some people have preferences, but on the whole, most people would say they're both pretty damn cute.

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  39. "People who live in white communities and/or see white people on TV all the time think white skin is normal, because normal is what you see every day."

    Quoted for truth.

    I think the media plays a huge part in what people see as "normal". If there were more PoC in prominant roles in film and television, I think that would be a huge step towards seeing many colors as normal instead of just white.

    On a side note: I'm a huge sci-fi/fantasy buff and while I'm starting to see PoC in sci-fi films, I've yet to see diversity in fantasy films. I'm sure it's partly becasue a lot of fantasy takes place in a medieval european setting, but still. It would be so refreshing to see more diversity in that genre!

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  40. I'm a huge sci-fi/fantasy buff and while I'm starting to see PoC in sci-fi films, I've yet to see diversity in fantasy films. I'm sure it's partly becasue a lot of fantasy takes place in a medieval european setting, but still. It would be so refreshing to see more diversity in that genre!

    This is probably a bad time to admit that I love The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth (esp. Vol X thru Vol XII) like nobody's business. Damn. I just outed myself as a total nerd, didn't I?

    Unfortunately, I have to turn my brain off to enjoy a lot of it. But I sometimes deliberately ignore stuff that Tolkien says so I can get my soul on with the Eldar because, I often imagine the Elves as White people with "soul" - especially during the Elder Days. If they came to America today, I often picture them gravitating toward African American culture.

    I don't know why I do this. It could be my way of resisting that implication that human = White. It might be my way of giving the finger to that idea. "Oh you thought you could get rid of us? Check out what my mind can come up with! If Legolas came to America right now, he'd be wearing baggy pants and bobbing his head to the new Dre song. Arwen would love Alicia Keys and Beyonce. And Katt Williams would be the most popular Hobbit next to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins."

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  41. "If Legolas came to America right now, he'd be wearing baggy pants and bobbing his head to the new Dre song. Arwen would love Alicia Keys and Beyonce. And Katt Williams would be the most popular Hobbit next to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins."

    Quoted for awesomeness!

    Elves can and should have diverse skin colors! I welcome and crave it.

    (Now I'm going deep into geekdom, beware....)

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with my father (white) about Star Trek: Voyager where Tuvoc was a dark skinned vulcan. Although I disliked Voyager as a whole, I thought Tim Russ did an awesome job as Tuvoc. My father said Vulcan's shouldn't be black and I never understood that. Who says that vulcans can't have diversity in hair and skin color? He played a more convincing vulcan than Kirstie Alley did Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

    Anyway, I'm exiting my soapbox now that I've completely exposed my nerdiness and derailed this thread.

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  42. Elsariel,

    Your dad's quote about Tuvoc serves to remind me that the Trek fandom is just like every other fandom, totally steeped in the prejudices and biases of THIS time no matter how much they CLAIM they long for a Trek future universe.

    Bluey512,

    You're going to be mad at me and maybe even pout-stomp out of here, but I hear your shtick of "Everyone's beautiful" each and every damn time the White beauty standard is referenced. While you may actually feel that way, it sounds not genuine and a forced compliment. "Lawd, let me say something nice about the non-Aryans 'fo' they have a fit and call me a racist!"

    The thing is, I've hardly ever heard a Black woman praised for her looks before a White woman. The only time I've ever heard it done was with my husband. And he'll praise her Black beauty, not how much she does NOT look Black. Other Whites, well, their day-late, grudging compliments.

    See, THIS is the stuff I want White folks to examine, their knee-jerk, unconscious assumptions. What's REALLY behind the shibboleth of "Everyone's beautiful" when the vast majority of us do not buy into it. Do the people who say this REALLY believe it? If so, why do they only date a narrow swathe of this universal beauty? Why do so many of their eyes look right through Black women everyday? Why do they only notice the ones who don't look all that Black? Why can't they find any words to favorably describe Black features and looks like they can non-Black ones?

    All of that points to a VERY deep-seeded virus in our society that no one but PoC seem to want to examine.

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  43. Witchsistah, I can see why you would think that, but it actually is true of me. I don't think everyone is beautiful, it's just that my personal concept of beauty isn't limited by race. That is, there are ugly people and beautiful people of every racial background. Padma Lakshmi, Gabrielle Union, and Elin Nordegren may look fairly different (with the obvious exception that they're all skinny), but they're all stunning. And part of what's beautiful about each of them is their skin tone, and the way it goes so beautifully with their hair and eye color. It's hard to comment on Gabrielle Union's hair texture because I can't tell how processed her hair is, but I bet she'd look fantastic with dreads.

    Also, totally loving the geekery in this thread. Agreed on the need for more diversity in fantasy/sci-fi. It seems to me that the focus on the cultures of and interactions between species in SFF worlds tends to reinforce racism, especially when the author isn't terribly creative. Like it's really easy to tell when a species is based on a human racial or ethnic group. Dwarves are totally Scottish, hobbits are English or maybe Irish, the Rohan are horse-Vikings. Fearsome warriors like orcs or Klingon are dark-skinned, etc. Has anyone ever played Oblivion? Among the, what, 5 or 6 human races you can play only one is non-white, and they are the war-like "Redguards" whose special magic power is berserker rage or something. Also in the Belgariad and Mallorean, by David Eddings, the bad guys are basically all Asians.

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  44. Re: Witchsistah
    What's REALLY behind the shibboleth of "Everyone's beautiful" when the vast majority of us do not buy into it.

    I saw an interview with Margaret Cho, and she was talking about a radio interview she did (I forget where) in which the DJ asked her, "What would you do if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful?"
    She was like, "???"
    The DJ explained, "You know, blond hair, blue eyes, a 120 pounds - beautiful"
    I forget what she said her response was, it was something along the lines of "I'd probably be too weak to get out of bed" - only much more clever.

    The point being,that DJ probably isn't alone, and there's a good segment of the population that doesn't even pretend to believe that "Everybody's Beautiful"

    I think it's a well intentioned sentiment that is repeated and promoted with the intention of counter-acting the notion that there is one perfect standard of beauty. I think the problem is that there isn't any analysis or explanation attached to it. So well-intenioned people just accept it, without really examining its meaning.

    Do the people who say this REALLY believe it? If so, why do they only date a narrow swathe of this universal beauty? Why do so many of their eyes look right through Black women everyday?
    Why do they only notice the ones who don't look all that Black?


    I think it has to do with the fact that many communities continue to be de-facto segregated. If someone really only sees white people on a day-to-day basis, they may espouse the belief that everybody's beautiful, but what they think is beautiful is what they're used to. And if you live in a white community, you're probably only going to date white people. I'm from Toronto (where the white population will soon be under 50%, if it isn't already), and it's common to see interracial couples in public (moreso downtown); of the people I know and am acquainted with, at least half of the couples are interracial, if not more. It depends on the city you live in, where you work, where you went to school - a lot of which boils down to socio-economic class. Also, if a white person lives in a homogeneous community, they're more likely to think that assimilation is a good policy, and it's just common sense that people should all be expected to be the same to some degree. The idea that there is just one standard carries over to all kinds of evaluations. They've never been exposed to alternative standards, or have never had any reason to take them seriously.

    Aside from just trying to get individuals to think about these things, I think a huge part of the solution for achieving racial equality is having good urban planning, and a strong program of government-supplied social services (which I tend to think is the solution to a lot of things, coming to think of it.)

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  45. I guess I'm one of those "never will be satisfied" Negroes. But I've heard folks admit that Gabrielle Union and other Black actresses are good looking. But I've never heard ANYONE gush about their looks much less gush over each of their features like I have heard done to non-Black female celebs. I've heard more about Lady Ga-Ga's looks than I have about any Black female celeb ever (unless it's to praise her non-Black features).

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  46. Mm...Bluey, Tolkein based the Rohirrim on the Anglo-Saxons, not the Vikings. There is a good bit of Norse mythology woven throughout LotR and the Simarillion, but pretty much everything about Rohan is Anglo-Saxon.

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  47. 'Dwarves are totally Scottish, hobbits are English or maybe Irish, the Rohan are horse-Vikings.' (Bluey512)
    I'd say the Dwarves might be sort of Jewish. The hobbits are one kind of English (peaceful, rustic, pre-Industrial Revolution), but the Rohirrim are also English (warlike, Dark Age, their names are Old English).
    This post, 'I Didn't Dream of Dragons': http://deepad.livejournal.com/29656.html is quite good on the strange experience of growing up reading English fiction when you're very un-English. Sure resonated with me; as a kid I read all these books full of strange and alien things that any Brit would have found familiar, perhaps to the point of disgust (I'm thinking of the rather harsh things some Brits have written about Tolkien).

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  48. "The DJ explained, "You know, blond hair, blue eyes, a 120 pounds - beautiful" What kills me though is that I have seen plenty of people, male and female, with blonde hair and blue eyes who I do not think are pretty, attractive in any way shape or form and I'm pretty sure that not too many folks would look at say their crooked nose or bad skin and think it.

    It kills me that blonde is so often considered by default pretty, but I must admit when I was growing up around almost all white folks I sort of of fell into that thinking too, though I knew when someone was not pretty and blonde. I remember one skinny, short, very pale girl in school who everyone said was so beautiful, I thought she looked like a skinny pale rat, to me her skin was really unhealthy looking and I know some pale people who I think look fine. I'd even go so far as to say that to me it looked like a frog's belly. She also had stick straight white-yellow hair that would not hold a curl or body to save its life. I just didn't get it and still don't think she was pretty but kind of ugly, then again I didn't like her so that may have colored my perceptions.

    I'm also losing patience with so many white women who have perfectly nice hair with nice natural colors dying their hair blonde especially when it gets damaged and yucky looking. I know it is none of my business but not every white woman has the right skin tone to be blonde, it doesn't even matter how pale you are or aren't just some skin tones don't look good with blonde hair but it seems that almost one out of every three white women I know who don't have naturally blonde hair dye their hair blonde. I'm usually suprised when I see someone who is a real blonde (and I can usually tell and I don't mean the "I was blonde as a kid" if it isn't growing out of your head that color anymore you are not still a blonde if you are using Ms. Clariol although at least it looks better).

    It also KILLS ME when I see white women with black eyebrows and blonde hair or inches and inches of black roots and blonde hair. It is one thing to dye your hair to cover gray but to just by default make yourself blonde, I just don't get it and it seems to get worse every year you used to at least see more dyed redheads but not even many of them anymore. And I've known a handful of blondes who've darkened their hair but tons of brunettes who go blonde.

    I remember even being a little hurt for one of my friends who is white who has naturally light brown hair who used to dye her hair blonde and this guy who allegedly had a huge crush on her came back from a semester abroad, and said to me "she was cuter with blonde hair" SHE WAS STILL CUTE but her hair was just browner! It just kills me. THen again, I get a relaxer so I guess I shouldn't talk.

    Plus I must have been amazed with blondeness on some level b/c my Mom told me when I was 2 or 3 I went to a birthday party and there was a little white girl there with long straight blonde hair and I sat next to her and stared at her hair and then started to touch it and just touched it and stared at it for the longest time. This stuff gets in your head young no matter what your race .
    Can you tell by the amount I wrote that this is a pet peeve of mine big time?

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  49. Oh right, Rohirrim. Can't believe I forgot the demonym. It's been quite some time since I read those books, so my descriptions of the races/species are based more off the movies than the books (e.g. John Rhys-Davies played Gimli with an accent I recall as Scottish, and had red hair). Now that y'all mention it, the Rohirrim do seem more Anglo-Saxon than anything else. The Vikings were the closest I could think of last time I saw LOTR.

    Point is, though, that to the extent that different fictional species are based on actual human cultures/races, race is equated with species. It sort of reinforces the idea that there are fundamental differences between people who look a little bit different, or dress a little bit different. If you see what I mean.

    I've read that LJ entry, and it was pretty interesting. I think Chimamanda Adichie's TED talk addressed that issue very effectively as well.

    Witchsistah, you mean the kind of gushing where girls will say, "Oh I love X's face but her body is so-so, and Y has a great body but her face isn't as pretty as everyone thinks, which one do you think is prettier?" I never do that. I can tell you, however, that I do love the look of deep chocolate skin, and the soft contours and open brow of many black women's faces, and the amazing volume and beautiful textures they can get with their hair. Mine wouldn't look so good in twists or dreads or all-over braids, but black women can really pull it off.

    By now I'm actually starting to feel embarrassed that I ever said WOC can be gorgeous in the first place. In fact it's only due to internet anonymity that I ever felt comfortable enough to say it in the first place. I'm guessing when it comes to white people's opinions of POC, whites say one thing and do another so often that it's impossible to know whether any one WP is being sincere. And then when you are a white person sincerely saying something nice about POC, you feel stupid about it because people think you're blowing sunshine up their asses.

    Well, I'd love to be able to say I don't think beauty is contingent on race without being laughed at, and I'm sure you'd love to know that people aren't just trying to butter you up when they say black women are beautiful, so... hooray anti-racism, I guess.

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  50. Bluey512 said....

    "Has anyone ever played Oblivion? Among the, what, 5 or 6 human races you can play only one is non-white, and they are the war-like "Redguards" whose special magic power is berserker rage or something."


    Oh yes, I've played Oblivion. As much as I absolutely LOVED that game, you are so right about the Redguards. I'm glad that they included some type of diversity in the game, but it would have been welcome if they weren't the ones that were "war-like". No matter, I made a magic-using Redguard female anyway. =P

    Speaking of games, I'm currently playing Dragon Age: Origins (AWESOMESAUCE, btw) and though you can create dark-skinned characters (with anglo features, admittedly), I'm quite dismayed that there isn't much diversity with the NPC's in-game. It's white-ville most of the time. This is another game were I would have loved to see more diversity in their characters.

    On the topic of "Everyone is Beautiful", I think Marissa is right. I think a lot of it has to do with white people still living in white-dominated areas and watching white-dominated television, movies, and commercials and reading white-dominated magazines and books. (And for the gamers: playing white-dominated video games) When a white person is surrounded by white people, I think the tendency is to prefer white features in the opposite sex.

    Indeed, white people can and do see other PoC as beautiful, but unless they actually meet someone who they have real sparks with (and really get to know), they're most likely going to pursue their societally-ingrained idea of (white) beauty.

    There are always acceptions and, of course, not all white people go with the flow like this, but I think most people do.

    On the optimistic side, though, I think this dynamic is slowly changing and I have faith that America (and other white-dominated countries) will shed it's prejudices once and for all. At least, in the majority. I also think this will be done by PoC forcing their way in, not by white people just simply letting go of their prejudices (because we all know how often that happens, right?).

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  51. Well I must add to the geekfest in here: In World of Warcraft trolls=Caribbean, tauren=Native Americans, orcs=blacks. There are good and evil factions of each one, but that doesn't make it any better. And with the humanoid races, I rarely see dark-skinned players and even more rarely see dark-skinned NPCs.

    @Witchsistah

    One very sad thing I've noticed with the "everyone is beautiful" set is that most of them tend to think someone is beautiful in spite of their racially defining features, rather than because of them.

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  52. I'm going to make an effort at bringing together the two threads of this discussion, geekdom and racialized conceptions of beauty.

    >> "the look of deep chocolate skin"

    I read an interview once with an SF/F author (I think she was an SF/F author, and at any rate, I'm going to say she was in order to get the Geek Quotient in here) who talked about the frequency with which food terminology is used to describe POC--chocolate skin, almond eyes, etc. On the other hand, I once described my hair color to someone [white] as "dark chocolate" (it is) and was told, "Dude, that makes me want to eat your hair." The author's point was basically, "We're not food, either." Do any of you have any idea who this author is? I have completely forgotten (and am rather embarrassed).

    (Note: a possible exception is the use of "peach," but I would argue that peach the color-description has little to do with peach the fruit, and is due to the Crayola Effect more than anything else.)

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  53. >> "Point is, though, that to the extent that different fictional species are based on actual human cultures/races, race is equated with species."

    'Traditional' high medieval fantasy even goes so far as to use the word "race" instead of "species." I guess a la "the human race"--you get the elven race and such. I know that at least the first three D&D editions follow this system; does anyone know if they changed it to 'species' in the new one?

    I'm guessing the use of race instead of species is because 'species' sounds too scientific? I have always wondered, though, if having the Human race and the Elven race means that everyone within each of those categories is intentionally supposed to be of a single "ethnicity" (i.e. race, in the traditional sense) or if it is the authors' way of suggesting that FantasyLand is actually colorblind.

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  54. 'Traditional' high medieval fantasy even goes so far as to use the word "race" instead of "species." I guess a la "the human race"--you get the elven race and such. I know that at least the first three D&D editions follow this system; does anyone know if they changed it to 'species' in the new one?

    They didn't change it.

    I'm guessing the use of race instead of species is because 'species' sounds too scientific? I have always wondered, though, if having the Human race and the Elven race means that everyone within each of those categories is intentionally supposed to be of a single "ethnicity" (i.e. race, in the traditional sense) or if it is the authors' way of suggesting that FantasyLand is actually colorblind.

    I would imagine it varies. There are as many explanations for the presence of elves, dwarves, Vulcans, etc. as there are worlds that contain them.

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  55. Willow said...

    "I have always wondered, though, if having the Human race and the Elven race means that everyone within each of those categories is intentionally supposed to be of a single "ethnicity" (i.e. race, in the traditional sense) or if it is the authors' way of suggesting that FantasyLand is actually colorblind."


    I have to admit that whenever I read fantasy, I always assume they are white unless it is described otherwise (which is almost never).

    Within high fantasy, though, there is much discussion about race and racism even with the lack of skin color variation. With the Dragonlance series, for example, Tanis Half-Elven is constantly torn between being half human, half elven. Much of his inner turmoil revolves around not finding solace with either race. To humans, he's half elvish, and to elves, he's half human. He belongs to both and neither at the same time.

    It reminds me a bit of what some bi-racial people have said about sometimes not really feeling white and not really feel black either.

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  56. Willow, that's a fascinating point. White features are sometimes described in food or food-like terms too, though. Blond hair can be and often is compared to straw, honey, corn tassels, etc. Red cheeks and lips are compared to apples and cherries. Red hair is compared to carrots, and brunette hair to chestnuts.

    White skin... that's usually compared to non-food things like snow or alabaster. In fact white features are often referred to in terms of precious metals or jewels. Like "sapphire" eyes and "gold" hair and "ruby" lips.

    I can't think of a lot of famous, recognizable precious gems, though, that are any shade of brown, whereas it's easy to think of extremely pleasant food items that are. Likewise I can think of few food comparisons for white skin or blue eyes. Green eyes you could describe as plant-like, though I don't think "her eyes were as green as the spinach on my plate" is terribly romantic. The only gem comparison I can think of for POC is "jet" black.

    There are some unflattering food comparisons made with white people, like "white bread" or "vanilla" (in that context usually understood to be a boring flavor).

    Now I'm going to be on the lookout for flattering non-food color descriptions applicable to POC looks.

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  57. bluey- There's also topaz and amber. And white skin is frequently referred to in terms of milky, creamy, peaches and cream, etc.

    I don't see the food pattern at all, it seems to happen to women of all races very equally and to the same effect.

    What I do notice is that WoC are much more often described in animalistic terms... feline, wild, tigress, lioness, bold, exotic, fierce, etc.

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  58. Bluey, the Mystery Author (GAH! MUST REMEMBER NAME!) mentioned how she had investigated the meanings of precious minerals in various cultures, and how she tried to tie that in to her characters' personalities. I'm kind of thinking she said something about types of wood as well, but I could be making that up. Wood shades are often used to describe white people's brown hair, so that would strike me as a rich source of terms.

    You're totally right about the blonde hair/red cheeks:food comparisons. (I'd stick "chestnut" under wood rather than food, I think, but with blonde hair the food terms are myriad). They did not cross my mind simply because I find them tacky (especially red cheeks:cherries...dear heavens) and thus try to ignore them even when I read them. ^_^

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  59. Oh, good point. Also "ebony" is often applied to POC.

    Yeah, white women are rarely compared to animals in my experience.

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  60. I'm guessing when it comes to white people's opinions of POC, whites say one thing and do another so often that it's impossible to know whether any one WP is being sincere. And then when you are a white person sincerely saying something nice about POC, you feel stupid about it because people think you're blowing sunshine up their asses.

    Well, I'd love to be able to say I don't think beauty is contingent on race without being laughed at, and I'm sure you'd love to know that people aren't just trying to butter you up when they say black women are beautiful, so... hooray anti-racism, I guess.


    Bluey, that's exactly why I give White folks the fish eye when they start going on and on about how they appreciate "Black beauty" or how they think I'm pretty. It usually comes after I've pointed out the White supremacy in their thinking of beauty and they're rushing to give ME and Black people a compliment so I don't mentally check "KKK" next to their name and image.

    And it also sounds so damn self-conscious and unnatural too. Like when WW say "But I LOVE your hair! Black women have the best hair! You all can do so much with it! You all can wear it super short and still have curls and STYLE to it! I'd look like a badly plucked chicken!" Or even "White people just don't think much about Black people's hair at all."

    Yeah, well, if you all love it so damn much or just don't think about it at all, then why have Black women had to sue White-owned, White-headed companies for the past 40 years regarding racist guidelines about how it's appropriate to wear our hair? Why did a staffer from Glamour feel perfectly comfortable and secure saying that us wearing our hair in styles conducive to its texture was utterly inappropriate for the office in front of a group of LAWYERS no less?! Why is our hair described in animalistic terms and often seen as a sign of savageness, of being uncivilized? Why do they feel our hair must be tamed and controlled? Why does it strike fear and uncertainty in Whites when they see Black women wearing our hair in naptural styles?

    See, it's THAT shit that makes me just roll my eyes when I hear yet another White person drone on about how much they appreciate Black looks. It's usually because I've seen nor heard ANY indication of that in their lives BEFORE that utterance (and usually see none of it hence). So it rings very false to me.

    Perhaps if they had complimented a variety of women in the past I'd be more likely to believe them. And I don't mean walking up to women and complimenting them on their body parts. But I've been out with girlfriends and have pointed out women I thought looked lovely, "Oh look at her! Her skin almost GLOWS! Maybe I should ask her what she does?" "That outfit looks stunning on her, but then she has the curves to fill it out and pull it off." If I heard more Whites doing THAT with WoC, especially Black women who look good and Black and not do it in a way that says "She somehow manages to be attractive IN SPITE OF her not being White" but actually BECAUSE of her non-White looks, I'd be much more apt to believe a White person when they say they appreciate others' unique beauty.

    It'd also be convincing if they found those folks good-looking enough to DATE as well, but that may be asking way too much.

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  61. Here's my story of how I learnt this lesson years ago. I was talking to a black male friend about what color stockings look good on women. He said he likes black stockings. With my facial expression I indicated that I didn't like that. I said I like natural colored stockings. He gently said, "Oh, and what color would that be?" The rest of the conversation went something like this:

    Me - (slightly confused) "You know, natural color. As in a color that matches your skin."
    Him - "Oh, and what color is that?"
    Me - (More confused) "Uh, creamish color that matches your skin."
    Him - "Well, what if you have darker skin?"
    Me - (Quite confused) "Then you get darker colored stockings that match your skin."
    Him - "That's why I like black stockings."
    Me - "But black looks like she's trying too hard to be sexy."
    Him - (still speaking gently) "Okay, if I had a sister, what color stockings would look good on her? Try to imagine it in your mind."
    Me - (imagining...pause) "Oooooohhhh"
    Him - (looking satisfied that the bulb finally went on in my head). "Uhuh. That's why I like black stockings on girls."
    Me - (embarrassed) "Oooooooohhhhhh"

    That was one of the best lessons I've had. One of those moments of epiphany.

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  62. >> "Also "ebony" is often applied to POC."

    Oh. Oh goodness. Memories. When I was little, I had "ebony" and "ivory" mixed up in my mind--one of the families next door to us had immigrated from the Ivory Coast. I was in preschool when they moved in, and it never occurred to me that you would name a country after something besides the people who lived there. I don't think I flipped it around the right way until sixth grade, when someone referred to my father's black hair as ebony. I am *still* surprised when I go back to read books I loved as a kid to discover that a character I would have sworn was white is actually black, and vice versa. ::sighs::

    And yes, this means that as a child I had the idea that there were a bunch of blonde-haired black women running around Victorian London. Somehow this seemed perfectly logical.

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  63. Witchsistah, wow, I really connect with what you've heard other white people say about black hair. I literally almost said that exact thing about how short black hair has so much body and texture the way it is in my last post. I was going to give Wanda Sykes as an example.

    Now I'm really curious what white people's attitudes toward black hair and beauty actually are on the whole, and how it breaks down by age and region. I know that I personally do like a wide variety of looks, including specifically black looks, but I have only the vaguest sense of how other white people feel about this, because I would feel really weird asking anyone. Except my sister, whom I talked to last night. She agreed that it was an obvious fact that black women can be beautiful. She was like, "Hello, Gina Torres anyone?"

    On the other hand, that doesn't explain the behavior you've seen, of white people not saying any of these things until you say something about Euro-centric beauty standards and then trying to convince you of their high opinion of black people in their obvious embarrassment. I agree that that sounds very insincere.

    But I know for a solid fact that I am being sincere, and I'm sure others are too. Let's say some white people think black features are pretty and some don't. What keeps the ones who do from saying so freely and frequently?

    Probably fear of saying anything at all about race. I mean, white people are pretty insecure about race. We're never quite sure what's going to piss people off, and in fact it usually feels like no matter what a white person says about race, it will piss someone off. My own experience in this very thread bears that out. If I had said black women were ugly due to black features like very dark skin, tightly curled hair, etc., you would have been offended. Instead I said black women can be pretty because of their black features... and you were annoyed.

    The only way I could have avoided a negative reaction on this issue was to say nothing at all. Like I said, I don't go around saying how pretty black features are in real life, because I kind of sensed this would happen. So that seems to me like an extremely plausible explanation for why you don't hear white women gushing over how beautiful black women are.

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  64. I have definitely noticed the trend of describing WOC with food terms, and it drives me crazy. Cosmetic brands do this as well. Go to walgreens and start reading the names of foundation on one of the makeup brands, and you'll notice that the lighter tones are all like "ivory, medium beige, etc" and you hit brown and suddenly, it's "caramel or toasted honey."

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  65. Bluey, you can see this as yet another example of "those darkies are never satisfied" if you want to. That's your perogative. And I predicted it because White folks seem to STAY stuck in that groove.

    What I was trying to say is that the gushing doesn't seem sincere because what I've experienced in the REAL WORLD has been the opposite. If there's all this White admiration for Black women's looks then why aren't Black women presented more as objects of desire and women of beauty in the media? Why do so many White folks think it's a compliment to tell a BW "You're pretty for a Black girl?"

    It's like what I said about gushing about Black hair. All this supposed White admiration for it yet Black women catch hell for daring to actually WEAR it in public. From folks who won't hire us for it to random White folks wanting to pet it like it was alpaca wool.

    Yeah, I'm sorry you and other White folks view it as such a hardship that PoC are not a monolith with one answer to every racial question or one racial view and therefore are making you actually THINK about how you view us instead of being able to give us pat answers to satisfy us all in one fell swoop.

    But while you all are commiserating about us unreasonable darkies, perhaps you'll find some empathy for us having to deal with a constant onslaught of microagressions and thrown-away phrases that provide windows into White people's real thoughts about us.

    Eh, that may be WAY too much to ask.

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  66. I'm not blaming you or any other black person for the issues I'm describing, Witchsistah. What I'm saying is that there's a vicious circle going on. Not enough WP say black women are or can be pretty, therefore black women think WP who say so are insincere, therefore no one dares say black women are pretty. Like a lot of racial dynamics, it got started before any of the current participants were born and continues because it's self-reinforcing - because both parties are being reasonable, not because anyone is being unreasonable. And I guess also because some white people actually don't think black women are attractive, which feeds into the lack of people who say they are and reinforces the whole problem.

    And yeah, this sort of thing does make a lot of white people feel like black people can never be satisfied. Because if you aren't thinking in terms of vicious cycles and so on - if you're brand new to thinking about race, in particular - it's extremely easy to fall into that kind of thinking. I've definitely done some of that myself. So yeah, white people are kind of stuck in that groove.

    I'd like to point out that I never claimed all white people appreciate black beauty, or that you should go around thinking discrimination has vanished because one white person says she does. I'm not trying to convince you of that. Though I do think it's likely that you are underestimating the number of white people who actually don't have this weird concept in their heads that black women are inherently unattractive.

    And the number who don't even realize that black hair has anything to do with politics. I didn't until the past year or so. Like personally, I didn't know what the word "nappy" meant until Don Imus. Didn't even occur to me that black hair could be considered intrinsically unprofessional. I'm talking utter ignorance here.

    Also, I figure, just because someone thinks blackness can be gorgeous, it doesn't mean they wouldn't discriminate. That is, "pretty" isn't the same thing as "professional." Or even "dateable" for that matter. So I'm thinking there's way more than one barrier there. It's not all about beauty standards.

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  67. Am I the only black woman NOT bothered at all by the names given to WOC? Hell, look at my name. It's pretty obvious that I don't have a problem describing my skin tone as such. Let's face it black people come in all shades. Why not embrace those shades creatively?

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  68. bluey512 -

    Regarding women described as animals: I've gotta differ with you. I've often heard white women characterized as bunnies, pets, kittens, doe-eyed, vixens, chicks, birds, coltish, fillies, old mares, old hens, cows, sows, nags, shrews, queen bees and bitches. Quite a menagerie.

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  69. @ honeybrown:

    >> "Am I the only black woman NOT bothered at all by the names given to WOC?"

    Well, me not being black I can't speak personally to that. ;) But the author's point in the interview--I still cannot remember who it was, and it is driving me batty--was more along the lines of, "It is not okay when WP use gemstones and precious metals to describes whites, and food to describe POC."

    I tend to agree with that--I'm all in favor of creative, pleasant descriptive terms, and as I said above my hair is very definitely dark chocolate--but when the categories are are sharply delineated as they seem to be in this case (like thesciencegirl pointed out re:makeup at Walgreens), then it's time for white people to maybe reconsider the terms we use. (NONE of this should be interpreted as me telling POC, especially WOC, how they are "allowed" to describe themselves).

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  70. @Willow

    >"It is not okay when WP use gemstones and precious metals to describes whites, and food to describe POC."<<

    But, here's the thing; I have read descriptions of both WOC and WW described as jewels/gemstones (e.g. Amber, Topez, Onyx, Black Pearl) just as much as I've read descriptions of WW described as food (e.g. Milky skin). So, I'm wondering if the person may have a lack of experience with various readings.

    Could it be that there are far more ways to describe the vast tones of brown/black via food and other means than our white counterparts?

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  71. @ honeybrown:

    >> "So, I'm wondering if the person may have a lack of experience with various readings."

    This is a critical point; I think it depends a LOT on what genre you read, and when the books were written. But I do like thesciencegirl's point about makeup shades.

    >> "Could it be that there are far more ways to describe the vast tones of brown/black via food and other means than our white counterparts?"

    Well, there are a lot more nice-sounding adjectives to desribe 'brown' than 'beige,' that is for sure. Presumably because things in nature don't tend to resemble Elmer's glue? ^_^ (or, rather, the two notables are snow and bird poop)

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  72. Oh yeah. Beauty is presumed to be white. I learned this early, because I grew up reading The Classics (which are white). I loved the language in those books, but there was one descriptor I quickly grew to hate, and which was apparently in use well into the 1950s: "fair." I successfully blocked out a lot in order to enjoy those books, but I just couldn't get past that stupid word, and they used it a lot. It wasn't long before I made an agreement with my brain: we decided that "fair" simply means "pretty." No connotation of "pale." Otherwise, it was too much for a geeky brown tween girl to take. (Really? No solace, even here, alone in my bedroom reading Jane Austen? That's harsh, guys.) I still read historical fiction and nonfiction and things set in historical times, and "fair"— and all its iterations— bugs me to this day. (Of course the explicit pale=pretty meme lives on. For example, I understand Twilight takes it to sparkling new heights.)

    I made a similar mental compromise for "flesh-colored." I decided that "flesh" referred to the color you'd see if you took a core sample or cross-section of skin. Like, the "flesh" of an apple is specifically not the skin, right? Similarly, all human flesh is a sort of pale meaty pink... right? True, that didn't make sense in reference to pantyhose and band-aids, but there you go. I had to retain my sanity somehow.

    Oh, and don't even get me started on blue eyes. Am I the only person who thinks opaque cornflower blue is the least interesting eye color? Not unattractive, just... dull. I've always preferred brown, especially clear brown— "topaz"? (Maybe I'm weird; I don't really like diamonds either. They're so boring. Opals: that's where it's at!)

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  73. Honeybrown,

    Maybe YOU don't care whether various food items are used to describe WoC. And guess what? You don't have to. But other WoC have expressed dismay that we are often described in terms of consumable items. They have just as much a right to be bothered by it as you have of not being bothered by it.

    Trust me, no one here is going to revoke your Black Card/Ghetto Pass. The Soul Patrol is not going to issue you a ticket. Believe me, many of us "genuine" Negroes here would be and have been ticketed in the past for sundry presumed transgressions against Blackness even though we may look much "Blacker" than you.

    I've seen on many a website that when race is discussed, inevitably some PoC comes out and presents themselves as a "good darkie" to juxtapose themselves against those oversensitive, chip-on-their-shoulders, bitter, jealous, resentful, lazy, want-something-for-nothing, unreasonable "bad darkies." All this adds up to is yet another silencing mechanism.

    Am I silencing the so-called "good darkies" now. If you're not bothered by something that vexes us bad darkies, shouldn't you have just as much right to say so? Yes, you do. But just as I should frame my objections in a way that does not impugn you (i.e. suggest that my way/opinion is the right way and any other opinion is lesser or somehow not authentically PoC or Black), so should you frame yours in a way that does not paint the rest of us as nitpicky, unreasonable, oversensitive, bad darkies.

    Actually, I challenge all writers (myself included even though I'm a very dilettante, hobbyist, amateur one) to come up with not only better descriptions of skin colors (including realizing that people are not all one color all over their bodies), but I challenge them to find ways to describe naptural Black hair (yeah, THAT kind of Black hair), short hair and dark-brown eyes in a desirable, varied way like they regularly can for straight, long hair and non-dark-brown eyes.

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  74. Here's another thing White women tend to assume, that I would be interested in media (stories, movies, TV shows) that feature soley a White cast, especially a White female cast. I can't tell you how many WW have recommended Sex In The City, Mean Girls and Desperate Housewives to me. If I tell them I get enough of the ersatz gorgeousness of White womanhood shoved down my throat with my media as is and that I cannot stomach seeing it unadulterated and concentrated in hour-long dosages, then I sound shrill. Yet that's how I feel. They cannot understand that I need an ESCAPE from the continuous message that WW are really where it's at and that I'm no where near the ballpark.

    Besides, I've seen Mean Girls before and done better. It's called Heathers.

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  75. >I challenge all writers...to come up with not only better descriptions of skin colors

    I came across a theater makeup box a few months back. They had colors like cream, peach, brown, etc. and...'Japanese'. To which I thought, huh? How come that color has got an ethnic label to it? (None of the others did.) But that wasn't the end of it. A couple of rows down I saw, 'Chinese'. And I thought, Ermmm, what? Unfortunately, I couldn't open the drawers to check what the difference was between the two.

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  76. @Willow, who said or, rather, the two notables are snow and bird poop

    My husband calls me "fishbelly" to tease me. He was rather appalled when I decided to use that as one of my dancing names (which is exactly why I chose to use it, LOL - passive-aggressive teasing subversion).

    More on topic, I was reading one of our daily newspapers last week and within two pages of each other, there were two stories about police looking for suspects. One was about three men who'd sexually assaulted a woman, and the other was about (IIRC) some violent theft. The suspects in the theft article were identified as black. The sexual assault article, which was larger, went into great detail about the suspects' appearances; some of the details I remember were that one had a gold necklace with a letter "P" hanging from it, another had corkscrews shaven into his hair, and two of them were wearing parkas with fur around the hood. Yet there was no mention of race - none. I had to reread it, puzzled, before the light suddenly clicked on and I realized they must be white, and that's why the race wasn't mentioned. Just plain people, indeed. :( Whenever it's a PoC, the first descriptor is always race.

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  77. This whole post is absurd.

    The US is a majority-white country - and just 50 years ago was no less than 90% white.

    It should be no more surprising that white is considered the norm in the US than that ethnic Chinese are considered the norm in China or black Africans the norm in Africa.

    Yes, you can bitch and whine about how it's unfair for people to notice that you look different from the majority blah blah blah but it's only natural, and is the case all over the world.

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  78. Ima,

    You totally missed the point of what's absurd about this post. It's the not post itself; it's that "white" has come to mean "normal" in white minds. As I wrote in the post,

    what white people think of as normal and natural ways of doing things are actually common white ways of doing things. Just as this conception of "flesh" actually stands for "white" flesh, so "white" commonly stands for "normal." The word "white" itself often gets replaced by the word "normal" -- in white minds.

    THAT'S the real absurdity, and as I also wrote in the post, it's often NOT what happens in non-white minds. In essence, then, white people are comparatively delusional in these terms. Finally, thank you for providing us with an actual demonstration of that delusion.

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  79. fromthetropics- Ugh, yes! I do theater and immediatly knew the makeup line you saw was Ben Nye. Chinese is darker and almost jaundiced yellow. They're meant to be used to modify foundation to the correct undertone or alone to change the skin completely. I will never understand why they chose these names. Look at the chart below. Everything else besides light and dark Egyptian has normal names:

    http://www.backstageshop.co.uk/acatalog/bennye-colourcake.jpg

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  80. I thought your article was well written.

    What I do not understand though is why you guys are so sensitive living with other cultures.

    I lived with my mate for 8 months renting, and everytime his friends would come over alot of them would look down at me. Guess what? They were from a country known as India.

    What I do not understand coming from my perspective is how I get treated from all my friends that happen to look different to myself. I notice to be extremely friendly more so than to myself with strangers that have black skin.

    When I lived with a stranger that got out of jail, one of my closest brothers. A black guy if we want to get racial. I told him I was searching for my bloodlines and gave him some last names.

    Months later he told me he knew a guy in jail with that name. Who he had beaten up because he said he was black, but looked white as white.

    Welcome to my world. I am white as white and yet also a Black man.

    If the colour of band aids is a big deal to you, change them, etc etc.

    Thats what I do. There must be a huge problem with racism in USA. Its cool here. We are pretty much treated all the same.

    Yet if I were to move to CHina I cannot expect that Chinese history and culture was different to mine.

    I can't hate them for it. It is what it is... but I can change it through action.

    I think all of us humans have a long way to go. I do not suffer a lot of racism... probably once or twice a month.

    Yet I'm born with a disability and people treat me like garbage all the time... call me names etc etc.

    It's tough and all I ever do is put a positive spin on things and keep moving along.

    Listen alot of you people whinge okay.. yes okay that culture is populated by white culture. Okay?

    But your not powerless. When I tried to get my book published... no-one would after 200 tries. So I opened my own publishing house.

    When I wanted to get my news out. I began a small Newspaper.

    When I wanted to get on tv. I bought my own camera.

    History is His Story. I encourage you today to write your own history and change it.

    I do not know how bad it is in the USA but guys you can do anything don't let bullshit propoganda or mind control crap get in your way.

    None of this is racist crap that I write, okay...? Keep moving along like the rest of us and change what you have to. Whites aren't even the ones on top anymore - Its moving over to the Chinese.

    USA is broke... 14 trillion in debt.

    In the country I live do you honestly think I want to watch crappy American Proppganda on my tv set everyday.

    I get tired of hearing the President of the USA always being called for the last 30 years the most powerful man on Earth, what a joke. I have to then watch British bullshit Tv and alot of Chinese crap.

    Stuff that dont represent me. So I dont watch tv,

    My gripe isn't racism mine us the USA's continual stream of bullshit propganda and believing they are the pioneers and leaders of everything leading the way.

    They continue on and theyre bankrupt.. through the teeth. The Patriotism and the police state that they live under whilst they are told they live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

    I'm tired of that crap. Cos its crap and people believe it. Half of the stuff we read is propoganda selling someone elses agenda.

    My point is many have complained about things which is good, chnage em.

    What there would be a huge market for flesh coloured band aids? Where I live we have flesh ones that aren't pink coloured.

    Say the make-up story package make-up with flesh designed for that other market, make a fortune...!!

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  81. A (white)fashion blogger I read used to routinely refer to tan or beige shoes as being "nude" in color. Recently she called such shoes "taupe", I think just by chance.

    I wrote a friendly comment on that entry, thanking her for choosing the word "taupe" instead of "nude", and referring her back to this entry. (The "taupe" shoes and my comment are here: http://www.fashionunder100.net/2009/12/eva-longorias-style-for-9979.html).

    She didn't reply, but since that day, she has posted several pairs of shoes in that color, and referred to them as "tan", "beige", or "taupe".

    So here's something else white people do: Listen, and change their habits! Nice.

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