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Whiteness.

  
  

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Goodness Gracious Meme
02:48 / 07.11.03
(Inspired by rereading the 'why clever people can't be racist'thread. I love it so. and related to the Red Indian Thread.)

It's been suggested by various non-white commentators recently(will dig for refs, later, it's late.) that one of the most useful things in thought terms(there's obviously a whole load of other stuff) that can be done for the future of race relations (the stuff I've heard refers to the situation in the UK, could well be more generally applicable) is for white people to interrogate whiteness.

This for various reasons but mainly as it's beginning to be seen by race relations activists as being one way out of some of the impasse situations that the
'multiculturalism' discourse often find itself right now.

Otherwise, we'll keep getting mulitculturalism/racism/nationalism debates that have to take on the weight(and therefore the fears/emotional investments) of unexamined white identity as well as the culturally-specific issues at hand.

(cf when people are envious/grudging of non-white immigrant communities' strenght/pride in identity. This isn't the fault of these communities, it's a result of white culture perhaps not(anymore? is this historically-based?) having such pride and not having had to examine itself, not knowing how to gain it)

Currently, most examining of whiteness is done by those who come up against it, ie non-whites, who don't know what it is to be white, and are commenting on it from the outside.

It's probably much more productive if those on the inside do it(as well).

Occurred to me that, as as far as I'm aware, Barbelith is a pretty 'white' place, and one where white folks might well see the worth in such an examination.

This is not a space to bitch about how 'things have gone too far the other way', it's a space to examine whiteness from the inside and interrogate it as white western culture interrogates others/minorities examine themselves.

What is whiteness, how is it constructed, what white identities are there, how do you relate to/inhabit them? Are there positive/aspirational white models? Do you have white pride? is it possible? Desireable? (from the above, you'll deduce that i think it is, but do you agree?)


As, of course, I'm not white, I'll duck out now, unless people want to tear apart my thesis.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
03:14 / 07.11.03
oh, couple more questions:

(how) do you feel your identity as white constructs you in relationship to those who identify differently?

is identifying as white important to you? if so/no, why/not?
 
 
No star here laces
04:53 / 07.11.03
The interesting thing about whiteness is that, to the degree that it is interrogated at all, it is usually interrogated in a negative manner. (at least by me and my social circle)

e.g. Whiteness meaning stilted and inhibited, whiny, overly analytical, bland, lacking in passion, smug, twee.

Although historically whiteness used to be categorised as everything that Europeans thought was 'noble' about humanity cf the expression "that's very white of you, old boy".

When I think about white culture, meaning Western European, Antipodean and American (because I think Eastern Europe has entirely its own thing going on) I think a few things stand out, and stand out much more so since I've been in Asia.

White people like to argue and debate, and to do so in an analytical manner. (Although not as much as Indians...) Whiteness means a certain kind of buttoned-down order - making things 'clear'.

One of the things a lot of the books I'm reading on Asia make clear is just how contextual Asian thinking is compared to European styles of thought. White people like to 'focus' and 'concentrate on the key issues' i.e. they like to refine down and analyse what they are doing.

But above all else I think whiteness stands for a certain type of self-consciousness.

All a bit splurge cos I really need to pee and wanted to write stuff down before I got distracted. So sorry...
 
 
Disco is My Class War
08:12 / 07.11.03
I think my response around 'whiteness', which I think is a very useful way of short-circuiting the endless circulation of white=normative culture, non-white=exotic culture, would be to say that there are as many forms of 'whiteness' as non-whiteness. All of which are modulated by, or modulate, other categories like class/sexuality/gender/language. And that simply to talk of whiteness as if it's something we could adequately taxonomise is probably escaping out of the very paradox that talking of 'whiteness' offers up to explore. Ie, to begin with, identifying white culture with clarity, self-consciousness, order etc is doubly defining it through the values of the Enlightenment *and* defining it through the lense of an equation where white=masculised, non-white=feminised. Which, I think, would be a mistake.

More when I don't have a 5000 word essay to write, maybe.
 
 
Lurid Archive
08:17 / 07.11.03
I'm afraid I'm going to be a bit negative here. While I understand the academic interest in asking about different cultural patterns, I can't help but question the utility to race relations of doing so. I suppose self knowledge is a good thing, but I feel no burning need to derive a source of pride out of my whiteness. I think that there are some interesting points made in this article, which talks about diversity training and how a constant emphasis on difference actually supports racism.

I suppose my point is this. Why do I need to spend more time focusing and concentrating on the fact that you and I have different skin colour?
 
 
Tryphena Absent
10:13 / 07.11.03
I think this is difficult and maybe ludicrous. The thing about being white is that it doesn't mean very much at all, the definition really exists in what you are not, who you are individually. Not having been suppressed as a result of skin colour but more on grounds of religion I'm not sure we can apply the questions you ask and understand them.

What is whiteness, how is it constructed, what white identities are there, how do you relate to/inhabit them?

Whiteness means nothing to me. I don't identify through it at all but I wonder if this isn't because of my cultural background. I can relate to that Proms in the Park British patriotism and parts of British culture, to the progressive and reform Jewish communities and the Hiindu community in North London because to an extent I was brought up within them. The exiled Polish community means an awful lot to me and makes up a sure part of my existence because I spent so much time with my Polish grandparents. Whiteness though is just totally on the periphery of all my identification so I don't find a place in me that can analyse it. It's just not at the forefront because I'm too busy in the subsections of whiteness and more than that because I was brought up alongside so many minority groups that I never, ever felt like I was part of the majority and thus I suppose that I'm saying whiteness is about the conquering majority. It seems ridiculous to identify yourself primarily by colour, yes it provides some association for me, there's a brief but instant recognition of someone being different but that's more a case of identifying someone else and I'm sure I'd do it regardless of colour.

I think Eastern Europe has entirely its own thing going on

My problems with identification probably come from that actually. I've always felt uncomfortable ticking that 'white' cultural origin box on forms. It just doesn't seem to fit somehow when you know that your family have been subjected to ethnic cleansing. This I suppose relates to the definition of whiteness through it's oppositions.

Are there positive/aspirational white models? Do you have white pride? is it possible? Desireable?

Maybe rainbow coloured skin might be something to show the world other than that I wish people would let it go. I know there's not much hope of that, I know that there is a need for this discourse, that there's still a lot of racism in this world but personally I should like people to just stop noticing.
 
 
Quireboy
10:57 / 07.11.03
Well this is an eminently sensible. Whiteness is investigated on race and ethnicity courses at several UK universities - it was part of the course I did at B'ham University. Part of the reason behind this was because most of the balck and ethnic minority students did not want only their ethnicities under the spotlight - because they were fed up of middle class white liberals, who in fact had no real understanding of racism, bleating on about how they empathised with them.

'White' covers a whole range of ethnic backgrounds. It's no more a homogenous group than 'ethnic minority' or 'black'. For example, several mixed-race students - myself included - were white skinned. The point about whiteness usually signifying white European/US, is valid - East Europeans are white but it is far more acceptable to be racist about them than "visibly ethnic" minorities.

Those who feel whiteness is not worth analysing should investigate how English stereotypes of the Irish as savages became the model for racist profiling of Africans and Asians during the Empire.

Whiteness is considered the norm in the West, so no one thinks about. This has had negative consequences. It is only very recently that the media would mention whether an offender was white but would explicity state whether they were black or Asian.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
11:20 / 07.11.03
I think that investigating whiteness in England has as much point as investigating blackness in Ethiopia. It's not that I don't think it can't be done but rather that it's 1)very difficult to speak about it in a way that's applicable to everyone and 2)generalises terribly. I feel the same way about most questions of colour, not that it's invalid but rather that it makes little sense to me. It boxes people up... if you're talking about colonialism that's something else because there's an application there. Minorities can be examined easily because they're at odds with a community but whiteness is a very general term. Quireboy, you're still defining by the minority, you're not examining whiteness but the relationship between two cultures, a minority and majority culture. Whiteness becomes an issue because of something other and it only becomes an issue in a limited way. If you examine whiteness in the frame of dominant American culture you're still not really examining whiteness. I think, if a little tentatively, that whiteness is too big a thing to truly be examined.
 
 
Saveloy
11:58 / 07.11.03
Okay, how about being more specific - is it worth looking at white British culture? Does it exist at all?

There was an interesting film on BBC2 back in August in which a white presenter (Adrian Chiles, of Working Lunch fame) went around Britain asking people of various races what they thought about multiculturalism in the UK - if it existed, if there was any genuine desire for it amongst Joe Public and if it was actually worth having at all.

The last person he spoke to was a British Asian guy who had come to the conclusion that segregation was preferrable to integration. The question he put to the presenter (and the viewer) was (and I'm paraphrasing):

"What do we get out of integration? You get our food, our culture, our traditions - what do we get back in return? What does white Brit culture have to offer apart from lager and football?"

The presenter refused to answer, claiming that it was a facile line of enquiry. But I think it's interesting to think about.

Brain dump time:

- What does white, British culture have to offer apart from lager and football?
- Is it okay to assume that black and asian cultures do actually have more to offer?
- Does a strong culture (or cultural identity) rely on physical communities?
- Does industrialisation, secularism and 'progress' (the drive towards personal freedom and comfort, a utilitarian view of life) destroy 'culture'? What about individualism, has it destroyed culture? Does culture rely on traditions and religion?
- How does class affect it? Could you argue that the working and even upper classes have healthier cultures than the middle classes?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:16 / 07.11.03
Just to go back a bit - I don't accept that there's anything ridiculous or ludicrous about white people interrogating their own 'whiteness' and their understanding of what that means. Rather than, in Lurid's words, spend[ing] more time focusing and concentrating on the fact that you and I have different skin colour, I think it's firstly just a matter of acknowledging that privilege exists, and how one might be complicit in that. The question of whether it's better to ignore or interrogate privilege/difference comes up now and again on Barbelith in different ways - in threads about class, someone will say "well, I don't care what class people are, I don't judge them that way, now excuse me while I polish the family silver" - I'm afraid I'm very much of the opposing view.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:31 / 07.11.03
Wow. interesting.

Am too dead-headed to engage properly right now but will come back and address the criticisms outlined.

Just wanted to say a huge ta to Disco for elaborating/clarifying something I felt was wrong as I was writing it.

Namely that I didnn't intend to suggest that a category of 'whiteness' is a single, simple entity, *or* that it holds 'the key'/is the over-riding identity for someone who may come under this umbrella. As has already been pointed out, this isn't the case.

Bad writing,sorry.

What I meant to suggest is that that it's another important category, and one that's hardly ever examined, and should be.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:33 / 07.11.03
oh, and bloody good questions, Sav.

(i love when barbe-people read yr tired mind and express things better)
 
 
_Boboss
13:14 / 07.11.03
think fundamentally definition only arises from a dynamic of opposition. dominant cultures don't look at themselves because they're too busy/happy dominating. the identification of one's own cultural traits is something that happens to cultures that are oppressed, as a way of hanging on amid the shit, hence most white people don't even see that they are white. note that none of bips questions have had any answers offered, not even tentatively. we don't know. when islam takes over in 75 years or something similar happens it'll be an issue for us, but very difficult to imagine til then.

that british culture only offers lager and football is good. influx of asian culture offers only curry [ideal for washing down with lager) and bollywood movies (something for the girls to do on saturday when the blokes are at the football). here we learn facetious things can be said by anybody.

strong cultural identities only exist within discrete conceptual, not physical, communities. if there is a model that people will ascribe to, cultural idents can begin to be catalogued. white people, historically not in a position to defend themselves from anything else, are too busy pretending to define themselves as individuals, what sets them apart, to think they might need to work out what they have in common.

perhaps british whiteness has been mixed and messed so many times throughout history there's nothing really white about it. much of our knowledge and treasure was taken by force from the east anyway. you can get all gaunt's speech from Henry v if you want but all of the bard's nobler thoughts were coming from slightly swarthy areas of ancient greece anyway. ['swarthy' - will i get into trouble for that?]

what do i like or know about my whiteness then? a certain secularism I suppose, democracy and universal suffrage [though i think it's time to put democracy away again now], things that aren't to my mind readily associated with populations not of western european descent. conquest, greed. expansion as an end in itself, not as a natural byproduct of work and play. not so nice these ones.

i prefer to identify with my irish heritage when it comes to issues like this, it just means more if you're doing it from a space of dispossession, so it works if put through the irish colonial/3rd world country filter. get misty about joyce and behan very quickly. it's a cliche among white brits that white americans like to identify with their immigrant underdog histories, ignoring their obvious temporal privelige.

i wish i was better protected against sunlight. i'm quite interested in this, but obviously just putting unsense down at the mo. maybe more later, but fully expecting someone to say something that i can agree with in a way better than i can put it . go on then.
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:04 / 07.11.03
I think it's firstly just a matter of acknowledging that privilege exists, and how one might be complicit in that. - Flyboy

Good point. And, FTR, I completely agree with you that examining privilege and one's place in it is a valuable exercise. But, and perhaps I have misunderstood the question and bip's intent here, I don't feel that that is what is being asked on this thread. The "interrogation of whiteness" feels like an insular act that is too one sided to be valuable in looking at racism. Again, perhaps I have it wrong. Perhaps this thread is asking whites how they interpret their privilege and how perceptions of racism and race relations seem from that side of the fence. Perhaps.

But the point seems to be much closer to the concerns raised by Kenan Malik in the article I linked to above. Namely, to validate different identities based on colour. Not wanting to upset anyone in the thread, I think we already have some predictable results in 'what does british culture have to offer except lager and football?'. Pointless self loathing, if you ask me.

Just as I would see little value in engaging with middle class guilt and/or self congratulation when discussing class, I see little value in this for discussing racism. It might be of interest despite that, of course.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
14:26 / 07.11.03
But I think it's ridiculous to say that we can interrogate our whiteness because you can't define through colour... except to say that being white allows us a privilege through colonial history and that's pretty evident and hasn't come to a close as of yet.

I'm seeing people making suggestions as to how to approach but has anyone actually shown themselves to be capable of analysing whiteness? I don't think so. Why not? Because Britain is a mish mash of cultures, immigrants and people who have a direct connection to colonialism. Because being white does not necessarily afford you privilege outside of the west because things differ around the world and even in different parts of the country and it depends on the definition of privilege.

Apart from anything else I think the question is ludicrous because I can't define British whiteness myself. It's subjectively ludicrous. It means nothing to me, I can't get past the vast number of differences that make themselves known, there is absolutely nothing similar about - for instance - my upbringing and Flyboy's apart from the colour of our skin. How can you analyse anything simply on the basis of colour? But then I've already said that I think that is something to do with having a slightly Eastern European background.

So what is whiteness on its own? If you can't use class or origin as a point of reference than what does it become entirely on its own?
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
17:40 / 07.11.03
Posting before reading as my time ticks down faster than reaity should allow I apologise for any duplication and am keeping this personal.

What is whiteness, how is it constructed, what white identities are there, how do you relate to/inhabit them?

On this one I have to say that whiteness doesn't exist. I know that might seem a little strange to say and it is strictly personal opinion. Fortunately I think it's one of those aeas where there is no 'wrong' answer. By logical extension, if logical is the word for it, then there is also no other-colourness either. Simplistically put the 'ness', to me, implies a division by criteria and from experience there is no all emcompassing criteria that you could ascribe to white people.

White, like any other colour is a transnational affair and if you wanted to, as has been done in the past, you could line up people in many different pigmental directions and end up at a logical opposite of sorts (bad language, sorry, please don't take too literally). I think that in parallel you could also do this psychologically, culturally, emotionally and so on. If non-white commentors want white to interrogate whiteness then where would the lines be drawn.

Realised that above para could be interpretted as saying that whiteness exists when I just said it doesn't. This isn't the fact but if you form a stereotype then you will find it somewhere.

is identifying as white important to you? if so/no, why/not?

I think that I'm busy trying to identify as me so, no. After that then still no as I have no frame of reference to choose to or not to anyway.

Sorry for the rambling. More later and hopefuly better thought out.
 
 
Aertho
19:03 / 07.11.03
I'm Midwestern and American, and I think this argument is both entertaining and purposeful. Keep going everybody. While I think the focussing in on British culture is subculturing the majority, I still think its a case study worth examing. So far, I think everybody's points are valid.

Now I'll break it down from my soapbox.

I'm a healthy and wealthy, white, intelligent, young attractive male living in America. Without knowing anything about my individuality, I appear that way to the masses I encounter by the way I walk, the clothes I wear, and the things I do. I'm the goddamn majority whether I like it or not and I'm exaclty what everyone else wishes they were. People with my image run the world. I don't have problems.

Now, I could be brainwashed to feel badly about being economically and genetically fortunate, feel empowered by the conquering drive of my ancestors, or feel cheated by a system that endorses affirmative action and works to spoil the image I have. But none of that helps me move forward, and none of it really helps anyone else either. The only fact of my status is this: I was lucky enough to have been born to the priviledges of my appearance, and as such, has allowed me rise intellectually, emotionally and experientially. I have to acknowledge whiteness as a contributing factor in my growth, as well as acknowledge the ongoing socio-cultural systems that I have ridden on my way here. Here is now a point where I have to accept the responsibility of my appearance and the gifts it has afforded me, and prove myself worthy of them. Perhaps that sounds cheesy, or sounds patronizing, or off-topic, but it's how I am philosophically forced to approach "race" relations.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
04:57 / 08.11.03
Anna de L wrote:

I'm seeing people making suggestions as to how to approach but has anyone actually shown themselves to be capable of analysing whiteness? I don't think so.

People have, actually. There's a quite amazing volume called White by film thoerist Richard Dyer, which came out in the mid-90's. Link here. I haven't read it for quite some time so don't remember the precise approach.
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
10:31 / 08.11.03
Dear god, someone must have slipped me drugs last night.

OK, to clarify matters a little I'm going to append my earlier post by saying that it would have been better if I had said that I don't recognise whiteness (choice not capacity). There is in a sense of whiteness but mainly as a means for certain people to divide themselves from non-whites. It's like Chrisitanity to me, it only exists because people believe in it.

Having now taken a look at other peoples entries into the fray it seems like there is a strain of opinion here that is saying whiteness is characterised by privilege. If I'm right then this wins the WTF award of the moment.

Three points against this argument.

1. Privilege isn't a character trait and thus I don't think it can be considered relevant, particularly if you want some examination. I will however asceed that it can play a part in character development.

2. It's not like all whites are privileged. For those unsure of this the I present Easter Europe for your consideration. I could probably manage a few more examples.

3. Whites aren't the only people to have privilege in socio and economic constructs. Gaijin isn't a friendly reference.

[cross fingers and hope I don't look like a twat]

my apologies for low grade debating skills.
 
 
Nessus
15:33 / 08.11.03
As far as I'm concerned, "whiteness" is completely irrelevant as an identifier except as an extremely vague description of appearance. "White" skinned people are obviously spread far and wide. If the only connection between them is the colour of their skin, then I can't think of a more ineffectual descriptor of a group of people.

And what the hell is "white pride" anyway? I understand cultural pride, even though I can't think of a single cultural or regional grouping that doesn't have blood on their hands from some historical abominable act. I cannot fathom what it means to have pride in being born with a particular amount and type of Melanin.

Why are we still using skin colour as the main descriptor when referring to another person? Aside from an attempt to illustrate a person's appearance, what difference does it make to an intelligent and thoughtful person? I'm not trying to present a glib response to a very emotive topic or to say "why can't we all just get along". I just think it is an issue that needs to be exposed as a sham we were all indoctrinated with and disposed of accordingly. It is obviously rooted very deeply and not likely to go away anytime soon but with the lines of communication we now have available to us...

I do not feel any pride in being white (actually my skin is rather pale, pasty and translucent, so you could say I am striped with blue and purple veins). I have pride in the aspects of myself that I like and, if I have to link to a group, I would say I am proud to be Canadian, generally speaking that is.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
23:48 / 08.11.03
"White" seems to equal no intermingling of any genes from people whose skin contained more melanin in the last three or four generations. Hallé Berry had a black American father and a white Scottish mother. Why is she "black" and not "white"? None of it makes sense, this mode of classification.

"White British" always appears first on the list of options on the lists I have to complete, at work, of ethnic origin. That bugs me. "White" seems to be a purist conceit that is unavailable if you have, like the Empress Josephine or the poet Pushkin, a "black" grandparent. It's perfectly useless as a definition of anything.

"White", however, also equals membership of the racial grouping that has colonised and exploited the world ruthlessly for the last four or five centuries. My forebears were gleaning roots from the fields to survive or down underground mining coal, so I missed out on most of the spoils of that exploitation. Classism has affected me much more than racism and maybe it's a very similar thing.

When I'm with black or Asian friends, I expect they see me as "white = privileged = don't have to think about skin colour much". I would argue that some of them have been more "privileged" than me but I can't argue the skin colour thing. Every one of them has been afflicted with the racist attitudes of the "white" majority culture in mways I havedn't. Many have experienced racial prejudice from other ethnic groups than my own too.

Like Lurid, I think skin colour is and should be irrelevant in every single way that people try to make it matter. I don't think of myself as "white" in any way that says anything important about me as an individual and I don't think of other people primarily in terms of skin colour. I could easily have skin of another colour and be me, in all essentials, but I can't argue that I would not have had to face more prejudice and have internalised more racist assumptions growing up the UK than I did, if I'd been darker skinned.

It's such a crude and inaccurate way of responding to or making assumptions about anyone but I have to accept that many other people do make judgments based upon skin colour that affects other people. I don't know what "white" is. I have nothing in common with many other people whose skin looks the same shade as mine. If you're black, you would say the same. It has nothing but an accidental connection, unreliably, to cultural background and individual circumstance.
 
 
Cat Chant
09:38 / 09.11.03
BiP: Namely that I didnn't intend to suggest that a category of 'whiteness' is a single, simple entity, *or* that it holds 'the key'/is the over-riding identity for someone who may come under this umbrella.

Xoc: Like Lurid, I think skin colour is and should be irrelevant in every single way that people try to make it matter. I don't think of myself as "white" in any way that says anything important about me as an individual

The trouble with not interrogating whiteness, as I think BiP put more beautifully in her first post than I'm about to, is that it allows whiteness to become universalized, in a way: if white people say that their race does not signify, it runs the risk of turning into the racist discourse that whiteness is 'empty', blank, 'normal', and only non-whites are the bearers of 'race'. Richard Dyer - thanks for linking to White, Mr Disco, it's a fantastic book - talks about how odd it is for a colour group to be able to signify itself by the blankness of a piece of paper: white people aren't white but we still draw our faces by outlining them, and allowing the emptiness of the page to signify our skin.

I think the way forward with all identity categories - I've been thinking about this in relation to the 'marriage' thread, so it's unsurprising that similar disagreements are almost certainly bound to arise between me and Lurid here - is, as Judith Butler says: "I am happy to appear under the sign 'lesbian', so long as it is permanently unclear what that sign means". That is, as people have pointed out, defining a group by a taxonomy of skin colour in terms of permanent, fixed qualities is inherently racist, because it shores up the notion that race/skin colour, as a biologized* category, determines various characteristics that actually have nothing to do with 'race'.

However, whiteness certainly circulates as part of our** identification as white people. If I say "I feel like this because I'm a white woman", it's not that I think all white women feel like this, in a deterministic way, it means that I, inside myself, experience this feeling in relation to the categories 'whiteness' and 'femaleness', which I think is quite different from the taxonomizing of which people are very rightly suspicious. 'Whiteness', that is, is a sort-of-objective social category to which everyone will have a particular relationship, and it's those relationships, on a micro level, which it's important to examine. Not constructing a quasi-scientific definition of whiteness which will hold in all circumstances, but looking at the way whiteness plays out in specifically located moments and myths.

So, how do I relate to whiteness, or how do I think my being-white plays itself out in the encounters and experiences I have? Eep. I'm going to have to think about this one. There are two main areas I'll be thinking about; firstly, that as a white person in a mostly-white area I can sort of take it for granted that most of the people I encounter will be 'like me', so that race won't explicitly play out across our relationship (though of course two white people talking to each other has as much 'race' going on in it as any other configuration of people, it's just that whiteness in large part consists of denying that one is a carrier of racial characteristics). Secondly, in terms of music, since I think I'm quite unusual in listening to music which is overwhelmingly made by white people: when I'm asked to describe my tastes I usually say 'guitar-based music by angry and/or depressed white men'. Leaving aside the question of rock'n'roll's having been appropriated from African-American music in the first place, I do think music is a place where racial identifies are fragmented and remade, and it sort of intrigues me that I only listen to music by white people...

*I say 'biologized' to mean that kind of racism which thinks of race as a natural, fixed, pre-cultural bundle of qualities, even though most of the beliefs connected with this 'scientific racism' are not actually backed up by real biological/genetic studies.

**'Our' feels very uncomfortable to type - it sounds like I'm positioning myself in an all-white group - but I can't say "my" because I don't just mean me, and I can't say "their" because that sounds like I'm excluding myself, which I'm not. I wish English was one of those languages with more than one pronoun for 'we'.
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
10:20 / 09.11.03
Looking over this again, for the nth time as I try and get a grasp on what people are saying (sadly it seems difficult for people to discuss this subject without being somewhere obtuse, which I understand) I'm become very uncomfortable with the phrase "white people to interrogate whiteness". Regardless of my own opinions on colouredness as a concept in any form I see what these commentators are trying to say. However, it does appear to me to be a rather vague and unqualified demonisation that is riddled with many potential dangers.

Just thought that I would throw that out there.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:28 / 09.11.03
Hmmm. Is anyone demonising whiteness? Disowning whiteness, certainly, or questioning the utility of the term to apply either in general or specifically, but demonising? That I'm not sure about. There's a thread in feminist thinking that argues that men are in fact in many cases as badly served byt the current ideological setup as women, and perhaps (perhaps) something similar applies to "whiteness" as a concept - nobody really profits from it.

Hoom. Points have been made that "whiteness" is a meanigless term because so many different cultures share what is identified as "white" skin (then again, the same applies to black, asian and so on. Possibly "mixed-race" is the new diaspora, in some ways...but that's another question). Also that, although "whiteness" is smboic of power and exploitation, privilege is not intrinsic to whiteness - one might look, at Xoc's family, for example, and say that his whiteness is accidental - his family did not have a chance to "get while the getting's good", as it were, at the time of empire, and his subsequent standard of living is more about his geographical origins (born and raised in Britain as a British citizen) than the colour of his skin. When he says:

Classism has affected me much more than racism and maybe it's a very similar thing.

It opens the possibility that it may be basically the *same* thing - Haille Berry is identified as black because of a class structure rather than a racial taxonomy, say. Race becomes a series of class codifications entwined with but not necessarily dependent on physicality...
 
 
Mourne Kransky
20:03 / 09.11.03
Good points there. I'm finding it hard to "interrogate whiteness" and keep drifting off into considerations of class and culture instead. There must be another way in, though.

I read recently a remark that, while the thrust of anti-racism training had once been the eradication of (perceptions of) difference, the vogue now was for emphasising racial and cultural difference and valuing it.

The respect for other cultures I can buy. I'm still stuck in the old way of seeing race, apparently, in that I can't attach meaning to skin tone alone.
 
 
No star here laces
23:56 / 09.11.03
Wow. Fascinating what a response this thread has produced.

Other people upthread (Deva in particular) said it more articulately but I'll re-state just for my own post - examining what it means to be 'white' does not equal endorsing racism, people. And the very fact that it makes many uncomfortable to do so, seems quite significant.

'White people' are too diverse to have a culture of 'whiteness' eh? Unlike, say, black people or asian people who are all the same, right?

Anyway, I find this fascinating, and actually relatively easy to do, because of two things, one of which lots of people will no doubt find ridiculous, but whatever. I'm fairly open about the fact that I've expended a lot of effort over the years in being as "non-white" as possible, with questionable levels of success. And secondly, as someone now living as a member of a small white minority in a country where whites are not always particularly well regarded and in a region where they are often actively vilified, I've been exposed to a lot of people telling me "what you white people are like" recently...

So I'll say it again, I find linear, analytic thought to be the most 'white' thing I can think of. I think this kind of thinking has given white culture its business models, much of its art and characterises a lot of the way white people act. I don't say this meaning that this type of thinking is any kind of ideal - I'd suggest it is a contrast with, for example, the very contextual and synthetic thought processes of chinese-influenced cultures.

And actually, the second thing is probably a casual acceptance of power. People fairly commonly talk about how the minority experience has shaped black culture in the US, so I think it's fair to talk about how 5 centuries of economic, cultural and military dominance have shaped 'white culture'...

Just as we would say that someone born into the upper classes cannot but help be shaped by the prevailing viewpoint in the aristocracy, I think its fair to say that anyone born white will be affected by that too, which is not to say that you must be 'racist' or 'privileged' just that you are culturally, as well as physically, white.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
03:54 / 10.11.03
Interesting.

To get the easy bit over, Jefe/Deva: *smooch*, I wish to marry you, can we take it over to the Poly thread?

Firstly:

I should have said Whitenesses, definitely, apologies.

But I'm fascinated at how this thread has provided a microcosmic/reverse-image of the process that 'non-black' consideration of 'blackness' has undergone.

Ie someone non-white makes an ill-judged generalisation about what whiteness is, only to have the variations/perhaps the pointlessness of the term pointed out by those on the inside, those for whom it's far more immediate and personal.

As Jef has pointed out, 'black people' is a massively vague umbrella term. But its usage has led to it escaping a false and narrow taxonomy, and heading outwards into examinations of what, if anything unites/separates the disparate populations who are bunched together under these terms, and the process/conditions under which they're bunched.

Find this really interesting:

Race becomes a series of class codifications entwined with but not necessarily dependent on physicality...

As it shows a method whereby whiteness might become more easily visible. Or a place for whiteness as a quality intermingling with others that people seem to find easier outlining.

The reservation I'd have would be the danger of writing physicality out of the picture altogether, because the 'appearance'/visible presence of racial difference is still a major factor in race relations, on small and large levels.

Which brings me to this:

Like Lurid, I think skin colour is and should be irrelevant in every single way that people try to make it matter.

Every single way? My skin colour matters to me as it's part of what I find attractive about myself. It's not the whole of me, but it's a visual/physical embodiment of one part of my culture, which I'm extremely proud of, while having an interesting relationship with.
I think my coluring's sexy, come to that.

I'm deeply unconvinced about the strategy of erasing conflict by erasing difference as what tends to happen is that the majority view becomes the invisible norm, and conflicting elements are encouraged to ape that norm.

I'm also dubious that you can encourage people to value their distinctive cultures/backgrounds (which, as this thread seems to illustrate, are important. ) without valuing their race, if this is a major part of that ID. And if this is the case, trying to eradicate the connection between colour/culture strikes me as difficult, and why do it?

I disagree that skin colour is irrelevant in every way we can matter, and heartily don't look forward to this. I'd say instead we've made it matter in most of the crappiest ways possible, but that this isn't an inevitable/unchanging connection.

SK: Looked up 'interrogate' in the online Merriam-Webster and got this:

1 : to question formally and systematically.

which is exactly the sense I meant it in. No suggestion of spotlamps and thumbscrews intended.

Use 'critique'(*not* criticise) , or 'put under the microscope' if they make you feel more comfortable. There was/is no intention on my part to demonise. I find it an interesting response though.
 
 
Char Aina
07:17 / 10.11.03
science and exploration are pretty typically white, arent they?
the search for empirical knowledge seems to be paramount, albeit tainted by ideology in almost every instance before the last century.

'we' were the first to go into space, the first to cross the atlantic, the first to cross from the atlantic to the pacific, and 'we' visited most of africa before it's indigenous people visited us.

'we' have invented more, and developed more technology. (until recently, of course, when the tiger economies boomed) 'we' have the likes of pythagoras, if we are allowed to call him white. in fact, we could then have all the greeks, and the romans, who between them shaped much of the modern world and it's ideals.


historically, 'we' seem more productive than 'we' do today, but that may be something to do with discovering all the marvellous novelty of the rest of the world in such a relatively short space of time. as an explorer, such discoveries would be compelling to say the least.
i believe this novelty has not yet worn off, as we can see with the white appropriation of almost every other culture for 'our' own uses.

'we' seem to have a real knack for assimilation of other cultures too, now i come to think of it. i'm thinking specifically here about the use of blues ideas in rock, but there are other examples.


hmm.
thoughts about whiteness (and pride in it) do give me pause, but so do thoughts about any form of racial pride. i can understand that folks are happy in their skin, but my neck gets all prickly when folks talk about being proud of it.
if it is on the level of your colour of your hair, the shape of your ankle or the lilt of your voice as ms. platforms appeared to be at least in part suggesting, then that seems to be a different issue.

i do still wonder why one needs to be proud of such a thing, however.
 
 
Cat Chant
07:37 / 10.11.03
BiP/SK: Yeah... 'demonise' is interesting if only because one of the major ways in which white people represent their** fears about how non-white people see them is as "white devils" (Orientalized peoples) or "ghosts" (Australian aboriginal peoples). Richard Dyer says that whiteness is associated with spiritual/rational properties - the white person is 'mind' to the black person's 'body' - which comes with attendant anxieties about not being fully human, but white non-human monsters tend to be vampires/ghosts/devils (assimilated to the 'spirit' element of 'the human'), while black non-human monsters tend to be apes/etc (assimilated to the 'animal' element of 'the human').

**our? but this is sort of historical, so I don't feel that implicated in it.

Haus: privilege is not intrinsic to whiteness

I have to disagree here: privilege is absolutely intrinsic to whiteness, in that whiteness is privileged over brownness. This does not mean that all white people are privileged over all brown people - as you and Xoc and others have nicely pointed out, race isn't something one can easily abstract out of class, gender, and other positionings ("I'm at university because I'm white, but I'm failing because I'm gay!"). Nor does it mean that all white people will live out that privilege (in whatever form they inherit it, subject to the distortions/wanderings/effects of their class/gender/race-within-whiteness [thinking of Polish or Roma 'whites']) in the same way, or that they will all identify and seek to defend that privilege. But I defy anyone to seriously claim that whiteness as such is not the most privileged racial category. On this note, a couple of people have mentioned the racial typing of and discrimination against the Irish in Britain - that was carried out, on an ideological/visual level, by an assimilation of Irishness to blackness. They were 'othered' as being not properly white. (See Richard Dyer's book again.) So whiteness may be unstable, precarious, and assigned to different groups on a sort of sliding scale, but it's still privileged.

Different point: it's interesting that when I think about how it feels to be white, my mind instantly jumps to the encounters I have with non-white people - in particular, strangers or people I don't know on a personal level (Asian shopkeepers, black women with elaborately braided hair at bus stops). As if I was only white when I was around non-white people, and became less and less white as I get to know them better. I think that's part of the sense of whiteness as universal/ on-signifying, or part of the privilege of whiteness. Certainly when I'm in an all-gay group, for example, I feel like gayness is an important part of our being-together, it's a signifying strand in our interaction; I don't feel that about whiteness when I'm in an all-white group. When I'm the only queer in an all-straight group, I feel like straightness is a signifying strand in their interaction, but I suspect they don't, unless my presence makes them notice it in the way I only feel white when there are non-white people around. I try and internalize this feeling - that whiteness isn't the only option, that what I say signifies my race in ways I might not be aware of - but not always very successfully.

Sorry for all the italics, I'm using them to try and be clear so I'm sorry if it comes across as didactic and/or heated.
 
 
Cat Chant
07:40 / 10.11.03
Jefe/Deva: *smooch*, I wish to marry you, can we take it over to the Poly thread?

Just so long as we don't take it over to the 'marriage' thread
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
08:25 / 10.11.03
now there's a plan
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
08:48 / 10.11.03
science and exploration are pretty typically white, arent they?

Maybe... maybe not.
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:25 / 10.11.03
if white people say that their race does not signify, it runs the risk of turning into the racist discourse that whiteness is 'empty', blank, 'normal', and only non-whites are the bearers of 'race' - Deva

examining what it means to be 'white' does not equal endorsing racism, people. - Jefe

I think we should note that examining and acknowledging difference is exactly what the BNP is about, according to Nick Griffin. Not that that makes any discussion of race necessarily racist, but it rather undermines the idea that that discussion inevitably combats racism. If we decide that the "interrogation of whiteness" is crucial to the race debate, what are we saying except that race is a defining characteristic of a person?

Also, as for the danger of "white" becoming neutral, that is surely a fact of demographics in the UK, say. Just as, when I lived in London most people spoke english and in Barcelona they speak Spanish. That makes neither english nor spanish universally neutral, just more prevalent. This analogy works well for me in other ways. You might ask me how I cope in Spain without having Spanish as my first language - and this is meaningful. But asking me the same question about living in the UK with English as my first language and I would reject the question as mostly pointless. Being white for me has meant being part of a majority and hence has not been an issue. The relative priviledge I have is far more apparent from a position of non-whiteness so I can't imagine that I can contribute anything significant to that.

I'm deeply unconvinced about the strategy of erasing conflict by erasing difference as what tends to happen is that the majority view becomes the invisible norm, and conflicting elements are encouraged to ape that norm. - BiP

This can happen, sure. But the opposite is also a danger. I've seen black professors asked about their experience as academics in a white profession. And that kind of question - which avoids the trap of erasing difference - comes across as a little racist, in the sense that the person is almost defined through the colour of their skin. On that occasion it was met with exasperation.

So I'll say it again, I find linear, analytic thought to be the most 'white' thing I can think of. - Jefe

I'm sorry, Jefe, but I can't help but find that a pretty racist statement. I know you mean it as a compliment to non-whites (because analytic thought is overrated and something akin to a skin complaint) but I happen to know some analytic (you would probably call them linear) thinkers who happen not to be white. Perhaps you simply mean that these modes of thought are emphasised in British and American cultures, for instance? And that those cultures are white, hence that mode of thinking is white? So does that mean that black people can never be english or that a black analytic thinker should be considered white?

I can accept that different cultures have different emphases and that analytic thinking may be more prevalent in one than another. To describe these broad trends in terms of skin colour, which is a biological attribute at some level at least, seems....misguided.

Put it this way. Imagine walking up to a "linear", analytic, non-white thinker and saying, "You think exactly like a white person".
 
 
Cat Chant
09:39 / 10.11.03
it rather undermines the idea that that discussion inevitably combats racism.

I don't think anyone said that the discussion "inevitably" combats racism. I think most people on this thread have been trying to find ways to discuss it that will combat racism. See BiP's first post.

If we decide that the "interrogation of whiteness" is crucial to the race debate, what are we saying except that race is a defining characteristic of a person?

Read my post again. We are saying that whiteness is a concept which signifies in people's experience of the world in a variety of ways, which should be examined lest we repeat the racist rhetoric that white people don't have a race.

does that mean that black people can never be english or that a black analytic thinker should be considered white?

I don't think Jefe used the term 'english' as synonymous 'white' at any point, so I'm not sure why you're introducing it... but that's not the point I wanted to make about this.** What Jefe and I, if I may speak for Jefe for a moment, are trying to talk about is the way that certain characteristics are 'raced', in much the same way that certain characteristics are 'gendered' or 'classed'. That is different from saying that a person's characteristics are determined by that person's biological 'race' (assuming, which I don't for a moment, that the social category of 'race' has any correlate in biological categorizations). Saying that hip-hop is a black form of music doesn't mean that white people are incapable of listening to it and/or making it, it just means that people's race is going to affect the way they experience hip-hop (affect it in complex and unpredictable ways, but it's unlikely to be completely irrelevant to their feelings about hip-hop).

Similarly, the fact that analytical thought is raced 'white' is going to mean that people's racial identification is likely to come into play in their relationship to analytical thought. This seems to me to be a fairly minimal claim which is not at all equivalent to saying that anyone who thinks analytically is racially white.

And now you may begin reading my italics as heated.
 
 
Cat Chant
09:48 / 10.11.03
left out footnote:

**As I was coming back from the laundrette pondering this thread... hang on, I'm sure I've written that sentence before. Have we had a 'white' thread before? Possibly I just tend to think about race in the laundrette, ever since I sat in it scribbling quasi-Fascist rhetoric for someone to use for Voldemort in a fan story (it's scary how easy I find writing quasi-Fascist rhetoric) and hiding the paper from everyone in there... Anyway, I was thinking about one of the things I semi-consciously do as a way of resignifying my relationship to whiteness, and how it might just be another form of cultural appropriation (that oh-so-white "we're a blank sheet of paper, everyone else has a coherent 'culture'" activity), which is trying to separate Englishness/Britishness from whiteness. This mostly, to be honest, takes the form of taking people out for a balti when they ask for 'English food' and explaining that balti was invented in Birmingham (after all, fish & chips were brought to England by Jewish immigrants in the nineteenth century, so why they should be 'English' while chicken tikka massala/balti is 'Indian' is beyond me).

Hmm. Which is making me think about how Morrissey - who I think of, racism allegations aside, as very, very white indeed and singing about a specifically white English experience of the world - has a huge Hispanic following in the States/Mexico.
 
  

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