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Whiteness.

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19:31 / 03.06.04

That said, the essay/list does really seem to depend on American *majority* whiteness as compared to African-American *significant minority* blackness.

So, like, for my purposes it's a little beside the point. (When Asian kids talk with their mouth full, is it chalked up to their race? Don't think so.)

----

Oh, and the full list consists of 50 entries.
I found this one especially interesting in terms of this thread:
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.

I think maybe the spectre of shame&guilt stems from a similar process -- there must be *some* reason to be interested to this degree in chasing this thing down... must be a projection of shame&guilt.

08:32 / 04.06.04

Why does your colour define you? Isn't it because you've been judged through it?

But in a culture where skin colour affects your experience all the time, and where that is conceptually and experientally bound up with cultural and racial/ethnic heritage, I don't think it's helpful to insist that we should only ever talk about cultural and racial/ethnic things as if they weren't marked by skin colour.*

There are a range of visible markers of someone's belonging to a group categorized as a 'racial' group. One is skin colour, but there are also a range of racialized modes of dress/behaviour (cf Ali G "passing" as black despite the colour of his skin). I feel like your argument gives skin colour a far too central place in the conceptual scheme - as if all prejudice attached to skin colour, and all positive, beneficial, autonomous, self-determined relations to an ethnicity or cultural background attached to other racialized markers. Like, we can choose our culture but we can't choose our skin colour. That's not completely true, for one thing, and it also doesn't allow us to get at the relationship between various different visual markers and dimensions of belonging, experience and categorization.

*For one thing, as I've noticed trying to write this post without using skin colour terms, it makes it incredibly hard to phrase anything.

14:30 / 04.06.04

It's been suggested by various non-white commentators recently…that one of the most useful things in thought terms…that can be done for the future of race relations…is for white people to interrogate whiteness.

Reading this thread has made me realise that I have thought of myself as neutral or blank with regards to race. It has also made me realise that I am aware of a shared understanding with other white males which I cannot deny provides a certain security, given that they are the ones who have the power to save me or screw me in a lot of situations.

I can only think that these realisations will help race relations, as far as my part in them is concerned. I do need to think more about what it means to be white, and how I fit in with the world as a result. Over-identification with a particular racial group at the expense of identification with the human race is negative. However, a lot of points made in this thread (and the links) point to many whites being under-identified with their own race, and I think I could count myself among them. So maybe I'm not pulling my weight in the discourse of multiculturalism*.

I would see understanding one's own identity as a service both to oneself and to everyone else, as it does enable better discourse. But ‘pride’ is slightly suspect, isn’t it better for us all to be happy with who we are rather than being proud of it? Because being proud of something does suggest that sooner or later you’re going to want to shove it in someone’s face.

*Incidentally, by referring to whiteness in relation to multi-culturalism, aren’t you (they) conflating race and culture unnecessarily? It does seem to suggest that races and cultures are inextricably linked, that each race has its own culture, and that could be negative in terms of finding common ground.

19:35 / 04.06.04

But ‘pride’ is slightly suspect, isn’t it better for us all to be happy with who we are rather than being proud of it?

I would tend to agree, BUT I also suspect that "pride" as related to skin color i.e. "black pride"
is intimately related to the whole historical oppression thing. Consider also how it's been co-opted by those advocating "white pride" and the underlying concepts connected with that.

14:02 / 23.10.07

I think some people here might find this interesting : 2004 essay by Sara Ahmed 'Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism' in the e-journal Borderlands. She draws on Austin's 1975 and Butler's 1993 ideas of performativity, and analyses six kinds of declarations of whiteness as non-performative in those senses.

Ahmed also discusses some of the issues of class and learned-ness/ignorance in racism under declaration 5 : "I/we have studied whiteness (and racist people are ignorant)".

21:07 / 23.10.07

This article, by Walter Benn Michaels is interesting, because he argues that if race is a social construction, it cannot also be an identity, since a performative identity changes with the performative act and so is more accurately descriptive. He doesn't believe in race at all. (Can provide the article if people want to read it and don't have access.)

This is the author of "The Trouble With Diversity" that lots of people didn't like, but I thought was kind of interesting.

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