End of disussion.
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Whiteness is more of a cultural indicator than being dependant on your skin colour. Others have mentioned that the definition of "white" can expand and contract as fascists demand. So like, when people are railing against white people, we're talking about people who actively identify as white and conform to white culture, like generally supporting capitalism, being unconcerned with or happy with racism, acting like any slight against white people is discrimination equal to real racism, etc.
People with pale skin can and have been discriminated against, but never because they're white. I've had English people call me a terrorist and a savage for being Irish, not because I have pale skin.
The irony of britbongs calling anyone savages.
Yes, 'white' (and of course 'black') is absolutely a nonsense concept that expands and contracts arbitrarily, but race and whiteness isn't (in practice) a self-identity. It is imposed upon people by racists, and has been institutionalized and normalized so much that it's unavoidable. One can't just say 'I'm not white' or 'I'm not black' in a way effectively recognized by society at large. The point being, people are visually identified as being 'white' or 'black' through things including skin tone. 99+% can look at a license photo and will decide 'white' or 'black'. It is a term with racial implications. A light-skinned Frank who is anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-state will be considered 'white' by almost everyone, just as someone with darker skin will be labelled 'black' even if they are a US Republican, pro-capitalist, pro-police racist. So when someone says 'kill white people', why shouldn't a person considered 'white' by society see that as a sign of distrust?
May I assume "English people" is here referring to people generally considered white? This may factor into why they don't use whiteness as an insult against native Irish.
The Troubles and British colonization of Ireland are probably going to be far more present in assholes's minds than race in this situation, since my impression is most British people consider Irish people white these days (as you said, the definition expands), even if there are still specific anti-Irish racist tendencies.
Ironically, this argument only works for black communities because many black people are disempowered in terms of self-identity and the means to socially and economically enforce that self-determined identification
But for the rest of us the US census bureau had to create entire new categories (Hispanic white) and rework definitions (adding the entire MENA region to white) because people can and do effectively self-identify in terms of race
Racists have alot of power to impose whiteness and its various exclusions on others, but they are not omnipotent, that's why issues such as passing or non-passing, colorism in non-white communities, and the historical situations with Slavs, Jews, Irish and Italians exist, large swathes of the world challenge you're supposition that they can't practice a type of self-sorting when it comes to European racial codification
That's why it makes no sense to do what you're doing and try to reinforce the "imposition upon people by racists" as you called it, hey the racists imposed it, so we all have to get offended on behalf of people who strongly identify with codified European Phrenology? No fuck that, they also imposed capitalism, should we all start identifying as capitalists because our lives are defined by capitalist social relations outside our control, I mean plenty do and they'd take your argument and apply it to all sorts of things they'd want to essentialize, gender, religion, caste, national identities
But my point is that people who don't give a fuck about that identity are still subject to it. Whiteness is an ingrained social phenomenon. It's in the US census!
A person who doesn't consider themselves white is still considered white by a society, regardless of mass groups like entire nationalities/races to move between classification or determine new classes. Yes, there is (for lack of a better work) mobility of races between classes, but that doesn't change that typical people will look at another person and decide if they are white or not, and that other person's opinion or lack of one doesn't matter. If a light-skinned European-American puts 'Black' on their census form, this has approximately 0 effect on anything.
No, the analogue would be that even if we decide to identity as socialists, we still live within capitalist social relations imposed on us, until we overcome that system. Until we overcome whiteness, we are subject to our society's (dynamic) interpretation of it. An individual does not have the transformative power necessary to change their own imposed whiteness class, even if large groups do over time.
I'm not disputing that reality, I'm disputing your response to that fact
Not me, I don't identify as white and society at large doesn't see me as white unless I happen to pass on any given day, but the US census considers me white and a certain delusional minority of my ehtnic in-group consider me and themselves white, and I'm not an anomaly, this is the reality for so many ethnic groups who don't fall cleanly into this thing you present as being so cleanly divided
That's why I said it's ironic, cause your argument only really applies to dark skinned black people who don't have the economic and social power to overcome this kind of codification
Most of the time white people say "I'm not white, I'm ________," they are justifiably clowned on. If a white guy from middle Illinois checks "Hispanic white" on the census and then goes to a Hispanic community saying he's Hispanic, what's the reception going to be like?
Usually it's "I'm not just American, I'm ________" and then they get justifiably clowned on, but that's because Americans think genes make culture
"According to the 2010 US Census, 52.8% of Mexican Americans (approximately 16,794,111 people) self-identified as being White." They'd probably assume he was someone's relative?
And when he tells them he's not related to any Hispanic people, he doesn't speak Spanish, he's never been south of Missouri -- that he's just some white guy from Illinois -- will the reply be "well you checked the box, so sure"? Or will it be some mix of laughter and maybe something along the lines of "shut up, cracker"?
It's wild to me we're going back and forth over something as easily observable as "people will assign you a race and not everyone can change that perception."
Some white people say "yeah kind of sucks to be insulted for being white." You ask them why they identify with whiteness. They say they don't, and they realize race is bullshit, but most of society treats them as white and calls them white anyway.
I don't see any way to dispute that last part. How most people treat you certainly doesn't change because you can check a different box on a form.
Well I'd dispute it by telling them to get over it, because society doesn't treat people "as white", like it's some sort of burden placed on people who identify with whiteness, on the otherhand society does treat people "as non-white" when they don't pass, that's a different story
Nonetheless, I can't just "opt out" of being white unless I fucking lie like Lying Liz Wrecker Warren, and even then I will still be white just like she was still white and society will privilege us as being white all the same. I despise whiteness, but I am still objectively part of the white population and probably will be until I die because I am deep within the shifting boundary of who is designated as white.