Daniel B. Holzman-Tweed ([info]holzman) wrote in [info]debunkingwhite,
@ 2008-05-17 16:54:00
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On "choosing" whiteness
The idea that "whiteness" as an identity is something that an individual can choose to embrace or reject is purely a product of white privilege.

It is philosophically founded on identity as the product of individual choice rather than societal assignment. The idea is itself manifestly false. I am white not because I have chosen to be white, but because society has coded me as white. I am white because, being coded as white, I am afforded white privilege.[1]

Part of the white privilege I am afforded is the ability to ignore the fact that I am afforded white privilege in a thousand ways every day, even if I explicitly act to nullify every aspect of white privilege under my control. Cops will not pull me over for driving while black if I reject my whiteness. Employers will not quietly discriminate against me if I reject my whiteness. I won't start getting worse service in stores, or followed around be security, if I reject my whiteness. ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I also won't suddenly stop having the racist attitudes that come as a consequence of having the privilege of not understanding all the privileges I am afforded. I won't suddenly stop exercising the privileges I exercise by reflex because I don't realize they're the product of privilege. That stuff is the product of work, and I cannot do that work if I don't explicitly acknowledge that I am coded as white and shine a spotlight on it each and every time it tries to crawl into a corner and operate unseen.

All that happens if I reject my whiteness is I get to feel good about myself because I'm pretending to strike a blow for racial justice when in reality all I'm doing is complying with white supremacy and hiding it with a thin coat of paint, secure in the knowledge that not one consequence of being coded non-white that befalls people of color every day will come to my doorstep. The racetraitor folks put themselves at more risk when they can, but to be a racetraitor is to specifically embrace being white.[2]

That's white privilege. It's white privilege because it perpetuates white privilege. It's white privilege because people of color don't get to pretend they're not coded as people of color. That's a good way to get killed, and that's no exaggeration even in this day and age.

And now it's debunked, and that's what we're here to do in [info]debunkingwhite

[1] Because I am Jewish, there are times and places where I was specifically coded as "not-white." In those times and places, specific structures such as the judenstern and ghettos were instituted to get around my people's light skin. The United States in the twenty-first century is not one of those places, so let's have no foolishness on that front.

[2] Else, what is there to betray?



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[info]the_automatik
2008-05-17 09:47 pm UTC (link)
Thank you.

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[info]kialio
2008-05-17 09:52 pm UTC (link)
It's white privilege because people of color don't get to pretend they're not coded as people of color. That's a good way to get killed, and that's no exaggeration even in this day and age.

A hundred times yes. This is why being "color blind" is so ridiculous.

(Reply to this)


[info]badgerbag
2008-05-17 09:58 pm UTC (link)
Very clear...

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[info]raincitygirl
2008-05-17 10:15 pm UTC (link)
Yup.

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[info]delux_vivens
2008-05-17 10:18 pm UTC (link)
Meanie.

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[info]femmeflame
2008-05-17 10:27 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for putting a reminder out there for the members of DebunkingWhite a reminder on getting out of the chair in front of the screen and really looking at a piece o'how white privilege walks,talks and shakes its azz like.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

May I forward this...
[info]femmeflame
2008-05-17 10:30 pm UTC (link)
By the way - can I send this ( in it's entirety) to some people I know who aren't on this list - crediting you with the writing of it?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: May I forward this...
[info]holzman
2008-05-17 11:13 pm UTC (link)
I'd be honored if you did, and if you forwarded it anywhere else you want to.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: May I forward this... - [info]epilady, 2008-05-17 11:20 pm UTC
Re: May I forward this... - [info]holzman, 2008-05-17 11:36 pm UTC
Re: May I forward this... - [info]epilady, 2008-05-17 11:41 pm UTC

[info]dottieneurotic
2008-05-17 10:31 pm UTC (link)
I think it's pathetic that we had to add that "be honest about being white" clause into the userinfo, especially after the "from my x perspective" discussions we've had here. Not being upfront about your whiteness in a space like this-- where identity is so massive-- is self-defeating if you earnestly want to actively work on recognizing and dismantling your privilege. Now, if you don't want to actively work on that, well, now you know what to do.

In another way, too, I feel like it relies on the assumption that whiteness is default. If Person X feels like they don't have to acknowledge their whiteness but still feels capable of making judgment calls about what other people do-- people of color in particular--, that's just reinforcing their white perspective as "objective" or "right". And that's not only unnecessary in an activist space, it's downright harmful.

Anyway, I'm just rambling at this point. But I guess I just wanted to cosign this and add emphasis to why it's so important.

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[info]seaya
2008-05-17 10:42 pm UTC (link)
It *is* pathetic, but unfortunately, we'd rather be able to point to something concrete than have a repeat of these latest shenanigans. Let me know if the wording is bad, I wrote it, and I'm open to changing it.

I agree with everything else you said here.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]epilady, 2008-05-17 10:46 pm UTC

[info]kmd
2008-05-17 10:39 pm UTC (link)
I'm afraid to ask what prompted you to write this.

But thank you.

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[info]sanguinity
2008-05-17 10:45 pm UTC (link)
Have a glance through the comments on [info]epilady's recent mod post.

Or, perhaps, just keep an eye on the comment threads on this post, and see if it re-erupts here.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]seaya, 2008-05-17 10:53 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]sanguinity, 2008-05-17 11:09 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]tabari, 2008-05-18 03:24 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kmd, 2008-05-18 03:38 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]sanguinity, 2008-05-18 04:29 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kmd, 2008-05-18 01:12 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]redstar826, 2008-05-18 03:17 pm UTC

[info]delux_vivens
2008-05-17 11:01 pm UTC (link)
I also want to point out, that much in the same way that [info]maerhys has explained that Pretendians make it difficult for mixed or poorly documented or non-treaty-having native people to participate in Native communities/nations/affairs, people feeling like its ok to front this sorta bullshit make it that much harder for people who are mixed or havent been part of POC communities to find inclusion with POC spaces. If everyone has to constantly be on guard for punkass bitch moves, legitimate folks will be left out.

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[info]abydosangel
2008-05-17 11:18 pm UTC (link)
This.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(no subject) - [info]epilady, 2008-05-17 11:28 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]delux_vivens, 2008-05-17 11:30 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]delux_vivens, 2008-05-17 11:36 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]maerhys, 2008-05-18 04:25 pm UTC

[info]mamaroxie
2008-05-17 11:33 pm UTC (link)
Exactly.

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[info]unearthingbone
2008-05-17 11:43 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for this post. It illuminated a lot of things for me, mostly some privilege-masquerading-as-rejection-of-privilege I need to check at the door.

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[info]onlyonequestion
2008-05-18 04:16 pm UTC (link)
i didn't know you were a member here too!

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[info]silverthorne
2008-05-17 11:44 pm UTC (link)
Only legit reason (and by 'legit', I mean it's BS) to try and deny we're white is when we want to 'get out of' our responsibilities in regards to what white privilege has done for us and against POC.

Which, as has already been said, only perpetuates that privilege.

If you're white, fucking deal, learn, and change what you can, even if it boils down to only your own attitudes and how you present and act on them (because, face it, changing your genetics just ain't going to happen).

And for god's sake, admit you're white. Anything else is just going to make shit worse.

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[info]mattie
2008-05-18 12:00 am UTC (link)
Thank you.

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[info]alias_sqbr
2008-05-18 01:26 am UTC (link)
Very good post (and I agree with others that it's a pity it needed to be said. But you said it well :))

This is possibly my overly pedantic side showing, but I think it's worth noting that whiteness, while pretty clear for most people, does have somewhat fuzzy boundaries. Also, there's more to it than appearance, ie:
* If you're white and sometimes get mistaken for a POC you're still white, you still get to say "Oh, no, I'm white", and you still haven't lived the experience of any given POC ethnicity you might claim
* If you're POC who often gets mistaken for a white person, you're still a POC, you know that being treated so nicely is a mistake

I just had this vision of someone deciding that they're justified in renouncing their whiteness thanks to their very deep tan :) Wasn't there someone on here a while ago saying they used to pretend to be middle eastern using similar logic?

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[info]tabari
2008-05-18 03:30 am UTC (link)
The boundaries of whiteness are really interesting to me. I'm white and except in the second grade when I was told I must be Chinese because I have "slanty eyes", I've never been read as anything else - blonde, blue-eyed, a substantial part of the family tree traces back to the British Isles. I've also lived all over the United States, and it's fascinating to me to see how people who are "white" in one community would be considered not-quite-white or PoC in others -- in Detroit, for instance, a lot of people of Middle Eastern descent get read as white far more frequently than they would in Rhode Island. In Rhode Island, there's substantial Portuguese, Italian, and Armenian populations, all of which are read as white. In podunk Ohio, the Armenians and possibly some of the Portuguese would be read as not-really-white, and people of Middle Eastern descent would definitely be treated as PoC.

Whether or not my Ashkenazi Jewish boyfriend is considered white depends on a lot of things: is he in Fairfield county? White. Is he in rural Iowa? Not so white.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]holzman, 2008-05-18 06:32 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]lupa, 2008-05-18 06:40 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]annwfyn, 2008-05-18 08:58 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]alias_sqbr, 2008-05-18 09:06 am UTC
Off topic tangent - [info]alias_sqbr, 2008-05-18 09:03 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]annwfyn, 2008-05-18 11:19 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]alias_sqbr, 2008-05-20 05:19 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]seaya, 2008-05-18 03:30 pm UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]alias_sqbr, 2008-05-19 12:19 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]seaya, 2008-05-19 01:03 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]prettiest_one78, 2008-05-19 08:10 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]seaya, 2008-05-19 11:16 am UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]holzman, 2008-05-19 12:52 pm UTC
Re: Off topic tangent - [info]alias_sqbr, 2008-05-20 05:19 am UTC

[info]stoneself
2008-05-18 04:05 am UTC (link)
there are days i wonder why it's so hard for people to see this shit...

thanks for spelling it out, but i think there are people out there going "but but but".

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[info]holzman
2008-05-18 06:35 am UTC (link)
I'm sure there are.

But I hope that if they're here, "but, but, but" is a prelude for some serious thought.

(Reply to this) (Parent)


[info]jon_is_angry
2008-05-18 04:13 am UTC (link)
I may as well go ahead and state it, because anything else I say is going to be ignored in favor of this comment. Being Jewish isn't the same as being 'White'. Nor is it the same as being 'Black'. It is a unique experience unto itself, with it's own separate issues. I must say, by your footnote, that you must live in some completely separate United States than I do. Granted, I may not be pulled over for Driving While Black, but I can't count on both hands how many times I received derogatory comments regarding my yarmulke today. TODAY. Everything from "Aren't you a little old to be wearing a beanie?" to "What's with the kike-cap?" Plus there was the group of teenagers in the mall trying to Jew a store owner down. A couple years back there were some crosses burned down the street from where I lived, but I'm sure the KKK wouldn't have done that to me because I'm obviously white, right? I've gotten fired from my job when I left in tears because one of my associates was calling me a kike and a Christkiller. And let's not ignore that beautiful time of year when Target has 3 aisles of Christmas cards and 1 row of Hannukah cards, and people complain about how the Hannukah cards are pushing the Christmas cards right out, and wouldn't it be better if we just simply gassed the Jews?

I'm not saying that the color of my skin doesn't afford me some privilege. Like I said, I've never been pulled over for driving while Black. But at the same time, I'm not exactly welcomed in the bosom of White Power. Even in this modern day United States of the 21st Century.

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]lupa
2008-05-18 06:29 am UTC (link)
may i ask: how does this align at all with debunking whiteness?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]jon_is_angry, 2008-05-18 07:13 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]holzman, 2008-05-19 12:17 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]holzman, 2008-05-18 06:46 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]alias_sqbr, 2008-05-18 09:20 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]kmd, 2008-05-18 01:22 pm UTC
"white" is not a skin color - [info]stoneself, 2008-05-18 01:33 pm UTC
Re: "white" is not a skin color - [info]seaya, 2008-05-18 03:40 pm UTC
Possibly incoherent and off topic - [info]annwfyn, 2008-05-18 02:47 pm UTC
Re: Possibly incoherent and off topic - [info]lupa, 2008-05-18 04:10 pm UTC
Re: Possibly incoherent and off topic - [info]annwfyn, 2008-05-18 04:57 pm UTC
Re: Possibly incoherent and off topic - [info]holzman, 2008-05-19 12:10 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]hari_mirchi, 2008-05-20 06:35 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]holzman, 2008-05-21 06:27 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]hari_mirchi, 2008-05-21 01:02 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]hari_mirchi, 2008-05-21 01:16 pm UTC

[info]heroine68
2008-05-18 04:59 am UTC (link)
All that happens if I reject my whiteness is I get to feel good about myself because I'm pretending to strike a blow for racial justice when in reality all I'm doing is complying with white supremacy and hiding it with a thin coat of paint, secure in the knowledge that not one consequence of being coded non-white that befalls people of color every day will come to my doorstep.


THANK YOU

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[info]febrile_lune
2008-05-18 08:42 am UTC (link)
...Yes! Thank you for this. I agree that it shouldn't have to be said in the first place, but the speaking up has to start somewhere.

And this is perfect reference for anyone who subscribes to the idea that racism is only about conscious, personal decision about the identity- our own and those of others. I have more I want to say on this although it's almost 2:00 am and I think I should get some sleep before attempting the whole coherency thing.


Edited at 2008-05-18 08:47 am UTC

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[info]hooper_x
2008-05-18 01:33 pm UTC (link)
Fuckin' yeah, dude.

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[info]supafrosh
2008-05-18 06:28 pm UTC (link)
Sigh...why do I always miss the drama?

That said, this was a brilliant, concise exposition on the "just because you reject whiteness, whiteness doesn't reject you" topic. Really, once you sit down and think about it, the whole 'rejecting whiteness' movement is really just a masturbatory exercise in white privilege masked as individuality.

This post should definitely go into the memories.

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[info]epilady
2008-05-18 06:58 pm UTC (link)
It's already been memoried. Definitely a valuable primer for those who wish to shirk whiteness, either by "rejecting" it or by claiming "color blindness."

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[info]out_fox
2008-05-19 12:51 pm UTC (link)
Cops will not pull me over for driving while black if I reject my whiteness.

Exactly. Police harrassement is what I think of every time someone says that they don't "own" their whiteness. The number of times cops have seen me with POC, targetted the POC and actually asked me "hey, are you Irish?". I'm really being asked then, "hey, you wanna walk away and get the free pass of white privilege that your POC friends here won't get?".

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[info]the_automatik
2008-05-20 02:21 pm UTC (link)
That's disgusting.

(Reply to this) (Parent)


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