debunkingwhite: on "white"

peter li'ir key (

stoneself) wrote in

debunkingwhite,
@ 2008-08-16 23:47:00

on "white"
"white" is a social construct. it is not an absolute category that is fundamental to the universe. whiteness is something created in the minds of humans. you are white if you are considered white by society. you are white if you receive the benefits of white privilege.

white is not a skin color. white is not about physical appearance or physical characteristics. while skin color highly correlates to whether or not you are considered white, it is not about the pigmentation in your skin. there are people of color that are paler than people who are considered white.

white is not a biological category. white is not about genetic descent. when a person of color has a child with a white person, their children may or may not be white or colored. more to the point, this same child in one culture may be considered white and in another culture considered colored in others.

white is not universal or even global. a person can be white in one country (like mexico or brazil), and considered colored in another (like england or the united states). within the united states, people of mediterranean descent can be white in one part of the country and considered colored in others.

white as a social construct, comes with perceptions about what it means to be white, how to treat white people, how white people expect to be treated, benefits and privileges given to white, who is or isn't white, where white people live, what white people are like, what white people eat, etc. white becomes the touchstone construct for what it means to be not white, how to treat not white people, how not white people expect to be treated, benefits and privileges not given to not white, who is or isn't not white, where not white people live, what not white people are like, what not white people eat, etc.

white as a socially constructed racial characteristic is culturally normative. that is to say there are cultural norms around white. these are cultural norms that whites buy into without much examination, and that not whites also buy into, but with some resistance and friction. while it is tempting to call these cultural norms "white culture", that isn't correct or useful. this collection of cultural norms is a kind of "meta culture" - a "culture" that is shared by/included in many cultures.

these cultural norms are what define white.

(Post a new comment)

lapetitepaumee
2008-08-17 10:06 am UTC (link)

Thank you, this is so helpful, I'm adding this to my memories. I've tended to think I understand 'white as a social construct' but actually no, I haven't. I still had somehow naturalised the concept - can't really say how though.

white as a social construct, comes with perceptions about what it means to be white, how to treat white people, how white people expect to be treated, benefits and privileges given to white, who is or isn't white, where white people live, what white people are like, what white people eat, etc. white becomes the touchstone construct for what it means to be not white, how to treat not white people, how not white people expect to be treated, benefits and privileges not given to not white, who is or isn't not white, where not white people live, what not white people are like, what not white people eat, etc.
This para is what has caused the shift. If I've understood it, 'white' then is the concept around which a collection of privileges are naturalised into a form of identity?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

stoneself
2008-08-17 07:24 pm UTC (link)

If I've understood it, 'white' then is the concept around which a collection of privileges are naturalised into a form of identity?

if by "naturalised" you mean "considered a fact external to human consideration" or "used as a matter of fact" , yes.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	lapetitepaumee 2008-08-18 10:44 am UTC (link)
	Yes, that's what I meant. (Reply to this) (Parent)

mizzpyx
2008-08-17 11:59 am UTC (link)

This makes a LOT of sense to me- in my country, historically, an incredible amount of racism (on all levels) is directed towards a group of people who, to people not from my country, would appear to be 'white'. It's always been difficult to articulate how the... I guess, othering, of these ethnic groups has led them to be, in my country, most definitely not-white.

Or I could have just said- that makes a lot of sense, thank you.

(Reply to this)

fire_fly
2008-08-17 12:44 pm UTC (link)

The above comment, as well as other issues related to actual physical characteristics, makes me very wary about characterising whiteness as "not about physical appearance or physical characteristics".

The physicality of race is bound up in a number of social constructs, just as the physicality of sex is bound up in social constructs. Assuming that features which are scattered throughout the human population are concentrated in a particular group of humans is a social construct. The way people behave (in their sexual choices and other life choices and opportunities) because of the cultural location of those physical characteristics is socially constructed.

white is not universal or even global. a person can be white in one country (like mexico or brazil), and considered colored in another (like england or the united states). within the united states, people of mediterranean descent can be white in one part of the country and considered colored.

I have a serious problem with your characterisation of whiteness as being produced by perceptions.
Whiteness is produced by the social positioning of people within a global social hierarchy based on socio-economic processes (imperialism and colonialism) and cultural practices (racialisation). I.e. whiteness is produced by racism, it doesn't have an a priori existence.

What is considered "white" changes depending on how you draw the boundaries of your sample population, but in a global sense whiteness has durable and transnational characteristics because European imperialism has in a sense constructed a global social structure.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

supafrosh
2008-08-17 03:47 pm UTC (link)

What is considered "white" changes depending on how you draw the boundaries of your sample population, but in a global sense whiteness has durable and transnational characteristics

The danger with this approach is that less scrupulous white individuals will slide down the slippery slope from "European imperialism has in a sense constructed a global social structure" into "Europeans are always white", which allows them to feel secure in their whiteness even as they are supposed to be challenging the concept of whiteness. It becomes an armchair exercise in the examination of privilege, because these people can feel confident that their physical features permanently define them as white, and therefore they may start to develop a separate notion of "physical whiteness" versus "social whiteness", defining themselves to be of the former and viewing the latter as an academic exercise.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

fire_fly
2008-08-18 02:11 pm UTC (link)

I feel it's kind of problematic to trade on the idea that a white person needs to feel their whiteness "threatened" (challenged) in order to appreciate that it is synthetic... especially if that comes at the expense of an analysis and critique of white privilege. The derailing and minimisation of racism that occurs when you start to speak of higher-ups in the global racial hierarchy as being oppressed by racism is also pretty serious.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

supafrosh
2008-08-18 07:56 pm UTC (link)

See, I think that it is impossible to appreciate the synthetic quality of whiteness without simultaneously feeling that one's personal identity as white is being challenged. I don't see how else a white person can fully understand that their whiteness is not an intrinsic part of human existence. This is especially true when the white person is in the early stages of questioning whiteness and white privilege.

I hear you on the derailing worry, though...it's really a question of how much background your (white) target audience has in questioning white privilege, and I read

stoneself's post as being a rather basic "white privilege FAQ" sort of presentation of the subject, designed to prevent white people from shying away from the crux of the matter.

(Listen to us...two brown people debating what white people should think & feel. How often does that happen? LOL)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

fire_fly, 2008-08-24 07:48 am UTC

global "white"

stoneself
2008-08-17 06:49 pm UTC (link)

The physicality of race is bound up in a number of social constructs, just as the physicality of sex is bound up in social constructs. Assuming that features which are scattered throughout the human population are concentrated in a particular group of humans is a social construct. The way people behave (in their sexual choices and other life choices and opportunities) because of the cultural location of those physical characteristics is socially constructed.

this is true. it is not the physicality that is necessary or sufficient to determine if someone is white. physicality is by itself is not enough to determine race, and in many contexts, physicality as evidence is contradicted by the actual physical evidence. there is no essential element of the physical world that determines race, but physical elements are used by people subjectively (and incorrectly) to justify racism.

Whiteness is produced by the social positioning of people within a global social hierarchy based on socio-economic processes (imperialism and colonialism) and cultural practices (racialisation). I.e. whiteness is produced by racism, it doesn't have an a priori existence.

you're taking a universalist/essentialist view point here. which is to also say the argument you're making here is reifying the social construct. racism is indeed a global phenomenon, but it is implemented locally. not only is it implemented locally, the local implementations are often contradictory. further proof that racism is a social construct. more specifically, while there are more central and less central ideas of what white is, that do indeed branch from a european imperialistic parental from, this "global family resemblance" does not make them uniform. and even while there is a "global family type", how "white" is implemented locally is not uniform. in practice this means that who is or isn't white varies by time in history and place in space.

Edited at 2008-08-17 08:36 pm UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: global "white"

fire_fly
2008-08-18 03:21 pm UTC (link)

there is no essential element of the physical world that determines race, but physical elements are used by people subjectively (and incorrectly) to justify racism.

Not only that, but physical characteristics are implicated by racism and circulate in racist social spaces. For example, attempts at "breeding" certain kinds of "stock" from racially differentiated groups of people often focus(ed) on physical characteristics. The effects of colourism on the way people experience and express embodiment is another example of an instance of physical bodies being shaped/transformed by racist cultural practices.

you're taking a universalist/essentialist view point here

No, it's a systemic viewpoint. I think that's a separate issue as to whether a particular systemic analysis reifies the structure it's attempting to pull apart and analyse. Not all systemic analyses commit the error of reification.

racism is indeed a global phenomenon, but it is implemented locally. not only is it implemented locally, the local implementations are often contradictory. further proof that racism is a social construct. more specifically, while there are more central and less central ideas of what white is, that do indeed branch from a european imperialistic parental from, this "global family resemblance" does not make them uniform. and even while there is a "global family type", how "white" is implemented locally is not uniform.

First of all, you're aiming at a straw man. I never suggested that whiteness is uniform, only that it is structural and global. The specific terms I used were "durable and transnational," which do not equate to "uniform".

It seems like you're emphasising the local variation in the racial classification of whiteness in order to make a point about its synthetic nature. This is a limited argument.
Firstly because you're assuming that forms of social positioning within global social systems cannot be internally contradictory or differentiated. I would argue that the contradictions and differentiations are what necessitate systemic analysis, in order to explain their relationship to one another and to other phenomena.

Secondly, I don't know if the strategy of pointing to various contradictions within and between forms of whiteness necessarily leads to anything but (at best) more questions (and, at worst, a pervasive relativism about racism, where you get people arguing that, for example, Irish and Italian people are as oppressed by racism as Black and Indigenous peoples). You've pointed to various instances of contradiction within local forms of racialisation, but given no explanation as to why those contradictions exist other than a (in my view) racism that comes into being purely out of attitudes and beliefs.

I think you're using the term "social construct" in a simplistic way, to mean "something created in the minds of humans". I think this is problematic, because social relations don't just occur in the minds of individuals, and however anti-racist a person's attitudes, they can still perpetuate a great deal of racism.
I think there are richer definitions of "social construct" out there that capture the kind of ideas about social spaces being synthetic and built up over time, which is what I mean when I use the term.

On the other hand, I've argued that whiteness is as much about material human practices, including economic production, exploitation, and violence, as it is about attitudes and beliefs. I don't think you can reduce it to one or the other, but I do think attitudes necessarily have a relationship (though not deterministic) with social structures that gives systemic forms of oppression like racism the characteristics we recognise.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

fair criticism -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 06:25 pm UTC

phenomena -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 06:29 pm UTC

nohesitation
2008-08-17 03:32 pm UTC (link)

Thanks for the post, I'm sure I'll be chewing on it for a while. What this brings up for me is what happens when someone who was not white in one country moves to another where they are considered white? For instance, when doing anti-oppression trainings in the US, where I live, when there are white Jews who are claiming that as Jews they don't have white privilege, I often talk about my grandmother, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. I talk about how since she grew up as a person who was not white, she is not white, but her children and grandchildren, who grew up after WWII in the US, are. I know that folks have a lot of different thoughts on whether Nazi oppression of Jews is anti-semitism or racism (I think it's both) but I kinda feel like someone can't become white by moving. I'd love to hear yours and others thoughts on the subject.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	implodes 2008-08-17 04:45 pm UTC (link)
	i'll talk about myself in response to this. because i'm very light-skinned i often benefit from skin privilege because i'm at times perceived as white. i'll never be pulled over for driving while black, for example. that doesn't make me white. and to the OP: can we please not use "colored" to describe POC because of the historical weight of that word? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

stoneself
2008-08-17 06:56 pm UTC (link)

and to the OP: can we please not use "colored" to describe POC because of the historical weight of that word?

1) naacp
2) the oppressive weight of that history is exactly what i'm pointing at

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

abydosangel, 2008-08-18 03:16 pm UTC

(no subject) -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 05:45 pm UTC

	non-usa stoneself 2008-08-17 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	i don't know if they are still reading, but there are few people who have written in debunkingwhite, that they were white in their home country, and became not white in the united states. (Reply to this) (Parent)

dansolomon
2008-08-17 08:11 pm UTC (link)

This is an interesting point. I've never considered whether it's possible to "become white" after living much of your life as "not-white". The opposite happens frequently, and it's often a rude awakening for the person who's suddenly experiencing racism that they've never considered, but if you've been conditioned your whole life to see yourself as not-white, does the fact that you've suddenly acquired a full measure of white privilege mitigate that at all?

I guess the way to begin examining this would be to consider how much of whiteness is self-determined. Which brings to mind that kid who posted here with famous black faces for his icons, refused to acknowledge his race, and claimed that he had chosen to reject his whiteness, so he was totally black now, but there's obviously more to it than that. To use a more contemporary and less controversial (in the case of anti-semitism vs racism) hypothetical: Does a light-skinned Mexican-American from Texas, who was a POC to his friends and classmates his whole life, suddenly become a white person if he goes to college in Mexico City?

I can't imagine any of my light-skinned friends would identify as white under those circumstances. Does that matter?

I recognize that this comes dangerously close to "can we think of a circumstance under which a white person could be not-white", which is usually a first step to "see, race doesn't matter, it's class", but I think it's relevant to an attempt to define whiteness. There's obviously an internal aspect to it, but can you quantify that?

--d

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

supafrosh
2008-08-18 08:03 pm UTC (link)

I've never considered whether it's possible to "become white" after living much of your life as "not-white"

It's definitely possible, but we hear practically none of the stories of such people because hiding their "non-whiteness" is an essential part of becoming white.

Does a light-skinned Mexican-American from Texas, who was a POC to his friends and classmates his whole life, suddenly become a white person if he goes to college in Mexico City?

Because race is more than just skin color, I think it's impossible to conclude "yes" or "no" from this little information. Because this (hypothetical) guy was raised POC he has adopted a self-image as POC, so simply being thrust into a situation where his skin is now lighter in color than those around him won't do the trick. He may find that he has more in common with the darker skinned Mexicans because they have a more similar life experience to his: namely, being darker than most of their friends. I think in order to "fully" become white, he would have to adjust his mannerisms, his attitudes, and his personality to match those of the other light-skinned Mexicans. This is much, much harder than it seems.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 08:21 pm UTC

(no subject) -

supafrosh, 2008-08-18 08:38 pm UTC

	white stoneself 2008-08-17 08:35 pm UTC (link)
	will someone who is not-white in one country gain white privilege in another. this happens. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: white nohesitation 2008-08-17 10:40 pm UTC (link)
	And just to be clear, your thought is that if you benefit from white privilege than you are white? I just feel like that makes invisible personal histories... maybe I'm missing something? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: white -

stoneself, 2008-08-17 11:36 pm UTC

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categories -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 12:41 am UTC

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no bright lines -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 01:15 am UTC

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Re: no bright lines -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 01:29 am UTC

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Re: no bright lines -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 01:39 am UTC

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the challenges of social constructions -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 05:42 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

infinidad, 2008-08-18 02:33 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 02:45 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

annwfyn, 2008-08-18 10:09 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

infinidad, 2008-08-18 02:54 pm UTC

Re: no bright lines -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 05:51 pm UTC

Re: no bright lines -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 08:07 pm UTC

Re: no bright lines -

abydosangel, 2008-08-18 03:34 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

supafrosh, 2008-08-18 08:20 pm UTC

biracial and my cousins -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 08:47 pm UTC

Re: no bright lines -

lt_jim_dangle, 2008-08-19 12:35 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

supafrosh, 2008-08-19 01:14 am UTC

Re: no bright lines -

supafrosh, 2008-08-18 08:35 pm UTC

Re: no bright lines -

infinidad, 2008-08-18 09:31 pm UTC

Re: categories -

seaya, 2008-08-30 05:49 pm UTC

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Re: categories -

seaya, 2008-08-30 05:54 pm UTC

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Re: categories -

seaya, 2008-08-30 06:19 pm UTC

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Re: categories -

seaya, 2008-08-30 07:27 pm UTC

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Re: categories -

seaya, 2008-08-30 08:06 pm UTC

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Re: categories -

seaya, 2008-08-30 08:27 pm UTC

more categories -

stoneself, 2008-08-30 07:45 pm UTC

Re: white -

supafrosh, 2008-08-18 08:10 pm UTC

Re: white -

supafrosh, 2008-08-18 08:45 pm UTC

self-identification -

stoneself, 2008-08-18 08:51 pm UTC

Re: self-identification -

supafrosh, 2008-08-18 09:22 pm UTC

Re: self-identification -

stoneself, 2008-08-19 12:11 am UTC

Re: white -

seaya, 2008-08-30 06:05 pm UTC

	dancing_minerva 2008-08-18 06:51 am UTC (link)
	I've also added this to my memories. This is a great definition of the white privilege aspect of whiteness! As a white person, I think the discussion helps to round out these statements with personal, experiential examples. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	supafrosh 2008-08-18 08:23 pm UTC (link)
	Seconded!!! It's nice to see so many thoughtful comments and threads, with nary a troll in sight! (Reply to this) (Parent)

hortensio
2008-08-18 09:28 pm UTC (link)

people of mediterranean descent can be white in one part of the country and considered colored.

Really? I'm curious to hear more about the regional differences. Do you mean North African/Middle Eastern Mediterranean descent, or also Italians and Albanians and such?

a person can be white in one country (like mexico or brazil), and considered colored in another (like england or the united states)

Heh, yeah. Actually I hear that the biggest jump is to Northern Europe and Russia and similar. The US version of whiteness that I've encountered is arms-wide-open compared with theirs.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

stoneself
2008-08-19 12:14 am UTC (link)

Really? I'm curious to hear more about the regional differences. Do you mean North African/Middle Eastern Mediterranean descent, or also Italians and Albanians and such?

per one of my lebanese correspondents, he can be white in his hometown, because they have been accepted by the local population (and for a large part he and his peers are "assimilated"). however, he was shocked to be treated as not white when he went to arizona.

from what i've read, this has happened to some other middle-eastern/mediterranean populations.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

TL:DR anecdata

annwfyn
2008-08-19 12:43 pm UTC (link)

I'm White, but I'm quite olive skinned, with dark eyes and black hair. In England I'm always read as White - I get asked if I'm Italian quite often, or told I 'don't look English', but I'm always White. In Italy (where a chunk of my family are from), I always get spoken to in Italian by people unless I specifically say I'm English and can they speak English. This never happens to my blonde younger sister (who actually lives in Italy and is entirely fluent in Italian.) - she is normally spoken to in English unless she starts a conversation in Italian.

Anyway, a couple of years ago I spent a while in Texas on my way back from South America where I'd been living for a while. I'd actually picked up a tan (quite rare for me, due to sunlight giving me a headache) and when I tan, I tan very dark for a white chick.

For the first time in my life I started getting odd comments. People assumed I couldn't speak English, even if I'd already said something in English, in my English accent. I couldn't catch something a woman in a shop said, said 'excuse me' and suddenly had her bellowing "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" at me. I randomly had a complete stranger refer to me as 'chica', and had one guy say something that sounded like some kind of racial epithet when I bumped into him by mistake and apologised in Spanish (I'd been living in Chile. I'd gotten used to talking in Spanish at that point).

Having said that, as soon as I said "no - I'm English" and the person I was speaking to registered the accent properly, or caught my name, their whole demeanour would change, which was also odd. People's body language went from unfriendly/hostile to excessively polite and friendly the minute they somehow clicked that I was European.

I still don't entirely know what was going on. I've kinda assumed that I was being read as Hispanic/Latino. Either that, or I was just unlucky, met some odd people, and then just built up this whole experience in my head. But, as someone who looks Mediterranean, that was my experience of briefly not being quite as unambiguously white as I always thought I was.

It was only for 48 hours, but it was a really really weird experience.

Having said that, I think that confirmed in my mind that whiteness isn't just in other's perceptions. I knew, on some level, that those people had no capacity to hurt me. At no point did I ever feel worried, or threatened, and I think a general smug English middle class sense of superiority rather carried me through. On the other hand, PoC friends of mine who do sometimes pass from White never have that sense of security, and rather tend to often be quite insecure and feel as if any level of acceptance that they gain can be taken away very easily. Conditional Whiteness is a quite different experience, I think, from being White.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: TL:DR anecdata -

stoneself, 2008-08-19 05:06 pm UTC

Re: TL:DR anecdata -

annwfyn, 2008-08-19 08:28 pm UTC

	fire_fly 2008-08-30 01:12 pm UTC (link)
	Hi, I just posted this at feminist but forgot that their community rules require that links to other communities have permission from both the OP and the community mods. Is it okay if I link this at feminist? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	stoneself 2008-08-30 04:03 pm UTC (link)
	you have permission, but i think this was already posted there (Reply to this) (Parent)

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