Whiteness

I know that people get upset, irritated, squeamish, etc... discussing race and skin color, even on DU, but I wanted to bring up something that I have had in my head since a DU member posted the article from Salon where Michael Erick Dyson spoke to Chauncey Vega on how Black people see Trump, not as an aberration but as the logical end of the concept of White Supremacy. I commented on a debate that was being had by two other posters on Salon one of whom was upset that Dyson was discussing the problems with White supremacy and yet, had the gall to use the words of a White theologian. He did not understand the distinction and became defensive. The underlying message in my post was that White people are not the core problem but the concept of "Whiteness" itself; that is of course unless those White people continue to misunderstand or worse, promote the concept for their benefit.

What I mean by that and what I said in my response there was, "What is White anyway?" We all come from somewhere. I was born in the US to naturalized American citizens, but my heritage is Mexican. My cultural heritage is a mix of Duranguense, Southern California Chicano, suburban/urban cultures. I grew up speaking Spanish and English. I am light skinned, when not tanned, but I have features and dress in a way that identifies my Mexican heritage. Recently my sister did one of those DNA things that said we have like 8% genetic make up from Mali, along with a host of European and indigenous Mexican cultures. On US census and other data collection forms when I am asked my race, I have to choose "White", then I get to say (sometimes) that I am Hispanic (ethnicity). I can tell you this personally. I am not White. I do not feel White and I have been shown in various ways throughout my life, that I am not welcome in many "White" spaces. So again, "What is White?"

The point is that White is not really a thing, unless it is. There are African, Asian, European, North and South American, etc... countries, regions, and cultures where people have come from. The concept of Whiteness is an exclusionary category that has been used historically to create and maintain a hierarchy of "civilizations". To confer status and privilege.

When you say say that you are White, you aren't communicating anything about who you are and where you came from. You are telling people that you are not Black, Brown, Yellow, Red, etc... There is no real "White culture", American culture is a mix of all of the different immigrant groups and some from Indigenous cultures, that have been amalgamated into what we are, HOWEVER, the majority of the credit and focus has been on what light skinned people from particular parts of Europe who came to the United States did to make the country what it is, and those people and their descendants have received a status and level of privilege that has not been shared by people from other groups who have contributed just as much.

What image pops into your mind when you hear or see, "THAT PERSON IS AMERICAN" ? As a person of color, I still have to be conscious of thinking about this because if I am being honest, the image that pops into my head is a light skinned likely blue eyed person maybe even with blonde or light hair which is actually statistically wrong in the US based on phenotype.

Anyway, I just wanted to put this out there. White people for the most part, are not the problem but they are unfortunately adjacent to the problem. The problem is the concept of Whiteness which is exclusionary and which is used to imply a "better than" quality. This is what ALL of us need to understand.