Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Self-Defined Majorities -- When does "white" mean white? And who decides?

[Sophie Rubin (yophiest]

Sharon, here is a beautiful article about whiteness that seems to agree
with you in some ways (eg "Americans still struggle to understand that race
is...more like witchcraft than empirical science" and "Neither scholars nor
ordinary people have been able to agree upon the definition of white
people")

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-identity-america-ideology-not-biology-history-whiteness-proves-it-ncna1232200

I will send you a copy of the book "What Does it Mean to be White?" by
Robin DiAngelo. It is a good in-depth look at whiteness and its importance
in the context of racial identity in America.

Here are some specific notes to things in your last response:

Statements such as these...
"the illusion of a white majority" (denial)
"injustice is not confined to whiteness and blackness" (colorblindness)
"Social stigmas are also there between...many other groups." (whataboutism)
...erase the realities of racial discrimination in the US.* Do you believe
that darker skinned people in America have incurred harm at levels and in
ways that lighter skinned people have not? *That is an important basis of
understanding to establish.

"When I think back on the communities of the large cities I’ve lived
in...the distinctions between geo-cultural areas are more meaningful in
terms of socio-ethnic groupings than either white or Black." Do you know
about the historic practice of redlining? It is true that various white
ethnicities used to be larger and more distinct from each other, so these
used to be more meaningful distinctions. But as we are now a few
generations in from Irish and Italian immigration waves, people no longer
have those cultural affinities as a major component of their identity, nor
do they face discrimination based on their heritage. More importantly,
none of those "white" groups were systematically excluded from federal
lending for homeownership.

Sophie

On Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 5:10 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> > On Jun 26, 2023, at 1:56 PM, Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Here is a useful article on defining whiteness
> >
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/im-jewish-and-dont-identify-as-white-why-must-i-check-that-box.html
>
> This is an excellent article — it’s a response by Kwame Anthony Appiah to
> a woman who doesn’t like ticking the box for white because she is Jewish
> and does not consider herself white. Many Jewish people identify as Asian
> or Mediterranean and thus closer to brown than to white, whatever white is.
>
> The responding author argues that whiteness is more than skin color and is
> not ours to individually redefine:
>
> > It’s not only our language but all our social practices that we build in
> common. ... If you don’t want to be white because you repudiate white
> supremacy or the racialization of public life, you first have to work
> alongside others to unmake an unjust social order.
>
> The problem with this argument in the context of checking boxes is that it
> supports the illusion of a white majority — it says you have to go along
> with this until we have something else. I don’t think that is how we get
> something else. Nothing happens without protest.
>
> Yes, everyone should work alongside each other to change unjust social
> orders. But injustice is not confined to whiteness and blackness. Social
> stigmas are also there between Black and Native Americans and many other
> groups. Black Americans from Guiana and South Chicago. We don’t need to
> know whether a child is black or white to know if they are being treated
> unfairly. Or if they need a free breakfast.
>
> Appiah also points out that:
>
> > Here’s one kind of privilege that white people have in our society: When
> you point to acts of anti-Black racism, you’re less likely than a Black
> person to be suspected of being hypersensitive or self-interested. You can
> also speak up in all-white settings when people venture anti-Black remarks.
> In the struggle against racism, it sometimes helps if you don’t have skin
> in the game.
>
> This is true and a good point to remember as a white person, but it
> doesn’t require accepting that “white” is anything but an illusion and
> including oneself in that self-defined majority. A white person can speak
> up and will be heard as a white person which confers privilege in some
> situations without having to tick off a box saying I am white.
>
> > Here is a useful article on why we no longer use caucasian
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race
> > (It was used in original racial classifications based on the theory
> > that Noah's ark landed in the Cuacasus mountains!)
>
> I’ve never heard this reasoning before. From a recent acquaintance with
> Turkey as a biblical site, however, it makes some sense since in the 17th
> and 18th centuries the people printing the Christian Bible believed
> everyone who could write was white, in particular, everyone in the Bible.
>
> The first time I had to tick a box I also had to look up all the labels
> because there was no option for "non-Indian from Oklahoma.” My source said
> Caucasian meant the people who originated in the area around the Caucasus
> Mountains. That seemed odd since the Caucasus is on the southern edge of
> Russia. In the 1950s, Russians were enemies and not very nice people so why
> was I Caucasian? But when it is for school, you do what is expected, no
> questions asked.
>
> Also from Appiah:
>
> > Like Jacob and Esau, the racial designations “white” and “Black” were
> born twins. In this country, since the colonial era, they have functioned
> to turn human beings from a wide range of societies on two continents into
> two vast assemblages.
>
> All the racial designations seem to be related to English Colonialism and
> thus based on the English as the superior race. Every country they
> colonized was “not English” so it became "not white." Everywhere the
> English went they created hierarchies based on the skin color of the Royal
> Family. Their distinctions were totally arbitrary and had only one purpose:
> to designate a superior culture—the one in charge— so they had to create
> hierarchies where there were none in order to have sanctioned layers of
> control and domination.
>
> In this process, they also created “white.” I only recently realized that
> the people of India were considered black. In all the areas I have lived,
> they were considered different only if they dressed differently and
> practiced a different religion. I had never heard them called black.
> (Understanding this, however, made it much easier to understand the British
> love stories set in India where a great fuss is created over this person or
> that person being inappropriate.)
>
> > In terms "what value in the boxes" every research you have read that
> > describes black maternal death rates as higher than whites, total
> > wealth of blacks, latinx, asian american, unemployment figures, etc.
> > is based on checking that box.
>
> The problem is that this is wildly unscientific. Can we correct injustices
> based on data that is not measurable? There is no measurable definition of
> white or black, or brown. Some people have identified themselves with a
> social group — White Supremacist, Black Power, or Person of Color, but then
> it takes on a deeper meaning than the one the Census or the hospitals use.
>
> DC is an interesting place to live in this respect. In the news media
> here, everything is defined as Black or White —usually just Black because
> “everything else” is assumed to be white so it doesn’t need to be
> identified. The governance of DC is Black on the local level but is
> routinely overridden by the white majority in Congress because we are like
> a protectorate of the Federal Government, not a state. There are huge
> cultural differences in the Black community because so many are connected
> to their country's embassies and have no history of enslavement. A black
> friend said, “It is hard to be with so many people who look like me but are
> not like me. They don’t sound like me or think like me.” She spoke British
> English.
>
> > To choose not to check the box is to decide it is better not to know
> > what inequalities exist in our culture.
>
> The boxes were theoretically put there for that purpose—to measure
> injustice. But do the agencies decide themselves which groups people belong
> to? And is that as meaningful as we think it is even if they are “right”?
>
> The unintended consequences have contributed to the black/white division
> for sure — it eliminates the sliding scale. The vocabulary distinguishing
> between various black/white mixtures is obsolete. People are required to be
> black or white. And we know we should check the box that everyone else
> thinks we should check. Your classroom teacher will change it if you don’t.
>
> Eastern medicine has always recognized that the same illnesses are caused
> by different things and have different outcomes depending on the body type,
> etc., of the patient. Their measurements seem mystical to Westerners, but
> they are based on measurable data and the West is beginning to take notice.
> With DNA we are also beginning to see illnesses that have different results
> in people who have DNA markers common in Africa or in Scandinavia. This
> will save lives. It is also measurable. Racial classifications are not
> measurable and not predictable. They are context dependent.
>
> The list of racial classifications on government documents also grows
> longer each year. I think there is meaning in that. I think it means
> something that Black has expanded to Black or African American but White
> remains White. From the University of Wisconsin:
>
> > The definition of “White” used in the 2010 U.S. Census refers to a
> person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle
> East, most Spanish speaking countries (South or Central America, or North
> Africa. The White racial category includes people who marked the “White”
> checkbox and also includes respondents who reported entries such as
> Caucasian or White; European entries, such as Irish, German, and Polish;
> Middle Eastern entries, such as Arab, Lebanese, and Palestinian; and North
> African entries, such as Algerian, Moroccan, and Egyptian.
>
>
> https://blogs.extension.wisc.edu/oaic/2017/11/09/is-there-a-difference-between-white-and-caucasian/#:~:text=The%20bottom%20line%3F,a%20geographical%20and%20American%20ancestry
> .
>
> Those are very broad geographic areas. It would provide more meaningful
> data if people did use European American, Middle Eastern or Mediterranean
> American, or Spanish American. Irish American, Italian American, Spanish
> American convey even more. When I think back on the communities of the
> large cities I’ve lived in including Kansas City, Chicago, New York, and
> DC, the distinctions between geo-cultural areas are more meaningful in
> terms of socio-ethnic groupings than either white or Black.
>
> My fundamental question is why do we classify ourselves in cohousing as
> White and then decry our lack of diversity? Is White a reality? What is it?
> Is it any more a fact than "college-graduate” or people who drive Priuses?
> Maybe we should focus on recruiting some other demographic.
>
> My argument is that we hold on to white because it preserves the illusion
> of a majority. And of "alikeness.” But if we identified ourselves as Irish
> American, Hungarian American, Italian American, German American, etc., we
> might be more accepting of Nigerian Americans, Jamaican Americans, Asian
> Americans, etc. We would all be understood as members of distinct groups
> instead of pretending we are melted and basing social action on undefinable
> data.
>
> I’m determined to find the bottom of the portentous word “White."
>
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Pass the Olives
> https://passtheolives.substack.com/p/self-defined-majorities
>
>
>
>
>
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