“In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
— Toni Morrison
Step 4:
Defining Whiteness
Whiteness is incredibly difficult to concisely define…
It simultaneously refers to a particular individual’s racial identity, the culture of white America that makes up the marker for what is “normal” in this country, and it is a legal designation within this country’s social strata that is a direct descendent of American slavery.
Here, we’ll briefly explore the different elements of identity, culture and politics that inform the multiple meanings of this bogus concept that has plunged this world into centuries of race based conflict, resulting in the deaths and displacement of millions of people through war, colonization and systematic identity based violence…
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Whiteness has many bodies that it animates, or manifests through, with a unique name for each one depending on the circumstances and context it’s given...
it could mean white racialized identity; the ways that white people incorporate the racial designation of “white” into the very fabric of their cultural and genealogical identity, generally the result of ancestral assimilation, giving up and even denouncing their ethnicity, country of origin, language, religion and other cultural traditions…
it could represent systems of institutional power in the United States; a constellation of processes and procedures that uphold the institutional policies of white supremacy, and the justifications of continuous colonization and systematic exploitation…
it could also refer to the legal racial designation of “white” within the United States’s race based caste system; demarcating who does and who does not have immediate access to state power, simply by virtue of being alive…
This graphic attempts to illustrate the connections between different elements of whiteness, as well as the crossed wires that create so much confusion when discussing it. We must learn how to be specific in our language when speaking with others to avoid miscommunication.
Nell Irvin Painter, author of "The History of White People", explains how the language of whiteness — and its meaning — has evolved.
“The term white, referring to people, was created by Virginia slave owners and colonial rules in the 17th century. It replaced terms like Christian and Englishman to distinguish European colonists from Africans and Indigenous peoples. European colonial powers established whiteness as a legal concept after Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, during which indentured servants of European and African descent had united against the colonial elite. The legal distinction of white separated the servant class on the basis of skin color and continental origin. The creation of ‘whiteness’ meant giving privileges to some, while denying them to others with the justification of biological and social inferiority.”
When did the concept of race originate? And was there no such thing as racism before it did? Nell Irvin Painter discusses the ways we divided ourselves before the creation of race.
Before there were “white people”, there were ethnic groups in all corners of the European continent with unique languages, faith systems, cultures and origin stories. Some of the first expositions on these tribes was written by explorers from the Roman empire prior to their conquering of northern lands, so it’s important to remember that most of what we know about them is recorded through a Romanized perception.
The Roman empire reshaped nearly everything about the continent of Europe, from the linguistics of Latin that evolved many modern dialects, to the institution of Christianity, and the plague that would spread across the land over the course of centuries, brought to the shores of Europe through Roman shipping ports.
As a result of the imperialism of Roman culture, language, religion, coupled with the decimation of the population by the plague, Europe plunged into what’s known as the “dark ages”. After this time of death, the period that followed, known as the Enlightenment, led to a reimagining of European origin stories, one of these origin stories being what we call “United States History”. This narrative account was based on a hodge-podge of religious and historical texts, political strategy, a slight god complex brought on by the development of scientific categorizations of the natural world, and an unprecedented era of global colonization.
All of these things coalesced into a new way of identifying those who deserve the power to rule, and those who were born to serve; this marker is, today, what has come to be referred to as whiteness.
“Whiteness itself refers to the specific dimensions of racism that serve to elevate white people over people of color. This definition counters the dominant representation of racism in mainstream education as isolated in discrete behaviors that some individuals may or may not demonstrate, and goes beyond naming specific privileges…whiteness is thus conceptualized as a constellation of processes and practices rather than as a discrete entity (i.e. skin color alone). Whiteness is dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and on myriad levels. These processes and practices include basic rights, values, beliefs, perspectives, and experiences purported to be commonly shared by all but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people.”
Robin DiAngelo, author of “White Fragility,” unpacks common excuses white people make about race–and how to address them.
Race vs. Ethnicity
There is a very important distinction that must be made between race and ethnicity. Ethnicity primarily describes a person’s ancestral geographical base, though other factors include cultural practices, language, and sense of membership to a group rooted in a common history.
When in the United States, all people of any ethnicity are racialized as well, based on the color of their skin and assumed placement within the social hierarchy. As one would assume, what race someone is assigned is rather subjective, and can result in people of the same ethnicity being categorized in different racial categories.
For example, someone from Greece who has lighter skin and speaks english fluently would most likely be identified as white in US society, whereas a Greek person who has darker skin and/or is not fluent in english would likely not be considered white. Similarly, if someone from Egypt with darker skin came to the United States they’d be racialized as Black, but if they had lighter skin and could speak english fluently, they’d likely have more access to white institutions.
Where white people often get tripped up is in thinking that whiteness is our ethnicity. We all have an ethnic background, but this is separate from our race. White people in America also generally have familial ties to or knowledge of our ethnic background, even distantly in the past. But for Black people in America especially, due to the displacement and enslavement of their ancestors, do not have that same documented family lineage to trace back.
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When we talk about “white people”, we’re talking about people with white racialized identity. Inherently, it is a piece of our personal identity that we ascribe as being real, that is rooted in a 17th century pseudo-scientific fabrication, creating a psychological contradiction that can get in the way of understanding ourselves and things about the world around us. This is not something we can simply choose not to be, and it does not discount the other aspects of our identity.
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When we talk about “white privilege”, we’re talking about people who directly benefit from the simple fact that the state will not oppress you simply based on your race. The reason white people are spared from state sanctioned racial violence, in policy or physical incidents, is because these state systems were set up by white people for white people. You can have white privilege and be oppressed, but if you are white, you are not oppressed because you’re white. This dynamic is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to resolve.
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When we talk about people who are “white”, what we’re inherently talking about is a legal designation. We’re talking about a social class of people within a country that has different levels of access to state resources and power depending on a person’s social class, or rather, caste. If you are Black, for example, you are legally unable to become white, and thus unable to reap the privileges of whiteness.
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When we talk about “whiteness” as a racial group, we are often referred to as caucasian, which in fact is a direct remnant of race’s pseudo-scientific origins. Back when the specious race theory was first being developed, the skull that represented the model of all humanity to Johann Blumenbach came from the Caucasus mountains in between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. This, he falsely concluded, meant that all whites must have originated in the Caucasus mountains, and thus were categorized as caucasoid. Though this was disproven within a matter of years, the word caucasian is still used as a synonym for white to this very day, for government and civilian demographic data.
Race vs. Ethnicity vs. Religion
Another thing that commonly trips up white people when it comes to understanding race, is religious affiliation. People of the same religious group can have entirely different races and ethnicities, even if their values and cultural practices and even languages are the same.
For example, one dark skinned person from Nigeria and one light skinned person from Georgia would be racialized completely differently, even if they’re both Christian. Similarly, one lighter skinned person from France and one darker skinned person from Tunisia would be racialized completely differently, even if they’re both Jewish.
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Judaism is a particularly unique case, because unlike all other religions, many consider being Jewish to be it’s own distinct ethnicity; and due to the common misconception that race and ethnicity are the same thing, people can come to believe that being Jewish is a “race”.
This, however, is not the case. Even if someone of the Jewish faith has an ethnic claim through their maternal line, they still have additional pieces of their ethnicity, and an assigned race within the American caste system, that are separate from their faith.
Can you be white and Jewish? Of course you can. Can you be Black and Jewish? Obviously. Can you avoid American racial designations because you are Jewish? Absolutely not.
In fact, the people who popularized the idea that the Jewish people were one homogenous race was none other that propaganda from the same Nazi German war machine that engineered the holocaust. Yet, that deeply disturbing irony is still lost on many of us today.
This short video features interviews with white people on the challenges of talking about race as someone with white racialized identity.
Poverty, Privilege & Power
Let’s tie all of this information back to poverty and power. There are so many different ways we divide ourselves and each other; religion, ethnicity and race being 3 of the primary ways those in power have done so over the course of human history.
If we want to eliminate poverty, and thus privilege, we must be clear in what the differences are between these strategies of division, and combat systems of power through unity in numbers, impoverished and privileged alike.
We must also understand that all of these tools of oppression are malleable, they change overtime to adapt to social pressures and demographics: that’s how race was created in the first place, to justify the depraved actions people in power took to increase their power.
For example, in 1900, Italians couldn’t conceive that they’d one day be considered white, but they have been considered as such for at least half a century now. In 1990, Mexicans were no more white than Pakistanis, but over the course of the last few decades, forced assimilation and subliminal messaging has opened the door to “Hispanic” people being legally considered white. This happens periodically as demographics in the country change, in an attempt to maintain a “white” majority.
But the central purpose of any system of power is to control people, and the primary tool used to control people is by dividing them, then making those divided groups blame each other for their misfortunes. This can be accomplished between identity groups, and within identity groups, but the goal is always the same: to distract us from the fact that all of us have a common oppressor…
…racialized identity itself.