The Ugly -- But Currently Stylish! -- Racism
Fraser Myers writes at Spiked! about the ugly racism that passes for social conscience these days -- the war on "whiteness."
At a time when racist attitudes are at an all-time low across the West, writers for the New York Times are asking questions like 'Can my children be friends with white people?' and 'Should I give up on white people?'....Whiteness is held up as an explanation not only for racism and discrimination, but also for gun deaths and depression among whites. You don't even have to be white to suffer from 'internalised' whiteness.
...What's more, the discussion about whiteness only reaffirms the idea that there is such a thing as white racial identity. White people are constantly told to think of themselves as white and to recognise their whiteness. The unintended consequence of this is to racialise society and to lend credence to the idea pushed by the racist right - that whites are a distinct racial group with their own distinct grievances and interests.
...Some writers have noticed that when you try to talk to certain white people about their whiteness (essentially anyone not part of the middle-class intelligentsia), they become defensive and agitated. Critics of whiteness call this response 'white fragility'. For instance, Myriam François, founder of the website WeNeedToTalkAboutWhiteness.com, says, 'We are swimming in toxic whiteness but take offence at anyone pointing it out'.
...A simple explanation could be that most white people do not identify with whiteness and are annoyed by having a white identity ascribed to them. Of course, it doesn't help that the identity that critics of whiteness expect white people to embrace is overwhelmingly negative.
...If white people are constantly told to become conscious of their whiteness, it should not be a surprise if some react by saying they are in fact proud of the accident of their birth. That would truly take us down a dark path.
Normally, I'd hope people read at the link but a warning -- as I tweeted to Spiked! "Hey, appreciate the need to pay the bills, but scrolling to the bottom of your "Whiteness" story repeatedly brings on spam popups [like forced load of an Adobe flash update I immediately quit out of]. Not appreciated."
"A simple explanation could be that most white people do not identify with whiteness and are annoyed by having a white identity ascribed to them."
The simpler explanation is: the concept of "whiteness" is flat-out racist. The idea of "if someone is white, that's all you need to know about them" is straight out of the KKK playbook, only with a different racial group being the target.
"If white people are constantly told to become conscious of their whiteness, it should not be a surprise if some react by saying they are in fact proud of the accident of their birth."
Yep. Until recently, most white people have not though of themselves as "white". If they thought about their ethnicity at all, they did so in terms of tracing back to the European roots of their families: English, Irish, French, German, Danish, so on. Not "white". In terms of ethnicity, white isn't a thing. However... as the author points out, some white people have looked around and said to themselves, "These are the rules of the game. If we don't play by those rules, we'll lose." So it should not surprise anyone that some white people have begun to identify themselves as an interest group. And when institutions adopt policies that are clearly punitive against whites, it gives them legitimate grievances to advance. The fact that Amy, who as near as I can tell doesn't have a racist bone in her body, feels the need to write about this, is in itself persuasive evidence.
Now, if that wasn't controversial enough, I'm going to throw in a "j'accuse": The widely expressed fear of white supremacy beliefs, while ignoring other types of racial supremacy beliefs, is itself racist. It is implicitly stating that people who hold to white supremacy are uniquely horrible, in a way that people who hold to black supremacy, or Hispanic supremacy, or Arabic supremacy, are not. Compare attitudes towards the KKK vs. La Raza, an explicitly racist Central American Hispanic group.
Cousin Dave at March 5, 2020 6:16 AM
Why is that a dark path? if everyone else can be proud of the accident of their birth and that doesn't lead to a dark path, why will this?
They've preached that pride for others to be a good thing for several decades, and that people should stick together according to skin color, and are now horrified that white people might start taking that message to heart?
Sow. Wind. Reap. Whirlwind.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 5, 2020 6:19 AM
Heh. Go ahead, loser. Alienate the culture that brought you everything.
If you do not think this is so, imagine you arrived here from another planet and had to ask where things came from.
Because ONLY the culture responsible for prosperity can be blamed for not giving it away.
Radwaste at March 5, 2020 12:36 PM
"Black fragility"
"Hispanic fragility"
"Female fragility"
"Homosexual fragility"
Useful concepts these days?
Increasingly, I believe so ...
Jay R at March 5, 2020 1:03 PM
Americans have trouble with ANY form of modesty or humility. As in "she accepted the honor with humility."
From gay composer Ned Rorem (he's now 96):
"Black Pride and Gay Pride are dangerous slogans, like White Pride or Straight Pride. Gay and Black are not achievements but accidents of birth. One must not be ashamed, but that's not the same thing as being proud. Pride should lie only in what one does with one's blackness or gayness."
And, from George Carlin:
I don't understand this notion of ethnic pride. "Proud to be Irish," "Puerto Rican pride," "Black pride." It seems to me that pride should be reserved for accomplishments; things you attain or achieve, not things that happen to you by chance. Being Irish isn't a skill; it's genetic. You wouldn't say. "I'm proud to have brown hair," or "I'm proud to be short and stocky." So why the fuck would you say you're proud to be Irish? I'm Irish, but I'm not particularly proud of it. Just glad! Goddamn glad to be Irish!
lenona at March 5, 2020 2:33 PM
From the syndicated columnist Clarence Page, 1996:
"White people are quick to notice whenever black people are getting tribal. They are slow to notice that white people are still tribal, too. White students were segregating themselves long before I came to campus in the 1960s and continued right through these times that, by contrast, are far more openly conservative. Black students sitting with one another is called 'self-segregating' or 'balkanizing.' White students sitting together is called 'normal.' If self-segregation is not a virtue, it also must be remembered that, alas, students of color didn't invent it."
lenona at March 5, 2020 2:35 PM
"Americans have trouble with ANY form of modesty or humility."
That's what happens when your education system is captured by the cult of self esteem.
bw1 at March 5, 2020 6:00 PM
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