Moments of Permanence - Miscellaneous Things: Events, Prisons, Racial Identity for White People

From: nicki Date: July 14th, 2009 09:01 am (UTC) (Link)

I included in my profile the sort of information that I am interested in when looking at someone else's profile. I don't look for ethnic identity so I didn't think to include it. I could include "Germanic-Franco-Irish-American" (white is too much of an umbrella, if I'm going to identify, I'll give my specific identity- so, er, I identify as white and these specific subcultures of white) and be fine with it, but as far as I can tell most of the people interested in racial identity would be looking for it to use in a debate or are suffering from prejudice, so I don't see much reason to do so.

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From: rainbow Date: July 14th, 2009 07:51 pm (UTC) (Link)

not having to treat ethnic identity as intrinsic to general identity is white privilege.

My USA bias and blindness, let me show you it. I had always assUmed that a big reason in the USA that "Black" was an ethnic identity was because so many people had no way of knowing what country/culture their forebears had come from. I mean, they could say "African" -- but that's a continent, not a country, vs Irish, Ethiopian, Russian, Finnish, Peruvian, Seminole, etc.

I'd never stopped to think about other countries with other histories, where one's more specific racial indentity wasn't stolen from one, and now I'm curious about it. What I mean is, I'd have assUmed that someone whose Nigerian or Ethiopian (or a smaller group within a country, too) would consider the specifics of who they are as their ethnic identity, rather than Black being their ethnic identity, while someone with black skin in the US whose original ethnic identity was unknown would identify as Black or African-American and reclaim part of their heritage even if they don't know the specifics. Am I making *any* sense? (I had a bad fall yesterday and high pain today; I may well be NOT making sense, and I know it.)

And probably because of I thought of "Black" as a way to claim an ethnic identity when one's true one had been stolen (or a skin color; to me those aren't the same thing at all), I think of "White" as an identity someone would claim if they didn't know a more specific one. My birthfather's side? He said his maternal grandmother was Florida Seminole (or maybe her mother), but his father's side is mostly British Isles descent. I don't know any more specific info on them. White works for them.

But my mother's side had a *very* strong German (maternal grandmother) and Irish (maternal grandfather) identity, and I grew up with them and only knowing about my birthfather that he was part Florida Seminole (he'd told that to my mother). So I grew up thinking of myself as mixed descent: my ethnic identity is Irish, German, and Seminole. My skin color is white, but that's not an identity to me; it's a physical trait, like the Brennan brown eyes, short legs, and funny nose, the Rehker fatty tumours, the cheekbones from Sam's mother's side, etc.

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From: lady_ganesh Date: July 14th, 2009 11:47 pm (UTC) (Link)

When I was a freshman in a (very white) college, we had a Diversity Meeting in our dorm, and talked to two of the black students we had on campus; they were both from Caribbean islands and didn't identify as African-American; they felt themselves to be from the Dominican Republic and ... ah, wherever the guy I didn't know as well was from, I can't remember any more. But they identified very strongly as Black. They were treated as Black people-- M. in particular had transferred from a college in LA where he'd had a cop put a gun to his head. (M. was almost as threatening as a kitten if you knew him at all, but was very tall and was Black, and...that was enough.)

So I think identity is two-part; one level is how you identify yourself, and the other is how people identify you and the color/privilege (or lack) you carry with you. People look at me and see white. Sure, I know I'm British, Scottish, various tribes or the Americas and Irish (in that order), but...that doesn't show on my face, at least unless you're looking. I look white.

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From: rainbow Date: July 15th, 2009 12:17 am (UTC) (Link)

Thank you for sharing that, especially about two part identiy and how other people identify you being separate from self-identity.

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From: lady_ganesh Date: July 15th, 2009 02:20 am (UTC) (Link)

I learned a lot from those guys.

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 06:49 am (UTC) Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

My USA bias and blindness, let me show you it. I had always assUmed that a big reason in the USA that "Black" was an ethnic identity was because so many people had no way of knowing what country/culture their forebears had come from. I mean, they could say "African" -- but that's a continent, not a country, vs Irish, Ethiopian, Russian, Finnish, Peruvian, Seminole, etc.

I think, from what I have seen, that there's a strong strategic and political element to identifying as Black, or as Native, or Asian: strategic in that in some cases people have limited or no specific information about their ancestry, and also as lady_ganesh points out, strategic in that if a group all face a similar discrimination, it makes sense for them to build a shared identity.

But we can have more than one identity; most of us do. As lady_ganesh points out, people can identify as Black and also as Dominican or African American or Afro-Canadian or Jamaican - or for that matter as mixed-race or bicultural, above and beyond which particular races and cultures they are a mix of.

I identify as white politically and strategically -- because it makes sense for me to do so. I don't want to look as if I'm trying to weasel our from under taking responsibility for my privilege, or indeed to be tempted to try to do so.

I don't and wouldn't say that my culture was "white". "White" is not a culture I particularly feel attracted to or think is worth building or saving. And I will be Go To Hell if I ever call myself Aryan.

My culture is Anglo-Canadian, if it's anything. With any number of subcultures attached: "queer". "South-West Ontario working-class". "UK descended".

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From: sami Date: July 17th, 2009 06:58 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

Cultural identity is significantly different, though.

By descent, I'm 1/2 Afrikaaner, 1/4 English, and 1/4 Scottish.

Culturally, though, I'm 0% Afrikaaner, and about 60% Australian, 10% English, 25% Scottish, and 5% Zulu.

In terms of race discussion, and racial identity, I'm still just white. In the same way that a Jamaican and an African-American are both likely to be black.

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 07:08 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

No argument there. That was partly what I meant by "political", because race is basically a political construct, but I think I didn't do it very clearly.

But I think the two thngs get conflated, and I think it's helpful to disentangle them, because I think it's a big part of the problem you were discussing:

See, in some respects I think we should. If non-white people find their ethnicity a part of their Identity, but white people can leave it unspoken, it's still perpetuating the white is default thing; if we don't say, then we're somewhat perpetuating an idea that everyone on the internet is assumed white until proven otherwise.

And yet, I would be skeeved as hell listing whiteness as a characteristic in a profile of myself that didn't have a specific field for it.

There's a difference between saying "I'm white" and saying "I identify as A White Person". And I think to a great extent that difference is race/culture. Nothing particularly skeevy about being white, as such - at least, I hope not, because with this I am stuck. But nothing particularly wrong, either - as long as it's not being wielded as a derailing tactic - with saying "I have white skin and I have white privilege and that informs my identify, but it doesn't define it".

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 07:16 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I mean, there is also the fact that the two cases:

If non-white people find their ethnicity a part of their Identity,

are not identical - which doesn't mean your point is not right. But Black and Native and Asian and cetera are cultural constructs formed partly in response to and as a means of resisting oppression, and White ... is not. As I say, I'm not trying to disavow the effects of my whiteness, but White Culture as a construct is basically a strategy to grab and hold on to (and, as more and more ethnicities over the last few hundred years have gotten folded into "white", to gain access to) illegitimate power and privilege, and the sooner it's melted down for scrap the better. Let us by all means break 'white' up into several thousand small, limited cultural groups, none of which can exercise that sort of coercive power, and build our large political and strategic coalitions on some other, better basis.

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From: rainbow Date: July 17th, 2009 07:29 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I know this comes from above, but I've only just really noticed the quote here, so I'm resonding here:

we're somewhat perpetuating an idea that everyone on the internet is assumed white until proven otherwise.

I'm gobsmacked.

That's not an idea that would ever occur to me, because, good grief, a whole bunch of my friends aren't white, ditto my family.

Now I freely admit that if I don't think about it, I tend to assume ppl are about my *age* (which is silly since I'm almost 50 and most of the ppl I know online are 60+ or well under 40), but assuming a default skin color?

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 07:34 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

Whee! Someone older than me! *is almost 40*

In my experience, yeah. It's not necessarily conscious - what's conscious is the 'people like us' reflex, usually - but it's pretty common - as is assuming that everyone on the internet (or in the room) is male, straight, middle-class, American ... As a non-straight non-male non-American person I have a certain amount of experience standing up and saying "those people you are referring to as 'they'? Hi. That would be me." What I've seen suggests that this is even more prevalent if one is a POC.

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From: rainbow Date: July 17th, 2009 07:40 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

Happy almost 40!! Shall we dance? ::twirls::

My friends tend to be a mix of sex and gender identities, mix of classes, and mix of nationalities.

I get very frustrated with both the techy "all us guys" and the "fandom is a female space" crowds, and boy oh boy do I hate the USA is the center of the woooorld attitude.

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From: rainbow Date: July 17th, 2009 07:20 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I don't think I understand properly what you mean by identifying as white politically or strategically. I can't imagine shaping my political views by what other white ppl support! (I'm often horrified by them, instead.)

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 07:27 am (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I mean, in terms of anti-racist work, and taking responsibility for my privileged position and where it comes from.

Because you can't just resign from being white. To slighly paraphrase Utah Phillips, "you gotta be able to put your hand in the air ... and then deal with the behavior, and have the people whose lives you messed with define that behavior for you, you see."

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From: rainbow Date: July 17th, 2009 04:24 pm (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I was way too upset to respond to this last night; I apologise for the delay.

When you tell me that I "can't just resign from being white", what I'm hearing is this:

Although the first thing I ever knew about my birthfather, long before I ever knew his name, was that he was part Florida Seminole and proud of it;

and although from the time I was a very little girl my mother taught me that my being mixed race was something to be *proud* of, something good, something to embrace and celebrate, and not something to *ever* be ashamed of or try to hide;

and even though mixed race has been part of my self-identity since I was a little girl in the 60s;

that *now* I should just say I'm white instead of mixed race, because how I look to others trumps my own life experiences and self-identity.

I very much hope I'm misunderstanding what you meant.

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 05:53 pm (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I very much hope I'm misunderstanding what you meant.

Yes. Sloppy writing. I'm sorry. "you" meaning "a person" [who IS white to start with].

I am very very sorry that my sloppiness caused you hurt and upset. It was very late here, and I wasn't thinking as well as I ought to have been.

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From: rainbow Date: July 17th, 2009 06:11 pm (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

Thank you very much; apology accepted. I completely misunderstood, and I apologise for that, too.

My literal-ness strikes again (multiple brain injuries and other neuro fun).

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From: commodorified Date: July 17th, 2009 07:41 pm (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

Is fine. I'm just glad we got it sorted; I shall try hard to avoid slipping into that "you" trap in future.

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From: rainbow Date: July 20th, 2009 04:42 pm (UTC) Re: Here via some route I have now forgotten (Link)

I'm glad too.

You know what's funnyweird? I'm pretty obsessive (well, not literally) about using "one" rather than "you", and, well... there's this brain injury thing and loss of memory, and it's never really occurred to me that it may have developed a long time ago exactly to avoid the "you" trap... o.O

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From: lady_ganesh Date: July 14th, 2009 11:51 pm (UTC) (Link)

The White Power folks seem mostly focused on calling themselves Aryan these days. White doesn't seem nearly as loaded, at least to me.

And I think it depends on context, and where and how you're self-identifying.

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