The Wages of Whiteness Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I sit now on a dead train somewhere just north of Odenton, so I am taking this as an opportunity to anger some people with an essay that I have been building up the nerve to write.

I wish white people as a group would disappear, they've never done anybody any good. Let me explain.

Whiteness as a personal identity has never defined people in a way that was categorically accurate, distinct and morally postive. "Categorically accurate" refers to attributes of whiteness common to most or all so-called white people. "Distinct" refers the alleged commonalities of whiteness distinguishing white people from non-whites, however defined. "Morally positive" refers to basic concepts of justice, equity and fair play.

Essentially, the only thing that consistently identifies white people as a class - including basically all whites, excluding all non-whites - is the fruit of white racism itself, white privilege. There is no "white music" for example. Yes, white people have made music, but that music is not a cultural attribute of a "white culture" that distinguishes white people as a class. Bluegrass was born of the experiences of "white" settlers into the Appalachians, but it does not distinguish white people as a group, i.e. most "whites" outside of Appalachia in Maine do not even listen to it, let alone identify with it as a white experience. Replace bluegrass with country music or surf music and you get the same result.

Conversely what unites white people as a group other than than the legacy of racism itself does not really distinguish white people from non-whites. Love of the flag? Black soldiers fought for the flag in every war. Baseball? The Negro Leagues persevered - despite the immorality of racism even in sport.

All that unites white people as white, including all and excluding all others, is white racism and its aftermath. That's why when you hear about an "Italian pride" event, it sounds like food and real music, an Irish festival sounds like ale and food and real music, a Polish festival will have likewise food and real music, but a "white pride" event will have a bunch of racist punks and Klan recruiters, no food and a bunch of racist hate music for sale out of the back of a truck. Even most racists would have no interest in taking their children to a white pride event.

Maybe in Hawai'i the experience of being a "haole" (white) is distinct, but it does not translate off the islands i.e. to where the other 99 percent of "white" people live. The only thing that both unites whites and distinguishes whites in the U S is reality of white racism, white privilege and their latter day effects.

It stands to reason that an identity limited to the enjoyment of social economic and political payouts of racism is either immoral, fake or both. Sadly, the more real the identity is, the more likely it is to involve actual injustice against non-whites. White identity, stripped of racist legacies and practices, has nothing truly distinct and unifying.

Black cultural identity is real i.e. Has natural content. Plenty distinguishes black Americans as a culture - from music, food, religious traditions, language, heroes, a common experience of racism itself, values, etc. The culture is distinct and would continue to be a culture if white racism - or even white people - vanished tomorrow. This is not to say that all black people share every single attribute of black culture, any more than all Irish or all Southerners or all Swedes, but black identity is real, not astroturf. Black culture may be "good" or "bad" but it is real.

Even jokes about how white people "can't jump" or "can't dance" show the lameness of white identity. Leaving aside the fact that such jokes are really about black cultural stereotypes, not white ones, they do not reflect a cultural identity at all. Ditto with jokes about the Winter Olympics; even in Colorado, the majority of "white people" are neither skiing or thinking about skiing and a pair of skis (hockey skates, curling stones) does not a culture make. I guess if 240 million self-identified white people but few others were following the Winter Olympics you could make a case, but they are not distinct enough as a "white event" or, this year, watched nearly enough by anybody to count.

Another example is multi-racial identity. There are African-Americans who also identify with one or more European cultures, such as the singer Alicia Keys who is both Black and Italian in ancestry and makes no secret of either fact. But we do not hear of such Americans being both black and white, because white identity is nothing except the legacy of white racist privilege which a person of African ancestry cannot enjoy without "passing for white," ie eliminating association with Black identity in the extreme and identifying with the privileged caste. 40 years of civil rights legislation have changed little with respect to these issues of identity.

Put it another way. "It's a white thing, you wouldn't understand.". What is the it? What universe of "its" could potentially, with a stretch, qualify?

It stands to reason that if white identity is eiither overinclusive, underinclusive, astroturf-fake or immoral, it should be discarded in favor of something real and morally just. If the only "payout" of white identity is white racism, we should stop playing the white identity slot machine.

I would welcome your comments below.