6 Comments
⭠ Return to thread

"White" has been a fluid category over its relatively brief history. There's no reason to assume it can't evolve to include people of Indian or Hispanic ethnicity. It's not fundamentally about skin color. It's about power and social hierarchies. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/white-identity-america-ideology-not-biology-history-whiteness-proves-it-ncna1232200

Expand full comment

Agree. Hispanics have always included a white sub-category, mostly for those who claim Spanish (Spain) heritage. A lot of Cubans identify as white. But thats not Kash. And Kash is Hindu. How does that work?

Expand full comment

As someone whose parents were original supporters of the Southern Poverty Law Center (founded in 1971), and having been involved with and supported it for decades, unless you look “white,” regardless of how much you aren’t going to be considered equal to “real” white folk to true believers in the white supremacist movement. And I am the definition of an “Aryan” to those folks.

Expand full comment

White southerner here, and of course that's true. Skin color counts — it just doesn't necessarily exclude you from the category of whiteness. Just as being extremely light-skinned did not and still does not make you reliably "white" if you have any Black ancestry at all. There would be no concept of "passing" if it did. As Nell Irvin Painter points out in that article I shared, there have always been degrees or levels of whiteness. It's complicated, but the best way of understanding it is through a lens of history, ideology, and status, not biology.

Expand full comment

Agreed—I was reading what is now considered books by critical race theory authors in the 80s. bell hooks is my favorite. But, we have our own version in the Northwest of bigots working to establish an aryan nation, and they may “adopt” folks into their cause, but not as true equals.

Expand full comment

I love bell hooks, too! American racism is such a nasty, toxic stew, and there's no avoiding it, no matter where you are. American Renaissance has its national conference every year in a beautiful state park a couple of miles from my house. Nobody I know is happy about it, regardless of their politics, but there's no keeping them out of a public facility.

Expand full comment