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 Pai…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.