3 ms·

What do you mean by "whiteness itself"?

colechristensen 4y ago
Clearly the mean UV exposure of my ancestors dominates my disposition towards others. If I spend more time in the sun do I become less white, and therefore a more acceptable, kinder, and all together better human? I mean, I am usually a little happier if I remember to get some sun. Maybe I won't find an equatorial people to oppress today, that's really a winter-time activity.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  >If I spend more time in the sun do I become less white, and therefore a more acceptable, kinder, and all together better human? Construction workers are the exception that prove the rule.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  I always emerge from winter with a long boat and a small coastal community to raid
gee_totes 4y ago
I am not OP (they seem to have been downvoted to oblivion) but a fascinating book I read recently on this topic was "The Invention of the White Race" by Theodore W. Allen. The book traces the historical development of the concept of whiteness from early Britain, where the Irish were considered non-white as a means to "other" and impoverish them, to pre-revolution Haiti, where people of mixed race could attain certificates of Whiteness that would grant them the same rights and privileges as non-mixed French people. Those are just two of the anecdotes I remember from the book. It's really worth a read if you're into the whole "race as a social construct" thing, since it digs into the mechanics of how that social construct was created.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  Intersting. Growing up in South Africa I vaguely remember Indian people being given "white" status. Didn't know that about the Irish who are pretty much the whitest people I can think of.
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Haven't read this book, though it's on my list now. You can go back and find writing from the USA's so called Founding Fathers that makes quite clear most of them didn't view the Irish, Spanish, or Italians as white. Then if you look at the history of immigration waves in the US, you see a clear pattern where the definition of whiteness was expanded to groups previously discriminated against as a form of solidarity against the newly arriving group. This is what all the rhetoric about being colorblind misses. Whiteness is not the same as other ethnicities, and policy that pretends it is will have problems as a result.
zuminator 4y ago
I'm not the author of that comment, but going by the HN credo that we should steelman (assume the most charitable interpretation of) their remark, "whiteness itself" has nothing to do with people's inherent genetic makeup, but with the creation of "whiteness" (and other modern day races) as a category. In other words, that a lot of problems started when people in the 15th-16th centuries developed philosophical, moral, and religious (and centuries later, scientific) frameworks under which racism could be formalized as a part of the political economy, justifying the horrors to come, such as genocide, chattel slavery, anti-miscegenation laws, lebensraum, apartheid, etc. Perhaps it's debatable as to whether philosophical racism is responsible for later atrocities, or if it was more of a post-hoc excuse, a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance resulting from humans continuing to treat great swathes of other human beings like scum even while our understanding of universal human rights developed in leaps and bounds.

Clearly the mean UV exposure of my ancestors dominates my disposition towards others. If I spend more time in the sun do I become less white, and therefore a more acceptable, kinder, and all together better human? I mean, I am usually a little happier if I remember to get some sun. Maybe I won't find an equatorial people to oppress today, that's really a winter-time activity.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>If I spend more time in the sun do I become less white, and therefore a more acceptable, kinder, and all together better human? Construction workers are the exception that prove the rule.
wonderwonder 4y ago
I always emerge from winter with a long boat and a small coastal community to raid

gee_totes 4y ago

I am not OP (they seem to have been downvoted to oblivion) but a fascinating book I read recently on this topic was "The Invention of the White Race" by Theodore W. Allen. The book traces the historical development of the concept of whiteness from early Britain, where the Irish were considered non-white as a means to "other" and impoverish them, to pre-revolution Haiti, where people of mixed race could attain certificates of Whiteness that would grant them the same rights and privileges as non-mixed French people. Those are just two of the anecdotes I remember from the book. It's really worth a read if you're into the whole "race as a social construct" thing, since it digs into the mechanics of how that social construct was created.

wonderwonder 4y ago
Intersting. Growing up in South Africa I vaguely remember Indian people being given "white" status. Didn't know that about the Irish who are pretty much the whitest people I can think of.
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Haven't read this book, though it's on my list now. You can go back and find writing from the USA's so called Founding Fathers that makes quite clear most of them didn't view the Irish, Spanish, or Italians as white. Then if you look at the history of immigration waves in the US, you see a clear pattern where the definition of whiteness was expanded to groups previously discriminated against as a form of solidarity against the newly arriving group. This is what all the rhetoric about being colorblind misses. Whiteness is not the same as other ethnicities, and policy that pretends it is will have problems as a result.

zuminator 4y ago

I'm not the author of that comment, but going by the HN credo that we should steelman (assume the most charitable interpretation of) their remark, "whiteness itself" has nothing to do with people's inherent genetic makeup, but with the creation of "whiteness" (and other modern day races) as a category. In other words, that a lot of problems started when people in the 15th-16th centuries developed philosophical, moral, and religious (and centuries later, scientific) frameworks under which racism could be formalized as a part of the political economy, justifying the horrors to come, such as genocide, chattel slavery, anti-miscegenation laws, lebensraum, apartheid, etc. Perhaps it's debatable as to whether philosophical racism is responsible for later atrocities, or if it was more of a post-hoc excuse, a way to resolve the cognitive dissonance resulting from humans continuing to treat great swathes of other human beings like scum even while our understanding of universal human rights developed in leaps and bounds.