7 ms·

> The article isn't saying anything should happen to people considered white, just that lumping us all into a single "white" identity is a problem. And yet, it

> The article isn't saying anything should happen to people considered white, just that lumping us all into a single "white" identity is a problem. And yet, it seems to be that many Americans – including Americans like this university professor – are actually huge on doing exactly that. Growing up in 1980s/1990s Australia, there was very little talk about "white" or "who is white". At school, this kid was Irish, this one Italian, another Croatian, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, Filipino, etc – who was "white" and who wasn't? Who knew and who cared–"white" (in a racial sense) was not a frequently used word in our vocabulary. Even the school curriculum avoided the term – 1788 was presented as the start of the "European settlement" or "British settlement" of Australia, I don't remember any teacher ever saying "white" in that context. But, in the last 10–15 years or so, there's been this big influx of talk about "white" and "whiteness" – which mostly seems to be coming from the US, and (my impression is) predominantly from that part of America which this university professor represents. Australia wasn't always like that – we did once have a "white Australia policy". But, as we dismantled it (a gradual process between 1940 and 1970), I think we collectively decided that the best way to be less racist was to stop lumping people into coarse racial categories such as "white". Hence, post-1970 Australian officialdom was very happy to put people in ethnicity/nationality categories – British, New Zealander, Aboriginal, Maori, German, Jewish, Irish, Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese, Egyptian, Somalian, Sudanese, South African, etc, etc, etc – but studiously avoided the use of terms such as "white". Most Americans seem to have never got that memo, and the creeping Americanisation of Australia seems to be injecting that kind of "white" talk back into the conversation.

delecti 4y ago
I'm really not qualified to say much on the subject of race in any other countries, but I think coming at that professor from an external perspective misses context. Pushing the audience to recognize that the system is classifying them as "white" is true for a US audience. The fact that it seems like he's pushing whiteness isn't because he's wrong, it's because he's not talking to you. Unfortunately, I don't think it's especially surprising that the US's cultural export also includes our deeply unhealthy relationship to race.
- skissane 4y ago
  > Unfortunately, I don't think it's especially surprising that the US's cultural export also includes our deeply unhealthy relationship to race. I still think that professor LeVine is busy pushing that "deeply unhealthy relationship to race". An example of how he does it, is by promoting Noel Ignatiev's very dubious "How the Irish Became White" theory. Both Ignatiev, and LeVine, ignore that most anti-Irish sentiment was actually anti-Catholic – so long as the majority of Irish immigrants to the US were Protestants, anti-Irish sentiments were almost unheard of, and they only began when Catholics came to outnumber Protestants among immigrants from Ireland to the US. At which point Protestant Irish Americans rebranded themselves as "Scots-Irish" to make clear that they weren't Catholics, hence escaping that prejudice and discrimination. Ignatiev is taking something which was fundamentally about religion, and misrepresenting it as something about race – which is one of the ways in which people like Ignatiev and LeVine keep on pushing that "deeply unhealthy relationship to race". In fact, I'd even say that their refusal to acknowledge the reality of anti-Catholicism, and their denial of it in an attempt to transform it into a form of "racism", is a sign of their own anti-Catholic prejudice. For a scholarly criticism of Ignatiev's whole "Irish Became White" theory, see Arnesen, E. (2001). Whiteness and the Historians' Imagination. International Labor and Working-Class History, 60, 3-32. doi:10.1017/S0147547901004380 https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/6817279/mod_resource/content/1/1.%20Arneson%20original%20on%20whiteness.pdf https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/6817279/mod_resou...
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    White ethnic groups that are predominantly Catholic being distinguished from "real" whites and being targets of White supremacists is a real historical thing (and not just with the Irish, also true of Italians, and its no small factor historically in why predominantly-white-in-traditional-racial-terms Hispanics have been largely constructed as non-White for quite some time in the US, which has turned out to be more durable than the others.) Race is a mutable social construct that largely exists to rationalize other prejudices, and ethnic and religious prejudices are high on that list; treating race as if it were a real and fundamental thing orthogonal to other concerns is buying into race essentialism. Which is not to say Ignatiev is right, but rather to pretend that the anti-Catholicism he ignores contradicts a connection to racism and the construction of race rather than explains it is...also wrong.

delecti 4y ago

I'm really not qualified to say much on the subject of race in any other countries, but I think coming at that professor from an external perspective misses context. Pushing the audience to recognize that the system is classifying them as "white" is true for a US audience. The fact that it seems like he's pushing whiteness isn't because he's wrong, it's because he's not talking to you. Unfortunately, I don't think it's especially surprising that the US's cultural export also includes our deeply unhealthy relationship to race.

skissane 4y ago
> Unfortunately, I don't think it's especially surprising that the US's cultural export also includes our deeply unhealthy relationship to race. I still think that professor LeVine is busy pushing that "deeply unhealthy relationship to race". An example of how he does it, is by promoting Noel Ignatiev's very dubious "How the Irish Became White" theory. Both Ignatiev, and LeVine, ignore that most anti-Irish sentiment was actually anti-Catholic – so long as the majority of Irish immigrants to the US were Protestants, anti-Irish sentiments were almost unheard of, and they only began when Catholics came to outnumber Protestants among immigrants from Ireland to the US. At which point Protestant Irish Americans rebranded themselves as "Scots-Irish" to make clear that they weren't Catholics, hence escaping that prejudice and discrimination. Ignatiev is taking something which was fundamentally about religion, and misrepresenting it as something about race – which is one of the ways in which people like Ignatiev and LeVine keep on pushing that "deeply unhealthy relationship to race". In fact, I'd even say that their refusal to acknowledge the reality of anti-Catholicism, and their denial of it in an attempt to transform it into a form of "racism", is a sign of their own anti-Catholic prejudice. For a scholarly criticism of Ignatiev's whole "Irish Became White" theory, see Arnesen, E. (2001). Whiteness and the Historians' Imagination. International Labor and Working-Class History, 60, 3-32. doi:10.1017/S0147547901004380 https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/6817279/mod_resource/content/1/1.%20Arneson%20original%20on%20whiteness.pdf https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/6817279/mod_resou...
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  White ethnic groups that are predominantly Catholic being distinguished from "real" whites and being targets of White supremacists is a real historical thing (and not just with the Irish, also true of Italians, and its no small factor historically in why predominantly-white-in-traditional-racial-terms Hispanics have been largely constructed as non-White for quite some time in the US, which has turned out to be more durable than the others.) Race is a mutable social construct that largely exists to rationalize other prejudices, and ethnic and religious prejudices are high on that list; treating race as if it were a real and fundamental thing orthogonal to other concerns is buying into race essentialism. Which is not to say Ignatiev is right, but rather to pretend that the anti-Catholicism he ignores contradicts a connection to racism and the construction of race rather than explains it is...also wrong.