triguy wrote:
Winwinkel (George) wrote:
Quote:
So what is wrong with "white privilege"? Why not "broaden[] the definition of whiteness"?
My suggestion was for everyone who can to claim "white privilege."
triguy wrote:
White Privilege is about being a part of psuedo aristocracy, born or allowed to join a group of humans who are recognized for being better and deserving of more rights and benefits not through merit but through luck, subjugation and oppression.
I do not promote discrimination or elitism. Is Triguy implying that
everyone born into the "white" group is thereby culpable for it (guilty) unless and until they renounce their "whiteness," as Dr. Juanita Brooks and the
Race Traitor et al. folks do? Are Brooks, et al. the only non-oppressive, guiltless "whites" -- to Triguy -- and only by disowning themselves in the sense of claiming (by hypodescent, ODR "rules") "really" to be some other "color"
essentially (i.e., by invisible "race" essence)?
Again, this is Winwinkel's obsession with hypodescence and the ODR. No where did I imply a belief in the ODR. Winwinkel continues to infer that which was not implied to satisfyy his retro views that everyone must be a part of a binary racial world where being white is the goal of all humans. Not everyone suffers from such an inferiority complex. Why is being Chinese or Japanese or Native American or African or mixed any less desirable than being white?!
George, don't you get it? There are over a billion Chinese people in China who could care less about being white!
As for white privilege, because someone rejects white privilege has nothing to do with someone's appreciation of her heritage. How does someone saying she is white but doesn't want to benefit by the oppression of others automatically show support of the ODR? Moreover, if someone chooses to identify as multiracial instead of white, why is this person suddenly a race traitor in Winwinkel's eye? Winwinkel believes that someone is defective if she chooses to identify as Eurasian or mulatto if that person has a white phenotype. Gee, how dare someone not choose to live her life as Winwinkel sees fit.
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), finally ended the legal basis for this notion of "white privilege" that Triguy describes as "psuedo aristocracy."
Loving, abolishing the former "anti-miscegenation" laws, also ended legal support for the notion of exclusive "races." People self-identify their "races" now. No formal policing mechanism I know of stops anyone identifying "white," not since 1967. The ODR, too, lost its legal enforcement to the
Loving Court. The ODR today is imposed by social pressures, such as Triguy's insistent arguments here. In most parts of the U.S.A. today, "white" people do not butt into other people's racial-identity choices. Therefore, I think I can truthfully say that
"Soul Patrol" self-appointed enforcers of the ODR today maintain both of its aspects, now in the wake of
Loving. They police "white purity," and they also try to enforce the stigmatizing "any black blood" Jim Crow definition of who is "black." I doubt most "white" people today know what the ODR is, or care.
Again, Winwinkel tries desperately to insist that I believe in the ODR because I don't subscribe to his beliefs. Winwinkel also chooses to disbelieve that white privilege does exist, as if institutional and societal racism disappeared with Loving v. Virginia. Did the 40-plus years of the GOP's use of the Southern Strategy not show that institutional racism was alive and well in America? As for Winwinkel's disgusting use of the phrase "Soul Patrol," that says a lot about his thinking than I could ever think to say. Pray tell who are the members of this "Soul Patrol"? Do they have badges an office?
Winwinkel, which prominent African-American periodical has most recently enforced the ODR? It's widely known because of PBS.org that Carol Channing, Heather Lochlear and Queen Elizabeth II have African ancestry but I've never seen them celebrated as being "black"? The late Jackie Onassis was also identified as having African ancestry but neither she nor her children have been heralded as being the newest member(s) of black America. Wentworth Miller is one of the most prominent Americans who identifies as biracial and stars as a white character on TV. I have never read an article in "Ebony" or "Jet" magazine that described him as the hottest black actor on TV. But, according to Winwinkel, Wentworth Miller suffers from an inferiority complex because he self-identifies as mixed- race instead of white.
Rejection of white privilege isn't about denying anyone's heritage, it's about rejecting bigotry and oppression. Connecting rejection of white privilege with support of the ODR is illogical since ending white privilege and rejecting the ODR are not mutually exclusive. More importantly, I thought a large part of the multiracial movement is for individuals to be able to self-identify as they choose without having to worry about someone like Winwinkel imposing an identity they don't choose. Silly me! I should have known that rejecting the ODR is only a good thing if someone chooses to identify as white but is
verbotten if someone chooses to label himself as mixed?
The main engine of our
"racism"-obsessive culture wars (denouncing "whiteness," calling it "guilty" for unearned "privileges," etc.) is
Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960).
This decision set up today's entrenched resistance to stopping government classification of individuals' "races" and doing all of the things sufficient for dissolving the color line; ending its tyranny of endogamy.
Gomillion gave birth to "majority minority" voting districts, as these can be gerrymandered from census data. On an unconscionably racialist basis,
Gomillion forbade "white" census gerrymandering; and
Gomillion did not ban "non-white" "race"-based political organizing.
Gomillion, was the first Affirmative Action, as we now recognize Government transferring benefits on the basis of "races" (pure
racialism) from "white majority" to census-"minority" classes of persons (i.e., mainly to the more privileged of "minorities," who can work the system). Wouldn't other catch phrases -- as "academic privilege" -- make more sense as Triguy decries "psuedo aristocracy"?
Will Triguy please explain to us how this census "races" Balkanizing -- the actual political motivation condemning "white privilege" -- will make U.S. society better?
triguy wrote:
Again, George's words are about choosing a discriminatory right as oppose to wanting to be recognized as just a member of an ethnic tribe (like Irish, German, etc.) per se. Adding additional people to Club White Privilege does nothing to engender an all encompassing identity as "human" instead of a member of an elite group of humans.
I have not advocated any discrimination. Triguy comes up with this idea that anyone's "white" identity-choice equates with "a discriminatory right." How, in Triguy's mind, is this rectified if a person wants membership in "an ethnic tribe (like Irish, German, etc.)? The "tribes" Triguy names would be socially recognized as "white." But how is "tribalism" a less "discriminatory right"? Aren't "ethnic tribes" recognizably more exclusionary (if not elitist) than the generic mutt (like me) U.S. American notion of "white person" is?
One more time: white privilege is about having rights above those not considered white. Rejection of white privilege does not equate with denial one calling herself ethnically white. If someone decides one day that all brown-eyed American should get a 10% decrease in their taxes and blue-eyed Americans should get a 30% increase in their taxes, does a brown-eyed person who rejects the 10% decrease any less brown-eyed?!(As Frank has pointed out, there were no "races" before the advent of the European controlled African slave trade. People defined themselves based on their tribes as big or as small as that was.)
fwsweet wrote:
The fact is that the "race" notion (in a social out-group sense) is ubiquitous and exceedingly powerful in the U.S., even though it is not supported biologically. By seeing our species as having "no races," triguy seems to be deconstructing the social "race" notion. By seeing our species as all being of the same biological race, George seems to be enlisting the power of the "race" notion itself to advocate embracing all of humanity.[]
I agree with Frank Sweet's reading of Triguy and me. And I like A.D. Powell's comment (below). I like Frank's reference to the
power in the "race" notion itself.
I believe I see disconnect between Frank's meaning of the phrase
"no races" and Triguy's. I think Frank means no evidence subdividing our
Homo sapiens (our species) supports classifying any of the five census "races." (Or any other, "races" either.) By contrast, I think Triguy's
"no races" imply an absurd absolute
zero common ancestry position -- one applied selectively, only for scolding other people's commentary on racial matters, while Triguy applies no such gag-order to himself.
Once more, Winwinkel choose to twist words and motivations to suit his needs. No where did I write anything that describes human beings as having no common ancestry. In fact, I agreed with Frank's position that there are no real biological subdivisions of homo sapiens. Hello, Winwinkel: I seem to recall writing the words "species," "humanity" and "mankind" as better descriptors than the phrase "human race."
Powell wrote:
I see George's position as deconstructing "race" because, if we acknowledge one human race, we have essentially denied race as most Americans understand the term. If everyone is of the same "race," then there are no "races." If everyone is "white," then no one is "white." There must be an opposite "race" in order for the word to have any power. definition of whiteness"?
How does Triguy define "whiteness" that is not merely a frank, neutral --
(a) description of an individual's regional racial phenotype;
(b) indication of the ethnic household one grew up in;
(c) declaration of one's most numerous social peer group;
(d) announcement of one's assimilation/integration in the U.S. Mainstream; or,
(e)) rejection of the hypodescent, ODR "rules" classifying "races," which Government classifies individuals in as "opposites"?
George
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: George, there you go again, picking and choosing words to suit your position, and disregarding stated positions to cobble together a rickety counter attack. So, where did I write that anything about people not being able to describe themselves as ethnically or phenotypcially "white" if they so choose?
George, you're the one who is obsessed with attaching labels or forcing people to choose labels they don't desire. You're the one who is upset that Brooks doesn't choose a white identity, not I. What right do you have to malign Brooks' for self-identifying as mixed?