I'm not white.

[Bonefish]

Seriously, I'm not. I'm an american of mixed racial/ethnic heritage. I've got black and white ancestors. And in North Carolina, when I get a license or ID, I'm allowed to state my race. I chose "other". So on my drivers license, the "race" part is just blank. "white" is arbitrary.

Sure, I've got pale skin, like most of you. I've got blue eyes, like some of you. I've got blonder hair, like some of you. But, really? Odds are we don't have comparable life experiences. Like, take Mike and Kyle. Ya'll talk about experiences with your fathe, about him mocking ya'll for not knowing how to pronounce paladin when ya'll were kids. That's something i will never understand. I never really knew my father. Now, the idea of moving around all the time, of never having a "home"? I can understand that to a degree, but only to agree. Because my moving around was usually the result of poverty. It's just different.

Whiteness is arbitary. It's made up. That doesn't mean it isn't real: plenty of made up things have real consequences in the world. But there's so much variation in humanity as a whole, and americans in particular, that it is a quite useless way of labeling us. And it welcomes all sorts of nastiness.

So if it's something you can do in your state: stop putting down "white" as a race. Don't identify as it. Be an "other". Maybe if enough of us white folks start considering ourselves "other", it will help.

[Kyle]

I’m so white. I took one of those DNA tests and it said I was a quarter Irish, 2% Swede, and the rest was English. I’m as white as you can get.

[poorpete]

I agree with Bonefish, it's time to shed white as part of identity. An exhaustive book on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Histo ... ite_People

Irish was not considered white by the first people who considered themselves white people. Nor were Italians, and I'm pretty sure we all know that Jews have only recently been accepted as part of the White and hispanics are debatably part or will be soon. This of course leads to weirdness like how we have white supremacists who hate the jews and also jewish white supremacists. And weirdness as "white people" have become more accepting of others, which is good, but not good in that it's one constant is not being accepting to black people.

I wonder if "white" as a concept can be phased out for maybe "unprotected class"

[buckett]

I'm white.

[Kyle]

Yeah. Me too. I get if we want to have a conversation of how we need to transcend race in the way we think of people. But there seems like there can be a marginalizing effect by saying, "There's no such thing as white people." Because there is such a thing in our societal structure- they are the entitled majority. And that's something that needs to be acknowledged in the discussion of how we treat non-white people in our society.

[Phoebe]

I've never encountered a white supremacist who didn't seem completely anxious about their own white identity. It's like they're not really sure that they themselves are white, even though they think it is outrageously super important to be white, so they have to somehow compensate for this by being all twisted up violently about race.

[Bonefish]

[Mike]

We get it--you don't see color.

[Bonefish]

[Mike]

I was making a joke. Poorly, apparently.

I completely understand what you are saying. Race is a social construct... a cultural construct. There is no physical or genetic reality that defines race. But the social/cultural constructs here are very real, with very real effects and repercussions. I agree that we need to alter these constructs and ultimately eliminate them, such that skin color (or other "racial" indicators) become as unimportant to most people as eye color. That is the ideal. But I feel like simply denying the existence of race is not productive. Race is a real thing in a similar way to the way that words are real, or nostalgia, or love, or the sense of community, or tradition. All these things have meaning because people give them meaning, for good or ill.

For me, as a person who solidly falls into that construct of "white", denying the existence of race feels like I'm minimizing the real world injustices that other people suffer as a results of these constructs.

[Bonefish]

Well, let's be fair, saying "white" isn't real doesn't erase the repercussions of centuries of white supremacy. It's just the first step in that direction. Discussing the origins of whiteness is essential to understanding the ways in which systematic racism was built up, especially in the united states, especially in the parts of the united states that were colonized by the UK. And knowing how and why these systems came to be is critical for dissembling them.

[Mike]

I agree with that.

[Phoebe]

The fact that racial boxes are socially constructed doesn't make them less effective qua boxes, and breaking down the boxes also implies acknowledgement of how real the ongoing effects of those boxes are, especially because other people are reinforcing the boxes faster than anyone can pull them apart.

[Kyle]

I woke up this morning and was hella disappointed. Still white.

[bralbovsky]

So, white...only plausible reason I'm not in jail. Slovak, Celt, generally unliked, but still white.

Stumbled on

..which addresses some of the messiness of the social construct. Just because something is intangible, unscientific and based entirely on the social contract (itself imaginary #Rwanda) does not mean that it is not real. It has measurable impact, but it can be fluid.

The point is whether one has enough of the "privileged class characteristics" to have a choice about belonging. Nobody can (yet) SEE your bank account (and it's concealment is what expensive cars and shoes are supposed to be doing), nobody cares (yet) what's on your government ID, or the experience of your youth. Blending in, or the ability to blend in, is what's key here. Am I plausible at the country club? I can get there with contacts, with cars, with clothes, etc, but the easiest ticket is complexion.

We don't get to choose it, so I'm not suggesting individual complicity here.
One ironic side note is how the culture is all about self-identification, (hell, HItler self identified as German) and we have lots of baggage about other identity choices.

[mimekiller]

my black GF saw me rocking out to Creed on a road trip and proclaimed me the whitest person in the world so I guess...

[Zombie]

[mimekiller]

In my defense I was driving down the 101 south heading towards pismo beech and the ocean was glinting blue, the joint in my hand was half gone and I had nothing but miles ahead of me and miles in front of me, and HIGHER came on the radio and I was just feeling it.

[Bonefish]

That's understandable.