Racialicious Responds to “The End of White America”
A Racialicious Roundtable
Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation.
“I think white people feel like they’re under siege right now—like it’s not okay to be white right now, especially if you’re a white male,” laughs Bill Imada, of the IW Group…“There’s a lot of fear and a lot of resentment,” Newman-Carrasco observes, describing the flak she caught after writing an article for a trade publication on the need for more-diverse hiring practices. “I got a response from a friend—he’s, like, a 60-something white male, and he’s been involved with multicultural recruiting,” she recalls. “And he said, ‘I really feel like the hunted. It’s a hard time to be a white man in America right now, because I feel like I’m being lumped in with all white males in America, and I’ve tried to do stuff, but it’s a tough time.’”
“I always tell the white men in the room, ‘We need you,’” Imada says. “We cannot talk about diversity and inclusion and engagement without you at the table. It’s okay to be white!”
“But people are stressed out about it. ‘We used to be in control! We’re losing control!’”
So this roundtable has been a long time coming. In mid-January the team started to take a look at Hua Hsu’s Atlantic Monthly article “The End of White America?” And we had a lot of pissed off things to say. And yes it did take us more than a few weeks to corral all our righteous indignation together. But we hope you’ll think it was worth the wait.
On the Cover
Andrea: This is the impression I got from the cover and the article: screamingly alarmist. The half-face of Obama juxtaposed with heavy-block sans serif capital letters that can be seen half a long Barnes & Noble check-out line away. As if to say this single man–a bi-racial man who self-identifies as Black–is single-handedly ruining white people, whiteness, and, most importantly, white privilege. It seems to play off the fear-mongering miscegenation fantasies of yore: the “receding” of the “white” phenotype, that “beiging” of America that Hsu refers to in the piece. Then, before anyone gets any ideas about the writer’s race, in smaller red letters, is the scribe’s name. Sorta like, “Ha! You can’t accuse The Atlantic of being racist ’cause the name can’t be ‘read’ as white.” Doesn’t matter, IMO. The zero-sum game that is US racism is visually in full effect.
Actually, The Atlantic cover reminds me of another cover from a magazine about twenty years ago, when “coloredness”–coded as “identity politics” and “political correctness” back then–was also “threatening to tear the country apart.” From Time magazine, April 9, 1990:
Just some visual perspective on these kinds of articles.
On Alarmism
What happens once this is no longer the case—when the fears of Lothrop Stoddard and Tom Buchanan are realized, and white people actually become an American minority?…Today, the arrival of what Buchanan derided as “Third World America” is all but inevitable. What will the new mainstream of America look like, and what ideas or values might it rally around? What will it mean to be white after “whiteness” no longer defines the mainstream? Will anyone mourn the end of white America? Will anyone try to preserve it?
Thea: Hsu argues that mainstream culture has turned against white people and the way he talks, it’s as if the colored hordes of P Diddy fans and ethnically ambiguous Latin@s who’re snapping up all the commercial parts have somehow sneakily gotten hold of “culture” and orchestrated this shift. First, we’ll make fun of you for not being able to dance! Then, WE’LL EAT YOUR CHILDREN!!!”
Andrea: This alarmist angle covers what really bugs me about the piece–it’s offers no analysis of structures and execution of racism itself in the US. What Hsu seems to ostensibly and sloppily attempts to get at is once whiteness–and those white people and PoCs who adhere to it–fall back, racism itself will disappear. Hsu says:
There will be dislocations and resentments along the way, but the demographic shifts of the next 40 years are likely to reduce the power of racial hierarchies over everyone’s lives, producing a culture that’s more likely than any before to treat its inhabitants as individuals, rather than members of a caste or identity group.
And there is Hsu’s “we gonna be post-racial, y’all–if we’re not already” statement–which can also be a another read on this article.
But.
This article makes me go back to Tim Wise and Vijay Prashad, who I think would have made better touchstones/springboards for Hsu’s piece because they both have more nuanced understandings of the mechanics of racism in the US. Tim Wise said about whiteness, from his book, White Like Me:
…from the mid-1600s to the early 1700s a series of laws were promulgated in Virginia and elsewhere, which elevated all persons of European descent, no matter how lowly in economic terms, above all persons of African descent. The purpose of such measures was to provide poor Europeans (increasing called whites) with a stake in the system, even though they were hardly benefiting in material terms from it. In other words, whiteness was a trick, and it worked marvelously, dampening down the push for rebellion by poor whites on the basis of class interest, and encouraging them to cast their lot with the elite, if only in aspirational terms. White skin became, for them, an alternative form of property to which they could cleave, in the absence of more tangible possessions.
And from Vijay Prashad, from his book, Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Racial Purity (which gets to Thea’s point about whites as immigrants and the internecine racial conflicts among some PoCs):
Since blackness is reviled in the United States, why would an immigrant, of whatever skin color, want to associate with those who are racially oppressed, particularly when the transit to the United States promises the dream of gold and glory? The immigrant seeks a form of veritcal assimilation, to climb from the lowest darkest echelon on the stepladder of tyranny into the bright whiteness. In U.S. history the Irish, Italians, Jews, and –in small steps with some hesitation ont he part of white America–Aisans and Latinos have all tried to barter their varied cultural worlds for the privileges of whiteness….
Yet all people who enter the United States do not strive to be accepted by the terms set by white supremacy. Some actively disregard them, finding them impossible to meet. Instead, they seek recognition, solidarity, and safety by embracing others also oppressed by white supremacy in something of a horizontal assimilation…
When people actively or tacitly refuse the terms of vertical integration they are derisively dismissed as either unassimilable or exclusionary. We hear, ‘Why do the black kids sit together in the cafeteria’ instead of ‘Why do our institutions routinely uphold the privilieges of whiteness?’ There is little space in popular discourse for an examination of what goes on outside the realm of white America among people of color.
Hsu certainly didn’t expand this space. He’s just screaming, “Fire!” in a crowded theater of racial anxiety.
Fatemeh: Hsu’s “The End of White America?” (cue scary music) essentially aims to hash out the following: “Hey, white people are freaked out that people of color are becoming the majority in the U.S. Why’s that? Don’t worry, guys. It’s cool.” But instead of just sticking to this outline, it feels like Hsu tries to condense several books on hip-hop culture, racial history of the U.S., market trends, and race theory into one article. Because all of these subjects need extensive background, he fails in his attempt to mash them together.
Hsu hints at a “white panic” caused by the racial demographic shift, but doesn’t explore it, question it, or even attempt to assuage it (except for a few paragraphs in the last section). He quotes Bill Imada, who states that whites are worried about “losing control,” which is the reason for all this “white panic” over shifting ethnic demography. But instead of analyzing this point (“What do they mean by ‘losing control’? What do they think this means for them?”), it serves as a transition at the end of a section, and is quickly glossed over in a comparison of different “types” of whites (the seemingly conservative and liberal camps) that still doesn’t tell us what white people are afraid of.
Fear can’t be assuaged or overcome without an assessment of what it is you’re afraid of, which Hsu hints at in the next section but never actually plainly states: “The coming white minority does not mean that the racial hierarchy of American culture will suddenly become inverted…” As if people of color will suddenly disenfranchise whites, confiscate their assets, and force them into slavery.
Arturo: It’s hard to read this article without laughing at first, and then getting angry. Hsu’s piece, much like Diddy’s White parties he talks about, is high in concept but crass in execution.
Ask me about “the end” of whiteness when I don’t have to read “reassurances”in the New York Post that minorities are advancing on television because there are more black supporting characters. Ask me about it when Bruce Springsteen isn’t playing the Super Bowl halftime show because white people are scared of Prince’s guitar and Janet Jackson’s cleavage.
On Hsu’s Use of Language
Obviously, steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage complicate this picture, pointing toward what Michael Lind has described as the “beiging” of America. And it’s possible that “beige Americans” will self-identify as “white” in sufficient numbers to push the tipping point further into the future than the Census Bureau projects. But even if they do, whiteness will be a label adopted out of convenience and even indifference, rather than aspiration and necessity.
Fatemeh: Hsu presents terms that he doesn’t define, like “whiteness,” “racial transcendence,” and “beiging.” He also makes several terms synonymous that aren’t so:
…the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America…
and
…we can call this the triumph of multiculturalism, or post-racialism.
These conflations are even more problematic because of Hsu’s undefined terms; it’s up to the reader to guess what he means by terms such as “post-white” or “post-racial”. Undefined terms like this are unclear and often alarmist; I can just imagine a reader trying to figure out what “post-white” means: “Does that mean there won’t be any more white people?!”
Hsu not only presents the “white panic” without a full explanation of what it is, but often feeds it with alarmist rhetorical questions like, “Will anyone mourn the end of white America?” and sympathetic constructions of white people who can’t get jobs in advertisements because all the advertisers want “beige” people.
Andrea: Yeah, the word “beiging” is wrong on at least 30 different levels. Here are 4: Inaccurate, creepy, twee-rude (nasty with pinkie in the air), and asinine.
Thea: Let me just say that as a mixed race person of colour I OBJECT to the word “beiging.” Pullease. I am not beige! More of an off-yellow, really.
This is a long-ass article, but Hsu never finds space to define some key, and rather obvious terms. Like “white.” Or “post-white.” Or “multicultural.”
Hsu talks about how white people feel “culturally bereft” and want to distance themselves from “whiteness.” And that seems an accurate representation to me – the word “white” has become a bad word. In some circles if you point out that Gary is white, everyone will act like you called Gary’s mom a ho.
But what drives me mad about that is that it was the white colonisers who came up with the term “white” in the first place, to distinguish themselves from everyone else as more pure and biologically superior. Says Dr Gregory Jay of the University of Wisconsin in his article “Who Invented White People?”:
It was white people who invented the idea of race in the first place, and it is white people who have become obsessed and consumed by it…[Whiteness] emerged as what we now call a “pan-ethnic” cateogry; as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single “race,” especially so as to distinguish them from people with whom they had very particular legal and political relations–Africans, Asians, American Indians–that were not equal to their relations with one another as whites.”
So it’s hard to have sympathy for “white folks on the run” or white folks who get their backs up when you point out that they are white, when it was the forebears of said white folks who set up racial categories in the first place.
Perhaps one of the most infuriating things about this article is Hsu’s expectation that we will have pity for these white folks who no longer know how to define themselves in a demographically shifting America. Because in order to have pity we’d
1) have to agree that this demographic shift was equivalent to a power shift, which as far as I can tell it is not, first African American president notwithstanding,
2) have to feel bad that white folks are feeling the pinch of a segregation that they have benefitted from for 100s of years – the segregation they started, and the segregation that many white folks only begin to notice and fuss about when it is perceived to threaten their power and identity.
Not to be all puerile and get into who started it, but uh, they started it. And to loop back to 1), I don’t really care if you’re being segregated. When you do a) become a minority race b) become politically marginalised as a minority race, then I’ll come and talk to you.
And anyways. What really has changed? Sure, I know lots of angry young people of colour who do see the word “white” as a bad word and use it that way. But I don’t think they’re the ones who are greenlighting films, owning the companies that can make or break a recording artist (like Sony or Virgin), or making the final decision on H&M’s Spring Collection.
On Hip Hop
Andrea: I think Hsu uses hip-hop as a played-out shorthand for (and two of its proprietors, Russell Simmons and P. Diddy, examples of) “authentic Negritude,” which is the image of Black folks struggling in the hard-scrabble, poverty-stricken, school-system-and-city-government-failed, inner-city streets. I’m not saying that this isn’t *a* reality for some Black folks (and other PoCs as well as some white people here and abroad) but it also became the mythic standard of what being an African American in the late 20th century and into the 21st century – and a commodified mythic standard at that. Hsu, then, uses hip-hop to insinuate, “See, *those* uncouth, can’t-quite-assimilate-to-”our”-middle-class-mores Negroes are taking over! Hide your (white) women and innocent (white) children!” ::horror-film scream::
But What Is This Article Really About?
Thea: The fact of the matter is that this is an article that is not simply afraid that white people will be a demographic minority, but that they’ll lose control. To me, that’s kind of a repugnant fear. Would a little more balanced distribution of power across race lines really be that bad?
Fatemeh: Hsu doesn’t ever address why there is such “white panic” by Buchanan et al. It feels like this panic is really a fear that white people will have to be treated the way they treated people of color for years. Is this what Hsu means by racial transcendence? Why doesn’t anyone just say this? I feel like that’s what is meant a lot of times, but wrapped up in the secret language and given the code “power.”
Are some white folks afraid they’ll be forced into the white slave trade? Maybe. But I think most people are afraid of “losing control”, which really means losing advantages over others because of skin color, losing skin privilege when it comes to housing or loans or job openings. People will have to actively work and participate in a community rather than assuming one exists based on race.
Andrea: Even if white folks became a numerical minority, I don’t think that’ll cause racism, especially white-centered racism, itself to cease. Unless my memory is getting rusty, a group doesn’t necessarily need sheer numbers to have a system that works favorably for them–just the silver tongue and the ammo. (Apartheid in South Africa, anyone?) So, “white America” supposedly fading away in numbers and in “culture/cultural relevance” (both demeaningly ridiculous assumptions) will not make us “post-racial” any more than PoCs shutting up about Teh Racizim that “we” seem to be “foisting” on the “innocent” white people, esp. in the Obama Age, as Thea rightly states.
Jessica: I mean, what’s with the “What does it mean to be American?” question every time White people feel like they are losing power in these perceived “race wars”. It was even in the title paragraph of this damn piece! Isn’t it really, “What does it mean to be colonized, over and over and over again?” I think that’s how one might fit in a little more with the truth of it all.
Like many people, I hate the quintessential pictorial of what a perfect, hegemonized America would look like if we all just forgot our histories and pretended like we’re getting along in perfect racial symbiosis. Diversity/equity work 101 myth dispelled for ya: Hiring people from racialized communities DOES NOT always lead to the appropriate programs and policies for people of colour. So take a chill pill about Barack, okay? (but keep on hoping for that change!)
Back to what people were actually saying for this article:
Bill Imada:
White people feel like they’re under siege now.
Christian Lander:
As a white person, you’re just desperate to find something else to grab onto.
Matt Wray:
You’re forced as a white person into a sense of ironic detachment…..We’re going through a period where whites are really trying to figure out: Who are we?
I suppose I appreciate the frankness of the opinions shared, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t in my unpolite non-Western norm discourse state that besides having had it with the same old, same old defensiveness that happens when racialized communities start reclaiming and re-asserting themselves, I’m at a loss for seeing how these various forms of wanted cultural appropriation, guilt-tripping, and blame-shifting the issues are in any way beneficial for improving race relations here.
Hsu also seems to suggest that with our increasing numbers, “armies” are going to form and White people had better watch out. Umm, yeah it’s kind of exciting that we’re populating the country as people of colour, even in Canada Aboriginal people are the fastest growing population with 50% of us under the age of 25. But are we planning to mass organize and take over the country the same way you fucked us over?
No. Because culturally speaking, we wouldn’t be Aboriginal anymore. Thanks.
And is it Still the End of White America if a (yet to be seen) White Minority Still Hold the Institutional Power?
Thea: The article is peppered with quotes and anecdotes that echo this vision of white men on the run, of white men (well, really white people, but Hsu focuses on the men) being ostracised for being “culturally bereft” and lacking in colour. But strangely enough, in a 9-page article on power and race in America, Hsu never once talks about the real marker of power in America: money. Who are the poorest people in America? According to Wikipedia:
The US Census declared that in 2007 – 12.5% of all people, [34]including
- 10.5% white people [35]
- 24.5% black people [36]
- 21.5% all Hispanic people of any race, [37] lived in poverty.
Stats on Asians and Native Americans are missing, but at a glance it is clear that while the US now has a person of colour as a president, socio-economic conditions didn’t miraculous change overnight for communities of colour the moment Obama won the election. Obviously!
Hsu says:
[Christian] Lander’s “white people” are products of a very specific historical moment, raised by well-meaning Baby Boomers to reject the old ideal of white American gentility and to embrace diversity and fluidity instead…But his lighthearted anthropology suggests that the multicultural harmony they were raised to worship has bred a kind of self-denial.
It is almost ridiculous to me that Hsu buys into the idea that Americans (and North Americans as far as I can tell) embrace multiculturalism and diversity in a real way when so much of the basic stats that measure well-being and race – the real measures of power – show that he is wrong. Here’s some more stats: rates of incarceration by race in the U.S.; and a Canadian article that states that
Although [Aboriginal people] comprised only 2% of the general adult population, they accounted for 17% of the prison population. They were younger on average than non-Aboriginal inmates, had less education and were more likely to have been unemployed.
Hsu never defines “multicultural harmony.” And because some of his examples that pronounce the dominance of non-white cultures include white kids growing dreadlocks and suburban white kids wanting to be black (i.e. wiggers), by the end of the article I started to think that maybe Hsu believes that things like the use of models of colour in American Apparel ads and last year’s popularity of the fashion keffiyeh are examples of diversity’s strength in American mainstream culture. For crying out loud. That’s not power sharing. That’s cultural appropriation. To go back to the first thing I said, I don’t think it’s people of colour who’ve directed the cultural shift that that’s got us suddenly slobbering over everything “non-white.” I think it’s white folks who are into cultural appropriation (i.e. not anti-racism or equity) have made this so.
The fact is that the popularity of Eastern Religions, sushi, Sufism, faux-Chinese tattoos, Kanye West, backpacking across Vietnam and Bob Marley has not coincided with the fair distribution of socio-economic power across the globe, or across ethnic groups in America. So call me a cynic but to me the popularity of those things – which more often than not rise to prominence as sanitised and white-washed versions of their original selves – is more of an insult than a sign of multicultural harmony.
And also, That Whole White People Are Cultural Bereft Thing is a Racist Fallacy
Arturo: Life at the Atlantic has to be tough – how does one write this stuff with their pinky so high in the air?
Hsu’s sources and examples are undermined just as easily as his argument. Really, we’re supposed to be surprised that the guy behind Stuff White People Like would attest to a sense of white self-loathing? Did Professor Wray not refer his culturally envious students to Temple’s genealogy department? Did he not teach them the meaning of the word genealogy? I’ve got news for these guys – some of the White People I know cared enough to learn about how their families emigrated to this country from Scotland, or from Ireland, or from Germany, or from Russia.
Let me repeat: they cared enough to learn. Only a narcissist (or worse, an avaricious hipster preying on the insecurities of people in skinny jeans) would dismiss culture as nothing more than a pigment; a shared history, the traditions, the customs and courtesies and the stories we learn from our loved ones help forge our respective cultures, not because they’re “cool and oppositional,” but because they come from inside us.
Hsu’s “Flight To Whiteness” section, which could have examined the paths and reasons behind the remaining vestiges of generational racism, instead seems to buy into the self-stylings of the Cable Guys and Sarah Palins of the world as a would-be Rebellion against the Evil Multicultural Empire. Instead of focusing on Smokey and the Bandit and Falling Down, he might have been better served asking how and why Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal could rise up the ranks of the Republican party to which so many of these “besieged” white people pledge fealty.
And Finally
Arturo: Instead of asking the questions he should’ve, Hsu blithely dismisses race as “a fiction that often does more harm than good” and hides behind advertising reps eager to re-code and re-demo the young people they’re probably eager to pitch cigarettes and nose jobs to before closing his note with hopeful visions of the upcoming social shifts — the same ones he and his editors had been so alarmed about. The “end of white America”? I’ll just be glad to see the end of articles like these.
Fatemeh: This article was too tangential and incredibly disappointing. Hsu didn’t need to dance around the definition of whiteness. He didn’t need to use “whiteness studies” to dissect whites into different cultural groups (this should have been an entirely different and separately interesting article). He didn’t need to compare P. Diddy to The Great Gatsby. All he needed to do was examine the white panic, deconstruct it, and let the anxiety around it float away after a clear, rational repudiation. Instead, he tried to come at it from too many angles, which just ups white America’s anxiety level and feeds the fires of fear.
Thea: This article is a bizarre and sprawling mess that suggests that just because Russell Simmons is massively successful, America has not only achieved racial harmony, but is now threatening to submerge white folks into a sea of “beigeness.” But it never answers a very basic question: what do any of the things that Hsu mentions – like Smirnoff ads, 50 Cent, Dora the Explorer or Stuff White People Like – have to do with actual rates of racial equity?
Not much.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
atlasien wrote:
I really, really, really hate the “White People Are Culturally Bereft” meme.
Along with the criticisms already leveled above, I think it’s damaging to people of color because it grants white alienation a privileged philosophical status and complexity.
In other words, when white people feel alienated, it’s important and complicated and dramatic. When people of color feel a similar alienation, it’s often just viewed as kind of pathetic.
White people often proclaim proudly, in public, their supposed lack of culture and roots. People of color just don’t do this as a common practice. We have exactly the same cultural stresses as white people that lead to alienation — economic displacement and increased migration, the breakdown of the extended family, new media replacing traditions handed down from older generations — but we’re supposed to withstand all of it and “hold on to our culture”. Newsflash: we can feel just as alienated by modern life, but it’s not as socially permissible for us to talk about it.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 10:45 am ¶
Restructure! wrote:
Maybe the white people who are afraid of whites losing control are afraid because they believe that PoC are less competent. It relates to assumption that the experts are white people.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:12 am ¶
Alpha Asian wrote:
This guy is clearly pandering to white fears. There is always a fear within the collective white psyche that they’ll be overrun by the natives/slaves/workers/barbarian hordes.
It looks like whites will be outnumbered by POC, but who cares? We live in a system of internal colonialism. Even if whites do make up a minority, they will still hold power (collectively) for a long time.
If anything, certain portions of the US (namely the West Coast of California) will eventually resemble Hawaii, where POC of color make up the majority and permeate all levels of society and politics. Other areas will still be very white or very white and black.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:20 am ¶
Brandon wrote:
As soon as I saw this article I wondered what Racilicious would think of it. It’s too bad that it was as jumbled as it was… there really is a growing voice of disaffection and some sense of loss amongst many whites. Go onto more mainstream post forums and you’ll see it.
But this wasn’t the way to look at it. I hated every quote… a lot of whining. It felt like the point was to generate sympathy for whites. For what?
One of the real flaws is the author’s assumption that population and demographics are what’s important. What he calls “White America” is “white” because of population. Lose the population and it isn’t “white” anymore. This totally sidesteps everything we know is important: systems and institutions. It will be interesting to see if and how America changes when “white” is not the majority population or identification, but losing a majority share of population and a majority share of power and advantage are two different things.
@Arturo: Maybe there was more to your Super Bowl comment than I realize, but are you suggesting that the only reason why Bruce Springsteen performed this year is because he’s white? Come on… this isn’t some hack musician. It’s BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN. That comment seemed a lot like one of those awful affirmative action assumptions.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:24 am ¶
PPR_Scribe wrote:
So much to love and chew on in this piece. Thank you so much–and thanks for”slow blogging” it by giving it the passage of time that thoughtful response to the original piece required.
Like I said–much to digest. I am looking forward to more conversation.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:34 am ¶
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist! wrote:
Hah. Just come to my neighborhood. It’s about 95% white and white people hardly feel alienated. If anything, I’m the one who feels alienated from society here.
I don’t see the end of White America in my neighborhood, kthanx.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 11:48 am ¶
Arturo wrote:
Brandon: I was commenting more on Springsteen as a “safe” choice, much like Tom Petty was in the year immediately following Prince’s performance. And much like Paul McCartney was following the Janet Jackson/J. Timberlake performance. And, Springsteen may not be a hack, but that halftime set was surely wack. I found myself wishing for the return of Up With People.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 12:31 pm ¶
Monie wrote:
The really ironic thing is that Richard Nixon is responsible for the ‘browning’ of America.
It was his idea to create Hispanic people and then to pretend to be against illegal immigration by people from Latin America all the while hoping that eventually those people would out-number Black Americans. The goal was to usurp the burgeoning political power of Black Americans.
Well it didn’t quite go the way Richard Nixon planned. African Americans still have plenty of potential political power, although we don’t really us it, and Latin Americans now not only out-number Black Americans but soon will out-number White Americans.
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Mod Note – Umm, Monie, can you site a source for this? I am really uncomfortable with this comment as is without references. – LDP
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 12:32 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
Dense and much more thought out than Hsu’s piece which seemed to be written without any interest in the “why”s of anything.
@ Restructure
That’s usually what I think of when this alarm sounds. You often hear it in code when people talk about cities that are predominantly anything-other-than white if they are having a tough time with employment or crime or . . . anything, really.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 12:47 pm ¶
Amused0472 wrote:
To be honest, white people may not know yet what they are really afraid of. I’m a lawyer and I remember handling a “reverse” discrimination once. The plaintiff was a young white woman from New Hampshire who transplanted to Atlanta and she swore all her supervisors, who were black, were conspiring against her. I just remember her saying during her deposition, “I’m from New Hampshire. I’ve never had never had to deal with black people before….” That’s not an exact quote but reflects the sentiment she was communicating. Of course, as PoC we are often faced with the reality of being the only or one of a few PoC living and working in majority environments. It was obvious that this woman was experiencing some form of culture shock and was a fish out of water. I can only imagine her dismay when I, yet another black person, showed up to depose her.
I use that story to illustrate that having Barack as POTUS and the prospect of the shifting demographics of PoC in this country is going to force white people to deal with us and their “whiteness” on a level they have never had to before.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶
ceecee wrote:
@ Arturo’s comment about superbowl performances – I absolutely agree! This last superbowl halftime show was underwheliming…Bruce Sprignsteen or no. but I guess everyone has to have their day, I’m glad Janet and Prince did.
ummm yeah they just raised their kids to be polite in public. the stinkiness that’s hidden behind the closed doors of their homes still comes out eventually as is evidenced by the racial tensions we STILL have today.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:22 pm ¶
the-ender. wrote:
I honestly don’t know about this site anymore. It used to be about honest discussion about race related topics but lately it seems that most of the post are about dismissing white people all together. If we expect to progress we have to hear everyone out right? This is coming from a person of color by the way.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:32 pm ¶
method wrote:
Did you actually sit around a table and discuss this? Because these notes feel like you’re just feeding off each other’s comments and building up a snarky critique for the sake of critique. Many of the criticisms amount to frustration that the authors didn’t get to write the article themselves. This is really a quite simple article that seems to consist in a few sociological observations:
1. Demographics are going to change
2. This makes white people nervous
3. Some white people have responded by attempting to “flee whiteness” through various means (dissociation, irony, borrowed authenticity, re-invention)
4. Others have retreated into a “mythical whiteness” which is actually a realization of whiteness as culture; this movement may hide racism and resentment, so watch out.
5. We’ll see how this plays out in the future
The criticisms that Hsu doesn’t question the racial reasoning of white people, and that he doesn’t draw a line between political power and demographic majority, is valid. But this is basically an anthropological treatment of the attitudes of white people written by a PoC. I feel like you’re shouting down what he has to say because it talks about phenomena within white culture, which both in racially white consciousness and seemingly in your discourse, aren’t supposed to exist. Which is the point of the article.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 1:38 pm ¶
PPR_Scribe wrote:
Re: the music angle. I do not know how many here were alive when the anti-disco movement occurred in the USA. There was an underlying fear at that time, I felt, that more urban Black (and also to some extent, Hispanic) oriented music was “taking over” the airwaves. (There was also some degree of homophobia involved IMO. Another whole issue.)
Seeing the popularity of Black dance music acts, everyone jumped on the disco bandwagon, meaning that the quality of much of the music went way down. However the backlash did not seem to be so much about “quality” as fear of loss of control. If you ever get a chance to view footage of the huge disco record burning that occurred at Comiskey Park, you will get an idea of what a large crowd reaction against loss of power and prominence might look like in the “Obama Age”…
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 2:12 pm ¶
silverkris wrote:
“I use that story to illustrate that having Barack as POTUS and the prospect of the shifting demographics of PoC in this country is going to force white people to deal with us and their “whiteness” on a level they have never had to before.”
Amen to that. There is always a lot of resistance and discomfort for people who have had the privilege of not having to make adjustments to other people or environments where they aren’t the default culture to now have to be a fish out of water.
Well, I say, join the rest of us.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 2:12 pm ¶
Travis Hedge Coke wrote:
If there are still people looking at this as a White vs Nonwhite issue, than, yeah, White People won’t be the majority… but it isn’t a White vs Nonwhite issue (without even considering what “majority” means when access and influence come into play).
It’s like trying to hold desperately to Euclidean principles when the rest of the people are standing in positions to see that this is a non-Euclidean world. A satisfactory conversation becomes impossible.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 2:15 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:
@ PPR_Scribe
If you ever get a chance to view footage of the huge disco record burning that occurred at Comiskey Park, you will get an idea of what a large crowd reaction against loss of power and prominence might look like in the “Obama Age”…
Or have a glance at the Men’s Movement and “Masculinism” or the behaviors discussed in Kimmel’s Guyland.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
Monie wrote:
@Latoya
I’m not sure what specifically you are referring to but here is a link that talks a bit about this. Let me know if this is what you are looking for or not.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/essays/june97/rodriguez_6-18.html
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:33 pm ¶
Brandon wrote:
@Arturo: With one simple Up With People comment, I am aligning myself with you on issues related to Super Bowl entertainment. You won me over. (And I see your point.)
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 4:46 pm ¶
BSK wrote:
I think the most salient point has to do with the way in which demographics may shift, but the balance of power is unlikely to follow suit. What scares me is how this article may be used to justify INCREASED racism in the future. How likely are we to hear white people say, “You guys are the majority now! Don’t ask for anything else!” This is not unlike the argument we here now that black people have “made it” because of Obama and therefore there is no more need for Affirmative Action.
I also love the how the writer so blatantly demonstrates the way in which there are two types of people in the world: those who are brown and those who just are. White people may no longer be a MAJORITY of the country soon, but they will remain a plurality for a long time. Couple this with the continued dominance of the political and financial institutions, and I don’t know that we will ever see the end of “white America.”
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 8:28 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
A lot of white people feel at least somewhat culturally connected to their forebears, at least as regards food and minor customs. Someone patronizes those Irish Dance studios, bocce courts (that’s Italian outdoor bowling), and God forbid softens up that nasty dry salt cod (bacala) for traditional Christmas meals. Even I make a few traditional Swedish dishes (but not lutefisk, lye-cured fish, ends up gelatinous) and hoist an ale in the general direction towards Wales on St. David’s day.
Posted 17 Mar 2009 at 8:50 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:
Very nice roundtable discussion! The article it critiqued was pretty much all over the place I thought. Due to that Hsu definitely was not coherent in what he was trying to convey about the so-called “end” of white America.
In regard to America’s shift towards a more multiethnic population, I once read an interesting speculation regarding it. I read that because Latinos are fast becoming the largest minority in America, that in the future two groups will emerge, one being the Anglo group (English speakers and that doesn’t have to mean just white) and the other being the Latin group (Spanish speakers from various Latin American countries). According to the speculation both groups would compete for political, economic, and social dominance in America. Does anyone think there’s a distinct possibility of that happening? Also according to the speculation there would be less surprise and curiosity towards racially ambiguous Americans both due to increased interracial unions and to Latin Americans (who themselves are the product of many interracial unions) becoming more mainstream.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 1:32 am ¶
Lxy wrote:
@BSK
Good points. Just because Whites are no longer be the numerical majority does NOT necessarily translate into a shift in power.
As people have mentioned above, Apartheid South Africa is exemplary of a White minority possessing *majority* power.
I also agree that this”Whites are no longer the majority” meme can and probably will be used to justify increased (White) racism.
I am not surprised that _The Atlantic_ would be promoting this perspective, however.
This magazine is a leading mouthpiece of the traditional American ruling class: East Coast WASPs.
The fact that this article was penned by a minority cannot hide WHOSE political worldview it articulates and whose interests it serves.
White power increasingly hides behind a multi-colored mask these days.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 1:50 am ¶
Monie wrote:
@Latoya
Did that link help with your concern regarding my comment?
Could you explain why the comment was problematic?
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 10:58 am ¶
Brandon wrote:
I just realized something else that bothers me about the Atlantic article. True, white won’t be the majority racial identification in the near future… but the notion of a white minority seems to suggest that there is some other majority. That’s a bit misleading, and potentially sinister.
Why misleading? Because white will still be the most common racial identification. To view white as the minority is akin to viewing non-white as one group and the majority. And I think that the underlying assumption there is that non-white equals anti-white. The one thing that would unify this bogus demographic group would be that they aren’t white; as if that somehow means that this incredibly diverse group would be easily classified and categorized because of what they are not. I don’t like it… defining people by what they aren’t, and assuming that they are the same because of it?
Not good… but that’s what the article is doing.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 11:07 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Monie -
I tend to get jumpy when I read comments like this:
It was his idea to create Hispanic people and then to pretend to be against illegal immigration by people from Latin America all the while hoping that eventually those people would out-number Black Americans. The goal was to usurp the burgeoning political power of Black Americans.
Because all too often those ideas and assertions play into the idea that defeating racism is a zero sum game – if someone promote Latinos and immigration then it would erode the political power of African Americans. It also creates a situation where one ethnic/racial group can blame their shortcomings on another group as a means of scapegoating.
That’s why I asked you for some sourcing. I’m don’t think what you posted from Richard Rodriguez backs up your assertion (he argues that there is a false comparison between race and ethnicity; you argue this was part of Nixon’s master plan) but I’ll allow it to stand for now.
I’ll cover why I think racial group comparisons are problematic when I find time to devote to “the things we do to each other” series.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 11:09 am ¶
CDF wrote:
I figured someone on the Internets would take this article to task. I’ll co-sign Lxy@#23. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I read the piece Hsu cited that was written in 1922 by Lothrop Stoddard (The Rising Tide of Color
Against White World-Supremacy) probably several months ago. It was an interesting peek into the thought processes of those living during/after the 1st so-called World War. Foreshadowing, perhaps?
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 12:59 pm ¶
method wrote:
I still say y’all are shooting the messenger, and not trying to understand a basic observation. The assertion in the anti-racism discourse that I see here is, over and over again, that white constructs itself as not cultural, not “ethnic”, etc. Everyone else is different, while white is the standard against which everything else gets judged. Okay, this sounds good to me.
So then *what happens* when whites become not the majority, but a “mere” plurality, perhaps on the way to being #2 in population to some other group? The difference between majority and plurality is well-taken, but the psychic effect of losing majority could still be important. Especially since one of Hsu’s points is that there are *two* populations of whites in America. One is the big-city and suburban population that may experiment with identity and the other is the rural and middle-American population that is starting to see itself as another identity group. In addition there is the de- or re- ethnicization of whites, where American whites decide they’re Irish or Italian or Pollack or whatever, go to retire in Ireland, etc.
This is all that the article is talking about, and I find it truly disturbing that people want to say that this is isn’t happening, or if it is happening, then it doesn’t matter because there’s more work to be done, and anyway, this guy Hsu shouldn’t be talking about it, because it will give whites reasons to repress others somehow. This is policing your own thought and also policing public speech about race.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
@method: can you clarify your critique? You seem to be suggesting that because white people are feeling really angry and threatened, it’s our duty to be especially nice and soothing to them.
It’s not “policing thought” to reject that approach.
Just on the strategic level, I don’t accept the argument that white people are uniquely angry at this point in history. I think things have been getting better in this country when it comes to race, although we hit a major plateau in the 1970s and progress slowed down a lot. There’s still a lot to bitch about but I’m really glad I’m living now, and not 1890 or 1940, for example, when white people were equally or more angry, and a lot more open about letting that anger out.
The ideal way forward is 1) for white people to recognize themselves as actually having a culture and ethnicity without 2) defining that culture and ethnicity through exclusionary and repressive forms. I think many progressive-minded white people are on their way to that stage. It’s actually a much easier journey than what most people of color have gone through.
And just because you don’t want someone to talk about a subject stupidly or superficially doesn’t mean you don’t want them to talk about that subject at all.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 2:08 pm ¶
K. Emvee wrote:
@method
The term Polack is widely considered to be an ethnic slur.
I’d like to point out the irony of using this word (perhaps out of ignorance?) to describe a group of white folks in a comment on an anti-racism blog post about “The End of White America”?
Which brings up the (perhaps obvious) fact that white folks are not all homogenous and not all white folks are angry or scared about becoming a plurality instead of a majority of the population in this country. Some of us, myself included, are dancing with joy and anticipation of all of the ways that we can use this to subvert the dominant power paradigm and transform this society into one that is moving towards something that looks a lot more like power-sharing and (true) equality for all.
To which I ask, the incessant 9-year old in the back seat, “Are we there yet?” knowing full-well that we have a LONG way to go yet.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 5:11 pm ¶
Monie wrote:
@Latoya
I get your point but I hope that you understand that’s not my point of view but a possible political strategy used by Richard Nixon and the GOP in the early 70’s. I mentioned it as irony considering the piece being discussed.
Anyway here is a link, they don’t go into depth on the subject but they do talk about it a bit toward the bottom of this page.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DXK/is_21_20/ai_111854745
Thanks for responding.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 5:30 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
The responses to this post have been interesting to say the least. I appreciate all of your engagements with the piece.
@Method –
It is physically impossible for Racialicious to have a roundtable because we are all in different locations, time zones, and have ambitious travel schedules. But I didn’t see the correspondents as snarking – the article had a very strong response and each person put forth their own thoughts separately before responding to each other.
@all –
The article generated some really interesting responses all over the web. Check the letters section:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200904/letters
My responses aren’t in this one. I actually thought that this piece was a pitch perfect parody of all the “Crisis in XXX Community!” pieces published about nonwhites in America (or the occasional one about lower income whites).
Everything from the vagueness of the argument to the strange connections drawn had me thinking Hsu was a humor master.
But then I saw something on the Atlantic site where he and Ta-Nehisi were discussing the piece and I think he was serious so…yeah, kills that one.
I still think it was a hilarious unintended parody…
@K. Emvee –
Your comment is full of win.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 5:36 pm ¶
method wrote:
K. Emvee, wow, yes, that is ironic. I guess I didn’t know that it was offensive. I think I thought I was being more authentic by using Polack instead of Polish. I’m sorry for my mistake, of course.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 5:50 pm ¶
method wrote:
@atlasien, I agree with most of what you’re saying. I think there’s a lot of “reading into” that article which isn’t really based on anything in the text. For example, he quotes Bill Imada, an Asian-American, who reports that the white people he meets with feel threatened. We have no idea whether Hsu thinks white people deserve to be soothed or not. My critique is that Hsu is reporting on a phenomenon and various voices here are treating it as though he must be carrying water for some agenda or another. I guess another part of my critique is that it seems to me that a lot of people here are rejecting out of hand the idea that it’s worthwhile to report on the ways that white people are
rethinking their identity. Your statement about exclusionary and repressive ways of rethinking this identity shows why this is an important topic for everyone to consider.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 5:58 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@Atlasien
The ideal way forward is 1) for white people to recognize themselves as actually having a culture and ethnicity without 2) defining that culture and ethnicity through exclusionary and repressive forms. I think many progressive-minded white people are “on their way to that stage. It’s actually a much easier journey than what most people of color have gone through.
I am not sure that I agree with some of your assumptions about “white” people and “culture.” Speaking for myself, I have long thought the absence of culture is the definition of whiteness as a social construction. How can white people, whose cultures of origin have nothing at all in common ever develop a common culture, unless it is based on exclusion, as it is now. So I can’t agree that the invention of a common “white” culture is the best way forward. It is possible–if sometimes dicey–to have a discussion about “black” culture (even though blackness is just as imaginary as “whiteness”) because the shared experience of suffering caused by exclusion created one. But whiteness is a neutral category. A non-ethnicity.
If I were the King of Everybody I’d do away with “White” as a category altogether. Really, what is good for other than creating false affinities and false binaries? Nothing I can see.
I think the ‘crisis” among white people (if there is one) comes from having the only thing they have in common–i.e. at least we aren’t Black, which is good, cause those guys are the WORST–fall apart as the overwhelming proof of that foundational lie is in front of them every day via the Obama administration. If the payoff of giving up your culture of origin is supremacy then maybe its worth it to you–but when that supremacy is challenged at the base of its assumptions then all you are left with is…nothing.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 9:46 pm ¶
c.n. edaw wrote:
“A lot of white people feel at least somewhat culturally connected to their forebears, at least as regards food and minor customs.”
I would tend to agree with the above statement. Can some of you further explain this “de-ethnicization” of white people concept, as I just don’t see it at play.
I always felt that the most alienating thing for me as an African American in relation to white people was that they tended to strongly attest to and associate with their cultural origins (mostly because they have knowledge of it and in many instances evidence of it ) and are able to do so without backlash.
I never thought a lack of unified ethnicity could/would jeapordize white cohesion/position of power in the U.S. as I always felt it was frankly, their lack of melanin that was the single strongest uniting force.
Just a few days ago, St. Patricks day came and went , as it always does with everyone expected to drink green beer, attend parades and rejoice in the Irish without so much as a raised eyebrow. Yet, every February I hear nothing but gripe after gripe from nearly every non-black person I encounter if you so much as reference the idea of Black History Month.
Likewise, I know many white Americans who bristle at blacks calling themselves African Americans (”why cant you just be Americans??”), but will go out of their way to tell you they have Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Italian, German, Swedish etc. heritage or whose lineage they descended from particulalry if it might be deemed impressive. They may not i.d that way on a census form but they certainly do in many social arenas. And brown skinned people who may share some of the same lineage (my own grandmother was Irish) can always claim it, but by virtue of being brown we cannot really get the same mileage out of it–we are exluded from the group, not by ethnic origin, but by color alone.
It also appears places/cities with large concentrations of white European ethnic groups/influence are celebrated. While I may hear some whites speak derisively about the Cuban or Haitian influence on Miami, the same whites will applaud the great “working class Irish Catholics” influence on Boston.
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 11:09 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:
@Joseph: I don’t think there is a common white culture (singular), or that the invention of one is a good idea. But there are already plenty of majority-white cultures (plural) and I think it’s quite healthy to celebrate these.
For example, many Southern white people have a pretty strong cultural identity that’s tied to things like region and accent and ancestry. To some degree this is formed through exclusion, but it’s not totally exclusionary either. There’s nothing wrong in being proud of white Southern heritage/Scots-Irish ancestry as long as you don’t use that pride to exclude and silence other people.
As a parallel… I can take pride in being Japanese without trying to deny Japanese atrocities in WWII. Other people (crazy Japanese nationalists) can’t. Just like some people believe they can’t take pride in being white Southerners without denying injustices towards black people. Recognizing and claiming culture is often correlated with racism and exclusion, but it doesn’t necessarily cause racism and exclusion.
White people have a huge variety of ways to express and recognize their cultures. They have regional identities based on where they live, ethnic identities based on ancestry, subcultural identities and so on. It’s the opposite of “no culture”… they have a wealth of culture.
Many of them don’t recognize this and prefer to nurse imaginary wounds.
I do agree that whiteness itself — in its pure form, not just in relation to majority-white cultures and ethnicities — should be viewed as neutral. Viewing it as positive is too poisonous, because it was created and structured to be exclusionary and repressive. I think the way forward is for all racial constructs to lose their power and become simple umbrellas for ethnic and cultural groups. Whiteness has to give up that power first though…
Posted 18 Mar 2009 at 11:10 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:
@atlasien
I see what you are saying, but I suppose the thing that jumps out for me from your example of regional culture is that there is nothing specific to whiteness about it. So for me the relation is a shaky one. I guess my point is that outside of crazy white supremicists who fetishize race, white people never have to think about being white. That, in fact, is what being “white” means. So I guess I just don’t see it attached to cultural expressions–except in exclusionary, racist terms. But I’m not trying to nitpick here–I don’t disagree with the sentiment behind your thought, I’m just trying to come at it from a different angle.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 12:08 am ¶
Jennifer wrote:
I’m getting confused on how culture is getting lumped in completely with race in some of these comments. And I’m not sure how someone can just not have a culture, but anyway…
I wouldn’t think of something as just “white” culture that would define all the whites in the U.S. There are regional and genealogical differences to consider. I have had many conversations with people on how there isn’t just one black culture for all people descendant from Africa. It depends if one grew up in NYC or the rural South or immigrated from Africa or the Caribbean or some other history I haven’t named yet.
The same goes for other races (and this is not meant to be an exhausted list, just a sampling) where you have Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians, Chinese and Japanese Americans all lumped together as Asians, and Cuban and Mexican Americans all considered Latin Americans. While these groups may share similarities with others within their racial category, there is still a lot to make them their own unique culture.
Just because whites don’t get a hyphenated name, they still have a culture. Just think back to St. Patrick’s Day.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 2:04 am ¶
Christie wrote:
As a white person, I agree with the writers of the original post and the commenters, too… this kind of article is alarmist and just makes problems. If white people are fearing the prospect of being less than 50% of the country, it is probably because of one of the following reasons:
1) they are racist and don’t like the idea of living and working with more non-whites,
2) they are thinking, “Oops, does this mean they will do to us what we did to them?”
3) they fear that a lower-class or less-expert culture will surround them and take over,
etc…
As someone who has no problem at all with the idea of whites being less than 50%, and who in fact has contributed very well to this (my posterity is fairly likely to identify as non-white), I am fed up with seeing sensationalist headlines about this topic… and very disappointed to hear that many white people have taken to whining, of all things.
I did not see this post as non-white vs. white, at all, but rather as a post by interested people, vs. an alarmist article. I agree that such articles are likely to lead to a decrease in efforts by whites to make non-white people more equal, in the U.S.
On a related topic, I am uncomfortable with the word white, and I do use the word to describe myself, but reluctantly… it is loaded with the assumption that I am somehow very different from other, “non-white”, people (yes, I accept that due to society’s warped views, I am different and priveleged, but essentially I am from just one of many cultures around the world). I identify myself as white or as having northern-European ancestry, but wish for a more neutral-sounding word than white. How am I so very different in appearance from my non-white children, and why does U.S. society give me of all people the right to more priveleges than them?? One of my 2 children could just about “pass for white”, but we teach them to be equally proud of their Indian (Asian) side and also their European ancestry.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 6:29 am ¶
vera wrote:
to c.n. edaw
I agree with you 1000%.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 7:19 am ¶
Lxy wrote:
This discussion here does raise a very important issue: what is the future model of race relations in the USA?
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva has made a provocative argument that the USA is increasingly moving towards a “Latin American” model of racial hierarchy, in which the formal dissolution of racial categories (e.g. post-racialism, colorblindness) actually *enables* heightened racial inequality in practice:
As a Latin America-like society, the United States will become a society with more, rather than less, racial inequality but with a reduced forum for racial contestation. The apparent blessing of “not seeing race” will become a curse for those struggling for racial justice in years to come. We may become “All Americans,” as commercials in recent times suggest, but paraphrasing George Orwell: “some will be more American than others.”
If Bonilla-Silva’s is correct, then it suggests that very nature of racism and White hegemony is mutating into a more sophisticated and disguised strain–one that will be much harder to expose and thus politically oppose.
In its broad outlines, his “Latin Americanization” argument paints a disturbing picture of how 21st-century racism will increasingly operate.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 7:36 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
If Bonilla-Silva’s is correct, then it suggests that very nature of racism and White hegemony is mutating into a more sophisticated and disguised strain–one that will be much harder to expose and thus politically oppose.
I tend to agree with this.
@Joseph & atlasien~ Southern culture is not in fact specifically white. I am familiar with the version of Appalachian/Mid-Atlantic Southern culture that has been espoused to atlasien by folks of Scots-Irish descent. However, when these white Southerners talk about Southern culture or The South, they are not including Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Jews…all facets of Southern culture[s] as contributors and members. They are positioning themselves at odds with Yankees and over Blacks (and everyone else).
Those post-election red/blue graphics (hell the whole binary) fanned those flames.
We know that some whites are feeling besieged. It’s up to them to articulate why.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 9:49 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
I think it’s more complicated than “Southern culture is/is not white”. White Southern culture and black Southern culture are separate entities, but then there are also areas where they overlap. And there are lots of other elements… white Jewish Southerners and so on like you brought up.
I just don’t think it’s true that when all white Southerners talk about being proud of being Southern, they’re being exclusionary.
They usually are. The ones who are loudest are. Just not always.
It’s more the case that when people from all over the U.S. hear “Southerner,” they instantly assume “white”… which is totally upside-down, since 56% of all African-Americans in America live in the South, and the region has a much greater non-white population than any other continental region besides the Southwest.
I think the word “Southerner” is contaminated by racist history in a similar way that the word “white” is. It’s hard to reclaim. But younger people seem to be inventing new descriptors like “New South” or “Dirty South” that evoke a multiracial regional identity.
It depends so much on context. A white man talking about Southern pride in the context of defending the Confederate flag is just reinforcing racism. A white Southern man defending his regional identity after a Northern white liberal automatically assumes he’s a KKK member who grew up in a trailer park… is not. A white Southern man who dresses up in a kilt to play bagpipes as part of a heritage festival is not necessarily being exclusionary, even though it’s doubtful there are going to be many black people at that festival.
I’ll agree that many Southern whites feel besieged. But they’re always feeling besieged. They’ve been feeling besieged for more than a century, and talking about their feelings at monotonous lengths, and it’s getting kind of old by now.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 10:46 am ¶
inkst wrote:
@ Lxy – that is a fascinating concept. I lived and taught in Mexico for two years, and whenever I tried to discuss issues of racism with my high school students, they were often unable to draw connections between race relations in the US and in Mexico, to the point of saying that racism did not exist in their culture. Sure, they don’t have “black” and “white” the same way we do, but there is blatant racism against people who identify as indigenous and even those who simply “look” more indigenous. Lighter skin, hair, and eyes are all highly valued, as evidenced by television and advertisements. The unique history of that part of Latin America makes for a very insidious breed of racism. You could actually look at arc of the Spanish conquest through modern times as similar to what Hsu is trying to outline in his article. Over time, Spanish as a distinct culture all but disappeared, and Latin America became “post-racial.” Bottom line though, racism is still rampant there, and even more dangerous because it isn’t as obvious and it is not openly discussed.
On another note, I agree with Latoya that this article seemed like it could have been an incredibly written parody, I mean the guy cites the Stuff WHite People Like guy as a white culture expert! WTF? That website is hilarious, but it’s not some sort of cultural touchstone. His other examples are pretty shallow as well. He focuses almost entirely on entertainment and exceptions to the rule. If the topic of racism were not so important, I would simply dismiss the article and the alarmist cover as another cheap grab at sales and publicity, however, the reality is that along with being a shameless marketing tool, it is also a subversive way to fan fear and hatred.
BTW, He is an English prof at Vassar. Any decent prof would give that article no more than a “C” for sheer disorganization and lack of depth.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 10:53 am ¶
PPR_Scribe wrote:
I am very interested in the meanings and uses of the term “whiteness.” I do agree that it can be a term that is separate from “White people,” having more to do with wealth, power, privilege and status over others. However, I have sometimes seen implied that there are certain requirements for crossing that line and that once these are met, someone “non-White” can “have whiteness.”
In practice, I do not think that “whiteness” works like that. Skin color still seems to be at least part of that requirement, with lighter skin being required. Furthermore, there are groups (Black people) who do not seem able to cross over–at least not without “passing.” Instead, individuals meeting certain qualities are thought to have “transcended” their race. I suppose they exist in some sort of raceless limbo–no longer seen by many as “Black” but definitely not possessors of “whiteness” either.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 11:27 am ¶
Joseph wrote:
@atlasien
I see what you are saying and I cosign “not always”–definitely. And I absolutely cosign context too.
@cn ednaw & vera
If you say that you are surrounded by white people who are very into their cultures of origin then I have no reason to disbelieve you–but it is just not my experience at all. I suppose my pov is shaped by my family’s immigrant experience. I am really aware of the distinctions between so-called “ethnic” whites (who mostly landed in the US in the last hundred years) and the Northern European descendants of slave-owners who have been here for multiple generations. I have met white people who not only have no connection to their cultures of origin, they aren’t even sure what they are. When I think of white people, that is who comes to mind for me. I never really thought about it before but now that I do I realize that virtually all of my “white” friends are from ethnic populations that are only a few generations in as Americans. So even though we have different ethnic backgrounds we have a relationship with an immigrant experience.
So maybe its me but I don’t think that a bunch of Irish people (whose families have only been here since the 19th century) celebrating St. Patrick’s Day once a year is such a compelling example of “white culture.”
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 11:50 am ¶
blah wrote:
I don’t know but this has the same tinge to it as the research on real blondes disappearing or becoming extinct in some years or so.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 11:50 am ¶
Reiter wrote:
This article is just all over the place. I agree that referencing hip hop in no way, shape, or form, representative of all blacks, or that all POCs are unified as one nebulous, white-hating entity. Utterly ridiculous and really specious reasoning by Hsu. It seems Hsu is nothing more than some proxy mouthpiece whose sole job is to stoke the unfounded fears of whites. It’s not like there’s a set date for a revolution where all the POCs of the country are going to storm the white bastille. (If there is, I certainly wasn’t informed!)
A number of good points were brought up that were sorely lacking in the original article. Where’s the talk of access? Of money? Who still controls these things? Whites, of course, and they’ll continue to control them for a long time, of that, I have no doubt. The end of white America? Ha, I’ll believe it when I see it (which won’t be in my lifetime).
This article is so bad I want to laugh but then I think about what’s happened in the past when white America has felt threatened by the perpetual foreigner that is potentially anyone who isn’t a lily-white Caucasian, especially in times of economic downturn and social change (ie. the perceived notion that whites are losing control).
Vincent Chin, anyone? Suddenly it’s not a laughing matter anymore.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 7:01 pm ¶
c.n.edaw wrote:
@ Joseph “I have met white people who not only have no connection to their cultures of origin, they aren’t even sure what they are. ”
I meet some of those people myself, but I guarantee you they have a better idea than I do, even if they are taking a stab in the dark. Admittedly, I could not tell you if they are in the minority or majority of white people.
I have encountered white people who say they are “mutts” but then run down a list of what that mixture includes. Few have no idea at all. Afterall, for most whites, the surname, does mean something.
I have always found it odd, considering I have been raised primarily in the South– NOT in any urban areas with any noted large ethnic enclaves.
Honestly, if it weren’t for white people telling me, to this day I would not know what it meant to have a “Jewish name” or to “look Italian” or that having red hair and freckles had anything at all to do with coming from a specific European background.
I recall my brother coming home all excited after school one day. A white teammate on his sixth grade basketball team had told him someone “was probably Italian ” and that another had “a Jewish name”. He exclaimed to my mom in the kitchen,
” How come you never told me there were different kinds of white people? And how do you tell them apart? They all look white to me!!”
I mentioned Saint Patrick’s Day, not as some indicator of how many whites i.d. Irish, but the notion that we are far more accepting of celebrating ties to European culture than African culture. It’s just one example (Oktoberfest anyone?) that whites in the U.S. people do indeed retain some ties to that culture no matter how superficial or watered down it may be.
Do you know how annoying it is as a black person to be pinched all day for not wearing green, by the same people who just last month, were telling me celebrating my history is not necessary and excludes whites?
I imagine these are also the people who feel “besieged”, so to speak. I simply argue they are not entirely devoid of their own culture/cultural references.
It could be argued that much of what we peddle to the world as “American culture” is basically white culture, which is a conglomeration of people with European lineage. It’s so commonplace for most whites to see things entirely through that lens, they don’t see how much of what is determined to be “American” is essentially that which is espoused or embraced by the majority white culture.
Our language is indicative of this. Someone already gave the example of what we infer when we hear the term “Southern” . What do we usually mean when we say “All American Girl/Boy”? We mean white– more recently blonde and blue eyed; especially for the girl, but definitely we mean white.
In my view the cohesion factor is first and foremost , phenotypic whiteness and the adoption of certain mainstream values being secondary.
There is a great PBS special called “Who is White?” that explains this idea and how it progressed much better than I ever could.
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 7:15 pm ¶
vera wrote:
Well, Joseph, I don’t like to type long paragraphs so I will say this – different people have different experiences…..
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 8:59 pm ¶
Christie wrote:
Re: the talk of some white people feeling they have no culture of their own — Two of my grandparents are from more recent immigrant backgrounds (from England and Finland), however the Finnish side was cut off due to a divorce many years ago. My other 2 grandparents are from this “somewhat unknown, in the U.S. for hundreds of years” white background. Anyway, I was essentially raised in this plain, non-specific-”ethnicity” white U.S. culture. White people from this culture usually have some sort of family tradition that they “come from the pioneers of the West” or had “Revolutionary War ancestors” or “old New England ancestors”. If a white person in the U.S. really has no idea where their ancestors came from, then it may mean their people were on the edges of society, or came from families where parents or grandparents were dead or uncommunicative, etc… I don’t know how common this is.
For those who suspect they had old New England ancestors and so on, there are plenty of holidays and festivities which celebrate their cultural background, like Thanksgiving, July 4th & Christmas. While I think people should know the truth about Thanksgiving, I would not like to see it done away with altogether. Personally, I use it as an opportunity to familiarize my kids with some of the traditional “feast dishes” of my own culture (while at the same time educating them about the bad side of Thanksgiving).
Perhaps another reason white people might be worried is that they think Thanksgiving and/or Christmas will be done away with, etc… (I have no religion, by the way, but celebrate Christmas secularly/culturally). I fully agree with using the words “Happy Holidays” etc. in situations where there is a mixed group, like in a school, but would disagree with those who go overboard by telling individual people that they have too many Christmas decorations on their own houses, etc… but ironically, I think it is usually other white people who are going overboard in this way. The “Christmas under seige” feeling is probably an important part of and contributor to any general fears of an ending of racial dominance (anyway dominance in terms of population numbers, which is probably as far as most people get in their thinking).
Posted 19 Mar 2009 at 10:59 pm ¶
Rchoudh wrote:
@ everyone discussing the culture of White people in America
I agree with those of you who said that for the most part mainstream American culture is just a conglomeration of different European cultures which are then accepted by many both non white and white to be the norm. And like Christie said the celebration of different holidays originating from Christianity as national holidays is an acceptable part of mainstream American culture. I don’t know if it’s done nationwide but New York City’s dept of education at least allows all its public schools to close for Jewish holidays. Meanwhile children of other religions have had to either attend school or take a leave of absence during their holidays. It may be said that since Judaism and Christianity are more well known in America and have more followers that that’s why holidays are given. However even if no national holiday is recognized at least in places where students of other religions are more numerous, attempts should be made to accommodate them whenever their holidays arrive. But due to America’s consumer commercial economy and to mainstream acceptance some religious holidays are more accepted and recognized than others even though America is supposed to be secular in its outlook.
Posted 20 Mar 2009 at 6:29 am ¶
Anon White Chick wrote:
It strikes me that the roundtable discussion makes the same profound mistake as the article itself: that of assuming that a single point of view represents the thinking of all — or even the majority — of white people.
There are several roundtable comments — presumably by PoCs — that equally reflect the frustrations of many the white people I know, which are interesting when you flip them around, such as:
“besides having had it with the same old, same old defensiveness that happens when racialized communities start reclaiming and re-asserting themselves, I’m at a loss for seeing how these various forms of wanted cultural appropriation, guilt-tripping, and blame-shifting the issues are in any way beneficial for improving race relations here.”
Of course power should be shared equally. Of course we should all continue to do what we can to mitigate and erase the effects of institutionalized racism. None of us are responsible for anything that happened before we landed on the planet. What we are each responsible for is creating the best society we possibly can, right here and now.
For that reason, highly questionable historical references only serve to unnecessarily inflame the conversation. Just because a professor at the University of Wisconsin claims that “It was white people who invented the idea of race in the first place, and it is white people who have become obsessed and consumed by it . . . as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single ‘race’” doesn’t make it either true or a useful touchstone.
Racialious is an important community and discussion forum, but it sometimes stumbles over the pitfall of speaking just to itself and becoming too insular in its point of view.
Posted 22 Mar 2009 at 4:09 am ¶
Thea Lim wrote:
@ Anon White Chick
“None of us are responsible for anything that happened before we landed on the planet.”
I disagree with you. None of us are to blame – we weren’t there – but we are responsible for what happened because it determines what happens, i.e. we benefit or are at a disadvantage based on what happened before. This is where the concept of white privilege comes from, right? It’s not the fault of any white/anglo folk living today that the British/Europeans colonised huge sections of the planet and that European nations enslaved millions of people of colour.
However white people living today gain benefit from that history. They benefit from often being taken more seriously, being in higher income brackets, having more access to education, etc…all of which can be traced back to that history. So it’s not their fault that they benefit, but as main beneficiaries, it is their responsibility to consider and untangle this ongoing history.
[Apologies for multiple uses of the word "benefit"...]
As well, I was quite surprised to read that you don’t think it is true that it was white colonisers who invented racial categories and then proceeded to enforce them. That’s pretty much an accepted part of history, just as it is an accepted part of history that European nations colonised and enslaved. If you know of reputable historical fact that contradicts that, I would be interested to hear about it.
Posted 22 Mar 2009 at 11:33 am ¶
Anon White Chick wrote:
@ Thea Lim
Thanks for your thoughtful response. For me, all of these issues ultimately come down to personal responsibility, which is the one thing that we each have complete control over.
I personally choose to put my energy where it will be most effective — anything else is just blame, and self-justification, and rhetoric.
We are each personally responsible for creating the best possible world, right here, right now. Perhaps that’s a point of view that we can both agree to.
I personally express my values in my daily interactions with others, in the principles I stand up for, in the causes I support with my money, my time, and my votes. For me, holding others responsible for things they didn’t create and can’t control is simply useless. It doesn’t create a better society. But deliberately working to make things better in every area that we each personally touch has a profound impact, and that is the most productive use of anyone’s time and energy.
Posted 23 Mar 2009 at 2:07 am ¶
grateful listener wrote:
@Anon White Chick
I think personal responsibility could be viewed as code for POCs to stop whining about their plights and take control of their situations (as if they might not already be doing this). But this blog seems to confront the institutions and systems that control a lot of the plight of POCs. Your “We are each personally responsible for creating the best possible world, right here, right now”, sounds like a color blindness argument: “we are all the same”. While this sounds great and utopian, POCs could provide numerous examples of how this has not been their experience and aren’t hopeful about its potential to occur. While this seems useful to you, I don’t see its useful in the context of this discussion. I see it as a distraction.
Posted 24 Mar 2009 at 11:36 am ¶
PCD wrote:
I’m Caucasian. Cultural baggage and the fear of listening to very legitimate complaints about the lack of power-sharing plagues us greatly. The question is this: what can we do to reverse this? How can we participate in creating an economic and political system in which we must work together to survive? How can we end segregation and sprawl which makes misunderstanding even worse? And, as whites, how can we learn to share the very power from which we benefit? How can we learn to listen to the people we have discredited for so long? It’s possible because, as an ESL teacher of immigrants, it’s my job to teach without the political bent that is more than capable of emerging sub-consciously and must be examined by me.
For one thing, the old American tradition of “this is all mine and to hell with you” has to end. I think younger people, women and men, are more in touch with this.
Posted 24 Mar 2009 at 12:08 pm ¶
Adrianna wrote:
Thank you, thank you for the insight!! you guys articulate well what I was thinking ,but could not find the words to say . You guys should post this article everywhere to dispel the garbage that is the other article. As anyone seen the HBO doc “Right America feeling wronged” I think it ties in with the feeling some white are feeling about POC taking over.
Posted 29 Mar 2009 at 5:29 pm ¶
lynx wrote:
I’m the lead vocalist in a celtic hip hop fusion band out of oakland, california. we play everything live and incorporate traditional irish and scottish music, folk, rock, funk, hip hop, and more into our sound. for me it’s a way to take my identity as a celt and my life-long love affair with hip hop and combine them.
for me the ‘end of white america’ can’t come soon enough. whiteness has meant the death of my culture in north america, the refusal of schools to teach my history – mainstream history classes only teach anglo-american history and most ethnic studies departments refuse to acknowledge that it’s even possible to have a distinct ethnicity if you lack melanin. Celts in America are one of many invisible minorities. As whiteness loses its appeal I expect us to become increasingly visible once again. at least I hope so.
last year my band played at the KVMR Celtic festival in Navada City, California. (One of the largest pan-Celtic music festivals in the country). One of our sets was a ‘question and answer’ set and I was asked about some of my lyrics which led into a sort of open discussion with the audience on issues of identity, history, and what it means to be a Celt in America in the 21st century. After all, we are the descendants of refugees who came here fleeing genocide and ended up as fodder for the sweatshops, railroads, and sharecropping that built america but that we’ve never gotten a fair share of.
Nobody in that audience seemed particularly interested in “whiteness” because “white” has never been anything more or less for us then a mask we were forced to wear to escape the old “no Irish Need Apply” signs. If and when the edifice of white power begins to crumble we’ll finally be able to take that mask off and just be who we are, who we’ve always been. Not White, not Anglo, but Celts.
and that’s what I see as the future of “post-white” america.
Posted 21 Apr 2009 at 10:43 pm ¶
WAGAMAMA wrote:
Even if we disagree I am so glad to see “strangers” discussing things I dared not say in public as a kid. . . and I’m 24.
I was just glad the article was even started. It’s so funny to see “the end of white America?” posed as a question by white East Coast liberals when it’s already been “the end of white America!!!!” on the West Coast for quite some time.
I see Michael Lind’s “beige Americans” coming true for sure because in college that’s what me and my friend called ourselves. (It’s really the beginning of white America to me because white people didn’t know they were white before this. . . how can you abort a baby that isn’t alive. . . well that’s a whole nother arguement). When an Asian acquantance said of her white friend from New England “she didn’t know she was white until she came to California” we all laughed because well, we had all known the minute we saw her and she started talking about Phish with no air of self consciousness.
Words like “the end” set up a binary in the race relations. What do white Americans fear the end of? Their power? If so, the very phrase “the end of white America” acknowledges that the power structure of our society has always been horribly racist and white people have remained “neutral” on rectifying this.
The article speaks about the psychological state of being racialized. . . something that happens so much to Other-Americans (I just made that up and it makes a lot more sense than “minority”). Pity that the individual mental state of being a racialized being has not been discussed by mainstream media, even limousine liberal media, until it happened to white people.
Comedian Lewis Black (who is white ha ha) said something like: “If there were a time machine I could set it to pretty much any year and I’d be fine. Like in the year 2. But I’d hate to go to the future. . .” and “If you had to resign up for your race every year, I’d pick white. Not because white people as a noun are better but because being white as a verb is better.”
I think we will shift to a beige/brown paradigm. You can already see that among mixed/Latino/Asian/Middle Eastern/light skinned people in areas like the Bay, where I for example am the kind of “minority” that is accepted in white circles whereas a darker, browner, more “ethnic” person might not be.
I was reading a book review of a 1960’s white greaser gang book and a former Latino gang member wrote “I notice that in your book you use the word ’spic’ a lot but I can’t be upset because we used to use a lot of derrogatory terms towards Irish and Italians. Even though we are from different cities and different colors, we are brothers and you made me proud.” What is missing in a lot of the discussion of how white Americans will relate to therestofus is the discussion of class. For example, there have always been white people in Brooklyn, but today’s hipsters are much less relatable to many than yesterdays working class ethnic whites. Just a thought.
Posted 18 May 2009 at 2:52 am ¶
Shaun Flaherty wrote:
I’m not afraid of losing any kind of privilege or advantage. I’m afraid of being considered lame, and my culture becoming lost and no longer appreciated by this “new america.” I’m afraid that the loss of the white american establishment will lead to a time one day many generations from now when the only place my great great grandchildren can go to see people who looked like me is a museum.
Posted 30 Sep 2009 at 1:28 am ¶