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1. Ethnic WHAT? « Fashion Intelligentsia’s Weblog on 25 Jun 2009 at 3:24 am

   [...] Not familiar with “othering”, please read up on it here, here, and over on Racialicious.  This quote from Rolling Stone really struck and I find it pertinent to address as I constantly [...]

2. Racial Covering, Part I [Racialicious Read-Along] at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 18 Aug 2009 at 11:39 am

   [...] “I’m not too ethnic” and “I speak flawless, unaccented English.” Hey, everybody’s ethnic, and everyone speaks English with an [...]

3. Ethnic WHAT? | FASHION INTEL on 11 Oct 2009 at 8:39 pm

   [...] Not familiar with “Othering”, please read up on it here, here, and over on Racialicious.  This quote from Rolling Stone really struck a nerve and I find it crucial to address as I [...]

Comments

1. Maysie wrote:

   Thea, thank you for deconstructing the use of the word “ethnic”. It makes my head spin off when white folks use it as a stand in for people of colour.

   As for the ethnic comedy fest (:rolleyes:), I think this is what white folks mean when they say we’re “post racial” now: it’s no longer okay for them to make racist jokes about us, we’re doing their work for them.

   This is NOT in the Anti-Racism World Domination agenda!

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 8:22 am ¶

2. Jadey wrote:

   I point this out when my friends suggest going out for “ethnic food”, and they shrug and give me this look of, “but what else are we going to call it?” Uhh, try being, y’know, specific? Accurate?

   “Ethnic” has been picked up as a politically-friendly, multiculturalism-lite buzzword for white people to continue expressing the age-old racist idea of “them” and “those people”. The best is when people go whole hog and just start referring to “those ethnics”.

   It also goes back to the same idea of white people being ethnically “boring” and not having a culture of their own, and therefore needing to adopt/appropriate the cultures and histories of others. Because the whole world is totally here for our entertainment. [/sarcasm]

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 8:31 am ¶

3. Ed wrote:

   Funny enough, on the original Iron Chef program from Japan, anytime a chef used a non-European/American or non-Japanese/non-Chinese flavoring element in their dish, that dish would inevitably be labeled as “ethnic” or “ethnic Asian” (if the main flavoring component were nuoc mam, lemongrass, or something along the lines of SE Asian ingredients).

   *smh…

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 8:58 am ¶

4. Matt wrote:

   Originally, ‘ethic’ was used in a discourse that differed from the discourse on race. The Black/White divide has always been more prominent in the US, but the discourse on ethnicity was about Anglo/Non-Anglo, including many off-whites. For a lot of us, actually, this is important because our histories in America are swallowed whole in the discourse about race. It’s one of the reasons the US doesn’t do multiculturalism very well.

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:17 am ¶

5. atlasien wrote:

   I wonder if the comedians in the show are going to point out the contradiction inherent in the title. I don’t think the title was really thought out — unlike, say, the “Axis of Evil” tour title — but it could still be the subject of some good comedy.

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:22 am ¶

6. N wrote:

   i hate the “ethnic hair” aisle in stores
   it means black, why can’t they just say that?
   i noted a comment here last week, someone said they had no ethnicity, they were Irish. (I think) Funny how that works. You can state your ethnicity while stating that you HAVE NONE because people believe ethnicity means being Not White.

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:55 am ¶

7. E Grant wrote:

   This is interesting to me, because in my experience, “ethnic” has been used as much to indicate non-anglo, or non “mainstream culture” assimilated whites–Southern and Eastern European as much as people of various colours. Unsually in conjunction with words like “heritage” “language” “festival” “community” “food” “costumes” and “dancing”.

   Which is to say, in Toronto, Greek, Italian, Estonian, Ukrainian, Russian, Hungarian etc., at least as often as it was applied to South Asians, East Asians, etc. It might sometimes attach itself to things Scottish, Irish, or Welsh, too, if they were sufficiently quaint and old-timey.

   I was always confused when in the US it was sometimes used as a substitute for American-heritage black people. While up here the word it might be associated with people and things with roots in the Carribean, I don’t think many people would use it in association with, or as a replacement for, “black.”

   Up here, we also use the handy catch-all “visible minority” when to say “people who aren’t white” would sound a little gauche.

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:56 am ¶

8. Fiqah wrote:

   So I’ve read this piece a coupla times now, and I keep coming back to the Dictionary.com definition of ethnic. I’m particularly intrigued by the now obsolete usage of “ethnic” to describe something “pagan” or “heathen.” ‘Cause the funny thing about it is that while a word’s denotation may evolve, its sometimes ugly connotations often remain. Thea very astutely noted that “ethnic” = “not White.” But I’m wondering if there aren’t other things happening with it here. Just for starters, by describing something as “ethnic” you’re assuming a White audience or at least a White ethnocentricist mindset, right? It makes the advertisement for the show feel less like an ad, and more like a (half-joking) warning: “Teh Brownz are on the stage! Brace yourselves, non-ethnic regular people – they’ll be funny, but they won’t be very nice!”

   Anyway, that’s my take. Carry on.

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 10:01 am ¶

9. Ruby wrote:

   Great post – this is an issue that needs to be addressed more. The misuse of “ethnic” even permeates fashion. I actually wrote a mini-thesis on the high fashion treatment of “ethnic” styles, and the fastidious practice of making sure it was not TOO ethnic. Collections with African or Asian inspirations were never showcased by models of color, but rather by tall, emaciated Eastern European blondes. The heavy-handed implication was that ethnic fashion worn by ethnic folk was simply not fashion – it was lowbrow and cheap. It could only be validated by whiteness. This was almost 5 years ago, but very little (if any)progress has been made since then.

   Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 10:23 am ¶

10. queerhapa wrote:

    In NYC, you sometimes hear the phrase “white ethnics” to refer to the, uh, kinds of white people who tend to live here: Irish, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, Greek, etc. etc., i.e. non-WASP whites. Of course, this phrase, and the generic phrase “ethnic,” when used in this way, just normalizes and re-centers WASPness.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 10:31 am ¶

11. atlasien wrote:

    @queerhapa: When I lived in Miami, I noticed that the city demographics were composed in such a way that it was impossible to use those kinds of code words and know what the heck anybody was talking about. So “Anglo” was widely used as a common marker for non-recent-immigrant white people with no Latino heritage.

    I liked it. It was fairly clear, neutral, and didn’t have all the class and religion baggage that “WASP” carries.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 10:45 am ¶

12. queerhapa wrote:

    @atlasian: I’ve heard the term “Anglo” used in that way too, but doesn’t that then imply that all non-Latino whites are of Northern/Western European background, which is exactly what the term “white ethnics” is trying to recognize, albeit somewhat poorly? But yeah, I can see how using the word “Anglo” instead of “WASP” may be preferential to indicate that subset of white people not traditionally labeled “ethnic.”

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 11:24 am ¶

13. E Grant wrote:

    That’s funny about Anglo in Miami, because that’s the converse of (and about as ethnically accurate as) referring to anyone Asian as “Chino,” which people seem to do, in Spanish, in Chile.

    Unless, in Miami anglo is short for “Anglophone.”

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 11:34 am ¶

14. Joseph wrote:

    @Thea
    I appreciate the deconstruction of the use of “ethinic”–one of my pet peeves (Northern Europeans are never “ethnic”) And I absolutely cosign the sentiment ALL HUMANS ARE ETHNIC.

    But.

    I think there is a difference between someone else using that term to “ghetto-ize” you and applying it to yourself as way to articulate the difference between you and mainstream “Whiteness.”

    This is why I think your original example of the “ethnic comedy show” isn’t a good one. As Queerhapa and Matt have both said this category is, while ambiguous, extremely common and frankly useful in NYC–and other big US cities. That, along with handfuls of other identity signifiers, is used to package evenings of comedy as a matter of course. There are puh-lenty of comedy shows in NYC that are sold as “Black”, “Latin”, “Asian” etc. comedy evenings–so it isn’t as if a show like this were edging anyone out of an opportunity to perform. For e.g. the comedians who organized the Arab American comedy festival have gotten national attention post 9/11 (I’ll pause to let that sink in) Not to mention shows that are organized around non-ethnic identifiers like “Women’s’” or “Queer” comedy nights, which are also really common.

    I am not trying to nitpick here… just wanted to make two points: 1) that the practice of organizing these events around ethnic identity is a matter of course in US cities with large comedy scenes like NYC, Chicago, LA etc. and 2) As Matt said, you may not appreciate the differences between say, Jews and Italians, but both populations have distinct cultural traditions and long comedic histories that have their own audiences, so it is not so odd for them to be set off as distinct from mainstream “white” culture.

    While I am probably less likely to go to a comedy show that is organized around ethnic identity (still haven’t been to the AA festival) there are a lot of people who are drawn to them because of the community aspect. None of this negates your larger point about the ambiguity inherent in the term “ethnic” at all. But I think it is very, very important to note the significant cultural differences between so-called “ethnic” groups, which speaks to the instability of the imaginary category “White.”

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 11:57 am ¶

15. Olivia wrote:

    In supermarkets in the UK-*cough* Tesco- they have one aisle in which they’ve labelled ethnic foods; Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Polish… not only annoying and wrong but what variety(!)

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 12:25 pm ¶

16. Rob Schmidt wrote:

    I presume the comedians are using “ethnic” in the third sense of the word:

    3. being a member of an ethnic group, esp. of a group that is a minority within a larger society: ethnic Chinese in San Francisco.

    I don’t think of “ethnic” as equivalent to non-white or black. I think of it as any group with “a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.” That includes white people such as the Irish, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Jews, and Russians.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 12:50 pm ¶

17. atlasien wrote:

    @E Grant: “Anglo” had a racial/linguistic hybrid meaning. As far as I can tell:

    – A white person who spoke English with with any kind of non-UK-derived accent (e.g. Polish, French) wouldn’t be Anglo.
    – Anyone who spoke English as a first language, but wasn’t visibly white, wouldn’t be Anglo.

    It isn’t exact, of course, and leaves huge questions and creates weird divisions. But that’s true of every single ethnic umbrella term… at least non-Latino white people got blessed/cursed with a term of their own, along with everyone else, instead of having linguistic invisibility.

    Another comparison on the Spanish side might be “gringo”. I’ve heard Latin American Spanish-speakers getting into debates as to whether people had to be white in order to be called a “gringo”… also huge debates as to the meaning of “Latino”, and whether it included French, Italians and possibly even Romanians.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶

18. Aishtamid wrote:

    I find it strange that sometimes ethnic is used to mean “non-white” or “black” but can also mean non-WASP whites like Jews, Irish, Italians, Greeks, etc. It seems like a strange contradiction that way.

    Also, it’s an older white person thing. My parents and grandparents (50+) still say it, but I’ve never met any white people of my generation who do. It’s going way out of style.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 2:35 pm ¶

19. trooper6 wrote:

    It is correct that “ethnic” == non-white.

    Why? Because white is not an ethnicity. It is not ethnic. It is a construction, that here in the US is all about shedding one’s ethnicity. There are many people who were ethnic and have have become white (Irish), other groups perhaps have finished that process, perhaps not (Jews and the traditional 4 white ethnics of the 1950s Polish, Italians, Greeks, Slavs). Some seem never able to attain whiteness. Some, it is a question. But even in the US today, Irish Pubs are still ethnic pubs.

    Whiteness…is the self-conscious destruction of ethnicity. It is the breaking of ties and the destruction of previous cultural manifestations. It is the antithesis of ethnicity.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 5:25 pm ¶

20. Ruchama wrote:

    When “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” came out, I went to see it with a friend who was white, German/Scandinavian ancestry, family had been living in North Dakota for generations. When the movie was over, I said that I’d thought it was funny, and she replied something like, “I thought it was OK … maybe you’ve got to come from an ethnic family like you do to appreciate it.”

    What seems weird about this “ethnic” comedy show is that it’s grouping together ethnicities that have nothing in common other than being not the WASP norm. It’s just an “everybody else” category.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 5:31 pm ¶

21. RCHOUDH wrote:

    Growing up in NYC I was introduced to the term ethnic group to mean whites who were not Northern/Western European. This was because the neighborhood and school I went was predominantly made up of Greeks and Italians; I think the reason why Eastern/Southern Europeans are included under the term ethnic alongside non whites is because they were not initially categorized as being white in America when they first arrived here back in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries. Even though they are recognized as being white now, I think the ethnic term stuck to them because they are still perceived as being distinct cultural groups within the overall category of whiteness. I’ve been hearing ethnic as a term for nonwhites just recently and I too don’t think this is right. It just perpetuates the myth of whiteness (mainly Northern/Western European) as being the center of everything with everyone else on the outskirts. It also conveniently lumps all POC cultures together into this one gigantic category that’s opposed to the other gigantic category of whiteness (which allows some differentiation to exist within itself).

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 5:53 pm ¶

22. Joseph wrote:

    @Thea
    Just noticed the illustration at the top of the post… I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but you should know–”Dago” is a slur.

    The comedians pictured are Italian, Greek and (I’m gonna guess) Lebanese: all immigrant minority populations in Australia, where the show is being performed. It’s clear that they are calling themselves “Dagos” (as a pun on the cheesy European singing group Il Divo) … but still, I figured you didn’t know.

    @RCHOUDH
    … the other gigantic category of whiteness (which allows some differentiation to exist within itself).

    I don’t think it does. “Whiteness”= No variation, by definition. That is where “ethnic” comes in as a category.

    @trooper6 #19
    Cosign.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 6:45 pm ¶

23. ishtar79 wrote:

    As a non-native English speaker, I’ve always been confused by the way ‘ethnic’ is used in English-the meaning seems to vary depending on the use in a conversation.

    Initially I thought it means the same thing it does in Greek (incidentally, it derives from the word ‘ethnos=nation’) which is #1 from that list, until I realised the assigned meaning seems to randomly shift depending on the context of the conversation. After reading the comments, I don’t feel any more certain of a definite answer.

    To make things even more ridiculous, there’s been a emergence here of the word ‘ethnic’ (with the English pronunciation) in the same way it’s often misused in English, ie “an ethnic restaurant”. It’s problematic both in a ‘randomly othering’ as well as “wtf, stop bastardising the language” sense.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 8:01 pm ¶

24. the crazy cat lady wrote:

    just wanted to add that these guys are australian – as am i, and i’m quite familiar with some of them.

    although i agree that the use of “ethnic” is often very offensive, i would suggest that it’s quite self-conscious here, it’s clearly part of the joke.

    Posted 22 Jun 2009 at 9:58 pm ¶

25. pm wrote:

    Long been one of my pet irritants. As you say, everybody is ‘ethnic’. Calling non-whites ‘ethnics’ is like calling women ‘genders’ or something, on the assumption only women have a sex. I assume it started as lazy shorthand for ‘ethnic minority’.

    @Maysie

    Mind you, another pet irritant is the unnecessary use of the word ‘deconstruction’! You don’t have to have studied Derrida to be annoyed by mis-use of English that has a racist connotation!

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 4:08 am ¶

26. sandeep wrote:

    couple points. first, if “everyone is ethnic” then noone is ethnic. second, i agree, it’s absoutely rediculous to refer to nonwhite folk as “ethnic” as a sort of catch-all for skin color. but then, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, if the poster / advertisement was made by white folk. meaning in a white dominated society, the off-white would be branded “ethnic”. it’d be nice however for anything ethnic to be labeled correctly, as “non white comedy”. let the racial nonsense be on full display, no need to veil it. just call it what it is. people will react with disgust accordingly as they should.

    but more to the point, if anyone referred to my mother’s home cooking, style of dress, or something of Indian origin to be ethnic, i’d get pissed off. the point is, ethnic is one of those meaningless words that really doesn’t have any good connotation, and any self respecting person will tend to shrug off it’s use. it’s not a word someone would use to describe themself. it’s a word that hopefully, with increased awareness and exchange in a global forum, will disappear, out of place, a relic of the ugly past. ethnic may have a dictionary definition, but it’s meaningless to me. to me, most things just are. i’d say regional, or perhaps culturally linked to a certain country or region, but ethnic? that’s one word we can do without heh.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 4:26 am ¶

27. Jess wrote:

    THea, I don’t know what city you live in, but frankly, I haven’t heard anyone use “ethnic” as a general term for non-whites only in many, many years. To refer to white people, though, yeah.

    The term “white ethnics” is usually used when discussing Democratic voting blocs, tho. That means Jews, Greeks, Catholics, et cetera.

    Yeah, there’s a ton of ways to deconstruct it. But there are going to be cases where the term is a useful catch-all. Otherwise, when I was discussing Democratic politics, for instance, the list would be insanely long and all understanding would drown in it.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 7:34 am ¶

28. Jess wrote:

    I should also say the whole point of the term “ethnic” is in part to avoid the bad connotations often associated with racial terms.

    Take the drug store sections. If you labeled a whole section as “black hair products” I bet people would be all over that here, because of course it sets off black people as different right? It “others” them, right? So, how would you set it up so somebody could find the stuff easily, and still cover people who might not think of themselves as “black?” You can’t come up with a word that works and satisfies everyone. You just can’t. So you make do with the best of bad solutions.

    Or referring to restaurants. I have heard every non “American” restaurant defined that way, whether the ethnic group involved was “white” or not. When used in this way people usually mean “a place that consciously plays up the origin of the food” (Like the million Italian places in NYC).

    Of course, there’s the other problem that most of the “ethnic” food we have in the US was invented here. (Think just about any “Chinese” dish that you order, pizza, “German” frankfurters, Kosher dogs, and half the stuff that is “rolls” in any Japanese place. And I would bet $5 that a big chunk of the stuff at Mughlai is not served in India). But that’s a separate issue.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 7:57 am ¶

29. Dane wrote:

    The worst is going into a hair salon and having a person who should be a trained beautician tell you that the salon doesn’t style “ethnic” hair. It’s like ethnic is a catch-all term. They can’t just say what they REALLY mean.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 9:04 am ¶

30. steph wrote:

    Whilst I absolutely agree with the ARGH of the use of the term ethnic to mean not-white, I would say, given the construction of the term in Australia (ethnic to mean not-Anglo, plus the history behind its use), that its use on this poster is meant to be part of the joke, so probably not the greatest example to use to illustrate your point.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 9:33 am ¶

31. N wrote:

    @Jess.
    I suspect black people can find shampoo if it is in the shampoo aisle without any sort of extra label. I think the relaxers can be found with the Toni perms, the brown protein gel wont get lost if it is with the rest of the hair gel. If the Dark and Lovely hair dye is with the Feria, I suspect black people can find it.

    Labeling an aisle at ALL “others” black people. Putting black hair products apart DOES make them different, since AFAIK the only other population with a separate section for health and beauty products is the pet population. Presuming that a black person can’t find suitable shampoo without it being specially labeled is “othering” them.

    @Dane
    I like the blank look followed by questions.

    “Do you mean you cant do super straight coarse Asian hair? I have heard that can be a problem, my best friends mom’s hair wont hold a curl or even bend. Man that has to suck.”

    “No? You mean you have a problem dealing with that red Irish hair, the sort that can’t be dyed any color without the red showing through?”

    “No? You must mean wispy fine blonde Northern European hair then, I hear its hard to deal with being so thin and fine, but mine isn’t like that so it should be ok.”

    “No that’s not what you meant?, you mean you don’t do NAPPY hair? Well why didn’t you just SAY so in the first place.”

    I play dumb a lot when confronted with euphemism and code words. I force people to say what they mean by pretending I don’t understand their comments and questions.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 9:50 am ¶

32. pm wrote:

    @sandeep
    “couple points. first, if “everyone is ethnic” then noone is ethnic”

    I don’t see that that is true. “Everyone has a head” doesn’t imply “no-one has a head” (I think I’m safe from offending the headless, it’s not like they are going to complain).

    Likewise everyone has an ethnicity. In many cases it might be a complex one, or a composite one, but personally I’d be offended to be told I had no ethnicity at all. It’s like being told one has no culture. I think I’d chose ‘Urban English’ if I had to name it. Shame its not on the census form.

    In this country, for some reason, the term ‘black and minority ethnic’ is usually used by officialdom to encompass, well, whatever it is that it encompasses.

    I suspect its deliberately a bit vague (does it include the Irish or the Poles? beats me). I still don’t quite understand why it isn’t ‘…ethnic minority’, but for some reason I don’t understand putting the words that way round is officially considered rude.

    @Jess
    But what you mean there is “white ethnic minorities”. They are a minority when considered in terms of ethnicity, as opposed to the ethnic majority. Both minorities and the majority have an ethnicity. To drop the word ‘minorities’ , to me, implies that the majority is somehow ethnically neutral and has no ethnicity at all, its only those strange minority folk who have an ethnicity.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 2:30 pm ¶

33. Titanis walleri wrote:

    “It also conveniently lumps all POC cultures together into this one gigantic category that’s opposed to the other gigantic category of whiteness (which allows some differentiation to exist within itself).”
    Doesn’t the phrase “people of color” do exactly this as well?

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 5:48 pm ¶

34. Joseph wrote:

    @pm
    To drop the word ‘minorities’ , to me, implies that the majority is somehow ethnically neutral and has no ethnicity at all, its only those strange minority folk who have an ethnicity.

    Yes, exactly.

    I’m not saying, “Yay, this.” I’m saying, “yeah, that is how ‘whiteness’ is constructed”… as an ethnically “neutral” majority. It’s some made-up bullshit, but there it is.

    Posted 23 Jun 2009 at 5:55 pm ¶

35. Christine wrote:

    I live in Toronto, a city claiming to be the most multicultural place on the planet. I greatly detest the use of the word “ethnic” because it is used to describe things non-white – and I am white. Ethnic in this way is racist – it may not be a hateful term but it certainly is ignorant. Same with “visible minority,” a term Canada is proud of but the UN has told us to stop using. I grew up a visible minority for as long as I went to a public school … one of two white kids in a class of 36? That’s a visible minority, alright. But the term is actually to refer to only those that LOOK like a minority. So if you’re Armenian, you look white, you’re not a minority. It’s stupid.

    I found your post because I was looking for more information on “The Ethnic Comedy Show.” If it’s anything like Russel Peters stuff, it will be comedy about ethnicity and all things related…

    Posted 07 Jul 2009 at 10:08 am ¶