The Fallacy of Whiteness
And any other race-ness
Among the common threads of discussion on Medium regarding racial issues is the supposed existence of this monstrosity called “whiteness.” For those who may not know, whiteness is a term commonly used among social activists to summarize a range of tendencies by white people in America, which often offend the “anti-racist” vision of American society.
The glossary of the Racial Equity Tools (RET), an online research database focused on racial justice, describes whiteness in the following manner:
Whiteness is thus conceptualized as a constellation of processes and practices rather than as a discrete entity (i.e. skin color alone). Whiteness is dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and on myriad levels.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) provides this additional conception of whiteness:
Whiteness and white racialized identity refer to the way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups of are compared. …Whiteness (and its accepted normality) also exist as everyday microaggressions toward people of color. Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites.
Curiously, the glossary of RET provides no similar entry regarding the “constellation of processes and practices” among other racial groups. However, a general search on the website does turn up resources referring to “blackness,” which discuss it in the context either of anti-blackness or of “centering blackness.” The latter concept, as laid out in the linked article, claims not to treat black people as a monolith while at the same time grouping black people from various walks of life under this umbrella of oppression by whiteness.
It seems odd that the NMAAHC would define microaggressions as a trait of whiteness when likely the last thing they would want is for people to attribute problems with crime in the African American community to “blackness” or “black culture,” which indeed is an attribution that has often been made against that community. Even some black figures have made that connection, and I disagree with them. It’s never fair to equate social tendencies with race, regardless of any correlations between the two.
For example, a white American person is more than likely to have different thought processes from a Russian person. Even within the white American community, the mindsets and cultural experiences between any two given individuals varies massively. An older white southerner’s view of the world will probably deviate a great deal from that of, say, a younger white West Coast resident. The two of them may even demonstrate completely opposite behaviors from what we might expect given their age and location. There are white people who love hunting and others who want it banned. There are white people who believe climate change is man-made and others who see man-made climate change as a hoax. And of course, there are white people who believe Trump is the greatest president in our history and others who think of him as the absolute worst.
So what exactly is “whiteness” then? Clearly, it’s not a concept that can be established on grounds of belief, culture or social tendencies.
Perhaps this means that whiteness, in racial contexts, is nothing beyond the physical human phenotype that we define as white — pale skin, lighter-colored hair, etc. There are many “anti-racist” activists who argue that race is merely a social construct rather than a biological reality. By that reasoning, the existence of a cultural whiteness is void in the first place and therefore, the definitions that RET and NMAAHC ascribe to it are just agenda-driven convolutions.
This sort of rhetoric regarding “whiteness” is a danger to race relations in our country, and to a great degree dehumanizes white Americans. An article by The Federalist from a year ago explains an instance in which a piece by author and activist Donald Moss was published by the American Psychoanalytic Association:
…the article entitled “On Having Whiteness,” explains that whiteness establishes an “entitled dominion” that enables the “host” of “parasitic whiteness” to have “power without limit, force without restriction, violence without mercy,” adding that it has a drive to “hate, and terrorize.” …The abstract of Moss’s article “On Having Whiteness” concludes with an ominous line, referencing whiteness and noting that “There is not yet a permanent cure.”
To think that such writing would be allowed publicity by an educated organization dedicated to advancing human health is disheartening. But unfortunately it is, for now, a reality of our nation’s struggles over race. Prominent figures and organizations everywhere are, in the name of racial justice, dismissing the experiences of white people and even discriminating against them.
If we want to arrive at a place where race is no longer a consideration in dealing with others, we should probably not label behaviors by race.