Oh, I don’t think the “problem” is so much people genuinely not knowing what the word means, and much more people who do know what sense is meant, objecting to the very idea the word could even mean that. Case in point:
Sure. There are entire academic careers based on a weasel word…
No it’s not. It describes a system deliberately put in place over centuries to utilize prejudice to further the interests of the rich and powerful. It’s the reason why around 1700 there were actually a significant number of wealthy black families, and interracial families, in Virginia – and in later decades the laws were changed such that they were forced to leave (without their property), interracial marriage was banned, and white supremacism was fully enshrined by law. Just as an example.
“Whiteness” could just as easily be called “whiteness/blackness”. It’s about the socio-cultural systems that enable and serve white supremacism. And it’s a shorthand way to say that this was all done on purpose – it’s not a “natural” phenomenon, or something that people just tend to drift towards… it’s deliberate policies and practices put into place in past centuries to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. And while the most harm it does was/is obviously to people of color, it also does tons of harm to poor white people.
Maybe some portion, but if every single thread the term comes up in immediately breaks down because people object to or misunderstand the term, it’s a bad term because it actively hinders communication, at least locally. This ain’t academia. If, every time I brought up Toxic Masculinity, most of the responses were complaints that “not all men are toxic”, I’d eventually find a different term to communicate the concept.
I absolutely agree that institutional anti-black racism is deeply rooted into American institutions and cultures. No rational human being could argue with this. So why not refer to institutional racism as “institutional racism”? Why refer to it as “whiteness” - which 99.9% of people would interpret as “the characteristic of being a white person” - unless you’re intentionally trolling people?
Because it’s more than just “institutional racism”. “Whiteness” (or whiteness/blackness) deeply infects our culture and society. Not just how systems treat people, but how individuals see and think about other individuals. It affects things as seemingly mundane as hairstyles. “Whiteness” explains why natural-textured black hair is considered undesirable and other than beautiful by so much of the fashion/beauty industry at large, and by so many individuals. Just as an example.
Then find a better term. Because as things stand, when white people hear criticism of “whiteness”, they go through the following thought process:
See the problem?
It’s not really up to me. I didn’t invent it. Academics and focused historians labeled this concept in this way. And I’m not really worried about it on this message board – people who want to discuss this are smart enough to learn and not have this knee-jerk reaction.
IRL I discuss this concept differently.
The thing about the academic world is that being intentionally provocative (or as we call it here, trolling), gets you attention, it gets you grants, and it gets you tenure. I don’t have much respect for those methods. I’d like to think that we’re better than that here on the SMDB.
I agree, and I’m not being intentionally provocative.
That’s exactly what does happen with discussios about toxic masculinity, and I’m saying the problem there* isn’t* the terminology, it’s the contrarians who seize on the terminology because the don’t have an adequate response to the actual thing itself. It’s a form of wilful ignorance, except they’re not ignorant of the intended meaning. They’re just being argumentative because the actual thesis of toxic masculinity (or whiteness, or patriarchy, or whatever) isn’t something they can successfully argue against.
I see no reason to join their knife-fight, when I have all these guns.
Because they’re not the same thing?
The first time. After that, they’re just being stubborn.
Is the problem “According to Alessan, many White people are pig-ignorant, and refuse to be taught better”? I can see that.
Maybe initially. It’s been decades, you can’t still think academics who pursue whiteness studies are all just being enfants terribles.
Of course it’s possible for black men to be antisemitic. I’m not saying black men can’t be assholes - they certainly can. But being an asshole isn’t being the same as being a racist. We’re talking about the immutable, visible characteristic of one’s physical characteristics that we refer to as ‘race,’ which has been used to define social status in America from the time of the Virginia colonies.
Racism is literally discrimination based on the belief that one’s race is superior. Considering that Black men and women have been placed at the very bottom of the socioeconomic order by white people, through the law and through other forms of coercion, the incidence of true racism by Black people directed toward others is probably exceedingly rare. Generally speaking, blacks are not in a position to discriminate in meaningful ways against others, and even when they are, they generally tend not to. Generally, I don’t hear of black landlords being sued for housing discrimination. I don’t hear of Black-owned banks refusing credit to white and other non-white borrowers. I generally don’t hear of black CEOs being sued for racial discrimination on the job or in school. In fact, in the most high profile cases of Whites and Asians claiming discrimination, it’s not Blacks who are being sued, but most likely White administrators at universities who are enacting policies on their behalf.
So yeah, Black men can be antisemitic, anti-immigrant, misogynistic, and Black women can be these things and misandrists - they can be assholes. But they can’t be racist. Whites invented racism.
But what power do black people generally have to make good on their feelings of racial antipathy? Again, blacks have been placed at the bottom of the socioeconomic pecking order, over the course of centuries. Generation after generation after generation.
They get the police called on them for entering their own apartment for fucks sake.
Some even get arrested by the police for entering their own apartment.
And some…even get shot by the police for being in their own apartment.
Pffff…let me know when you see ‘racism’ in the reverse.
You’re basically saying is that this message board can do anything it wants and say anything is hate speech. Which is actually true, but also complete bullshit at the same time.
Had the moderator said he just didn’t like the word, obviously that’s good enough. But he specifically said it was hate speech, which it is patently not.
In fact, had the moderator said that this was an example of someone being a jerk, that definition as anyone who’s been here for more than 10 seconds nose is quite nebulous. But hate speech? No, that’s a very specific charge that has been leveled and it is simply wrong as I demonstrated with citations of the term being used in ways and by people that hate speech generally is not.
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But how do they know what the speaker means the *second *time? Hence, “weasel words”: say what you want, but “whiteness” is an ambiguous term, which can mean either what you claim, or it can just be a bigoted attack on white people based solely on the color of their skin. When decent person such as yourself uses it, I can rest assured that you mean it in the academic sense, and that you’re acting in good faith; but when an opaque, jerkish presence like our friend **Huey **says it, I have no way of knowing what they mean, and whether they intend their comments to be hateful in nature. A better term is needed.
How about “toxic whiteness”? That would do perfectly.
That’s basically #notallwhitepeople which is pretty lame and myopic and misses the point. To use White Privilege as an example, because I have seen many white people get very defensive about it, one kid admit that there is such a thing up as white privilege, and even admit that they benefit from this privilege, yet still to cry that it exists and make efforts as best they can to combat it.
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It’s perfectly understandable that black people would hate white people; if I were African-American, I’d probably hate them myself. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Hating people due to their race is always morally wrong, no matter the circumstances, and worse than that, it’s not constructive: hating white people won’t make things better for black Americans.
Before 19th century ‘scientific’ racism, race simply meant any related grouping of people (or animals). So I cut people loads of slack when using the term racism to describe ethnic prejudice, because to do otherwise is respecting the terminology of the 19th century racists. It’s not like anti-semitism is any better than prejudice based on skin color, and it’s not productive to say “it can’t be racist, I’m just biased against ethnically jewish people and/or people from muslim countries, your argument is invalid!”
While it’s true that racism by European-Americans is worse because they tend to have more power in America currently, the attitudes that lead to racism are widespread amongst everyone, so to claim that only Whites can be racist is to try to weaselly imply that they tend to have the attitudes that lead to racism, and everyone else’s minds are more pure. It’s easier to just say that everyone can be racist but some of it is worse than others in practice.