Not all white people are part of whiteness. Many try to fight against it and dismantle it. And some non white people are fine with whiteness, or even favor it and support it. Whiteness is a bad system and it harms white people too.
Maybe the term should be changed - but that’s a tactical consideration. On the facts, the concept is historically accurate.
A system which, according to Donald Moss, is a “malignant, parasitic-like condition” that “renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse”.
Do you dispute that Donald Moss is saying that?
Do you agree or disagree with what Donald Moss is saying?
I’m not a mental health professional, but in my understanding of the concept, I agree with what he’s saying. This system is just a terrible blight on humankind. It wrecks a terrible toll on the psyche of those it infects. We should all work together to dismantle it.
Why continue to look at what the spin is from the right wing sources and not look at what scholars say?
One of the key criticisms of CRT, particularly from those on the Right, is the way it identifies “whiteness” as an object of study — and a problem. But advocates insist there’s an important distinction to be made between “whiteness” as a system of power, and “white people”, who may or may not be “allies” in dismantling that structure in order to end racism.
“Any decent critical race work doesn’t focus on the individual, it focuses on the system, the structure,” says race critical scholar Alana Lentin, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney. “As soon as we can see that, we also see that no one benefits from a divided society.”
I posted that quote to show that racism against white people is considered acceptable. You are trying to divert it into a discussion of ‘whiteness’, which as far as I can tell you are defining very differently to the article author. Unless you can show your definition matches his, it is simply a distraction.
So you’re saying the author is not a proponent of CRT? If not, then he might be using whiteness in a different way. But I assumed he was a CRT advocate, and thus is using whiteness consistent with CRT (i.e. the definition I presented).
Do you disagree here?
No, it does not. That requires us to ignore what was already linked and discussed many times before. What you have there is a quote that gets the meaning that you want by ignoring what researches and historians are actually looking at. (And I come to this by remembering that not all research on injustice is about race, and CRT was shown already that it also does criticize ethnic cleansing done by Asians to other Asians and Africans to other Africans.)
I’m assuming only that the author means what he quite plainly says.
Which is consistent with whiteness as explained by CRT. Whiteness is very powerful in American society, and can have a strong effect on how individuals think about themselves and others. Anyone can be affected, but the system was designed to particularly sway the people whom it (generally successfully) labeled as “white”, and thus these folks are very susceptible to its influence.
That’s perfectly consistent with CRT.
I’ll add that it’s very possible that author intended to be inflammatory to get attention or for other reasons, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an accurate description of how the system can harm people.
‘Whiteness’ in a nutshell,
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Lyndon B. Johnson
Indeed.
EDIT: I’ll add that it can be more pernicious than this - much of whiteness does not rely on any conscious sort of bigotry. But it’s a great, if very brief, summation.
This. Words have connotations as well as denotations.
It seems pretty obvious that people can uncritically absorb prejudiced attitudes towards others due to the society they grew up in.
It seems equally obvious that people can be unconsciously swayed by language choice. The obvious case is the “gender-inclusive ‘he’”. Back when that was used, people did tend to think of males when “he” was used even if the defenders of the inclusive he couldn’t understand the problem, because after all, they knew that “he” actually meant “he or she”.
“Whiteness” can mean the state of being white. Just like the inclusive “he”, and just like growing up exposed to prejudicial messages, I can’t see how it’s possible to only ever think of the non-intuitive meaning of “the system of race” and be sure that one hasn’t been subconsciously influenced by the grammatically plain meaning of “the state of being white” when one deprecates “whiteness”.
I agree that the term whiteness has a lot of potential baggage that can make it tactically problematic in the realm of politics. I’d have no problem with a move to try and replace it with another word or term that could be more effective, politically speaking.
It won’t matter. These concepts, like CRT, will always be translated as ‘Hate Whitey’ by some folks.
Coming from the same group of people who are obsessed with avoiding words that have any kind of negative connotation, this can only be intentional.
Yes, I can’t imagine how saying whiteness is a “malignant, parasitic-like condition” that “renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse,” could give that impression. 
Yes, because that’s what you want ‘whiteness’ to mean.
I believe your speaking about a system of white pre-eminence that was embedded into American culture from its start, dominated that culture and was actively supported and maintained by the majority of Americans until social charge started happening during and after World War II and especially in the 1960’s. That system has diminished, but not disappeared and can be seen today through examples such as systemic racial prejudice against blacks, disproportionate majorities of whites in elite structures, and in the unconscious favouring of whites known as white privilege. That legacy of white pre-eminence needs to be deconstructed, and that goal, when put in reasonable terms, probably is supported by most of the American right. Calling that legacy Whiteness, a term that can be paralleled with the state of being White and then associating it pejoratively with personally intent racism is stupid. It’s not going to help accomplish any goals of racial equality. Instead it incites a tribalistic response that makes people want to put up boundaries.
And I know I said I wasn’t going to make mountains out of molehills, but this is a perfect example of the type of leftist rhetoric that the right rejects, and that they associate with the Democratic party which they view as the party of the left.
Riiiggghhht, it’s the word, not the concept that’s the real problem here.