And to be clear, thinking of oneself as white in that you have light skin, and your ancestors are European, and you may even celebrate eating French cuisine - that's all perfectly normal and good. It's all the other stuff that got attached to being white or black or whatever to justify slavery or white man's burden or what have you.

Now if people want to make the case that all those negative connotations around race disappeared in the recent past, so that being white or black or red is no longer an issue, then go for it. And here I mean on a societal level, not whether a given individual is racist, or delusional about race.

So in that context, it is the idea of being white, black, etc. at a societal level, stemming from several centuries ago, that is being challenged as a negative social construct.

Yeah I would second that if it involves the belief that there's some positive advantage that one gets by virtue of being 'white'. Sure, I can acknowledge that I may not get stopped by police because of my skin color, or may not receive bad service at a restaurant due to stereotypes, or any number of other things that black people are in general much more likely to be subjected to and which are demeaning. But what actual benefit do most average working-class white folk receive? None that I can tell. But I'll entertain ideas that run contrary to this if anyone can convince me otherwise.

I tend to view things more in terms of class and culture, and the many assumptions that are made regarding these things. Perhaps that's just my 'white privilege' speaking, and I'm not being facetious in suggesting that possibility.

Sure, I can acknowledge that I may not get stopped by police, or receive bad service at a restaurant, or any number of other things that black people are in general much more likely to be subjected to. — Erik

Black people get stopped by police more often because they (on average) commit far more crime than other races. They don't get stopped because there's some racial conspiracy involving black hating cops inconveniencing people with needless traffic stops.

"Black people are more likely to receive bad service at a restaurant than other races because they are black"

Even if it were true that black people are more likely to receive bad service, it's probably for a different reason than waiters not liking black people due to their race and 'punishing' them with bad service. Blacks are notorious among waiters for being bad tippers, for example.

I really don't buy this ''white privilege systemic racism microagression invisible toolkit'' bullshit. Universities are cancer.

It's just a different usage than a lot of people would use when referring to themselves of describing the skin colour of their ancestors. I'm not talking about that specific usage of "white."

You might use that just as a description of your skin colour rather than attempting to claim a history and superiority of the "white" identity, but that doesn't make any difference to my argument.

I'm talking about the expression of "white" identity as a dominating culture of the few hundred years, a culture we are a part of regardless of how we might otherwise use "white" as a description of our ancestors skin colour. It's neither lazy nor stereotypical. Just a description of a identity category expressed within our society and the West in the (relatively) recent history.

We derive our meaning as persons from many layers of experience, including religion, language, race, ethnicity, diet, altitude (sea side to alpine), landscape, education, music, and a few dozen other factors. If people want to claim that one of their layers is race, I think they are entitled to that, and they are entitled to think positively about it.

I would not appreciate you, WOD, or anybody else telling me that my religion, diet, clothing (or lack thereof), sports, or anything else -- including race and ethnicity -- were actually negative factors that I should apologize for or remain silent about. I would be inclined to invite you to go fuck yourself in some politically incorrect way. — Bitter Crank

This is where the usage of "white" that I'm talking about frequently becomes muddled with the description of ancestors. Various aspects of religion, language, race, ethnicity, diet, altitude (sea side to alpine), landscape, education, music and the dozens of other factors become bound up with thinking about our ancestors. People don't just think of them being fine for their skin colour, but that all their ideas, actions, etc., etc. were fantastic. They refuse to admit their ancestors did harm to some people.

Since people treat identity "essentially," they can't make the distinction between having skin colour and worth of action, idea or tradition. You won't, for example, admit the economically driven manifest density of the American colonisation particularly racist and unethical action because you think it reflects badly on you. It as if, by having white skin, you were the one who committed the genocide and are in the wrong.

Do I need to point how nonsensical that line of thought is? Your identity is not your ancestors. Even if they belong to the same "ethnic group (whether spoken by you or someone else)," you are not the one who committed the acts in question. Your identity as someone who has white skin not theirs. To point out their failings, including those involving "white identity," is not to say that you fail in the same way.

No doubt you might to appreciate people talking about horrible things ancestors have done and their relationship to the culture you are connected to, but that is sort of beside the point. We don't sit back and let the rich heir say that his society's tradition of Capitalism never harmed anyone, just so they can think their ancestors have a "perfection" which they inherent. It's no different for any other issue (e.g. racism, sexism, gay rights, trans rights, etc.,etc.). We don't get to ignore the harm which has been caused to people becasue we don't like to look at it.

Who are you to say "Well, that's not what black means!" — Bitter Crank

I don't. If I was using "black" to refer to the identity which was socially oppressed, it would be a different usage. One that was describing a social relationship, rather than an individual's expression of worth. Their usage of "black" means what it does just fine.

Well, he's sort of right to say that. The point of these social analysis is they are descriptive of a social relations between people. Does the West greedily exploit other countries? Absolutely, sometimes more, sometimes less (and perhaps sometimes they managed to avoid it). In this respect, they are, in a sense "evil" and self-serving. It's a descriptive fact of behaviour. Did the West treat other cultures equal, give a fair price in trade, respect the rights of individuals in other cultures? Not in the many situations we are talking about. One cannot accurately describe what has happened without mentioning this exploitation-- it's in a sense "essential," the logical expression of the part of the world we are talking about.

It's not essential to any identity though. Europeans aren't destined to always exploit. To have a European identity doesn't somehow mean your destiny is to exploit someone else. The exploitation identified is only the acts of some Europeans-- their behaviour towards other people and their understanding of themselves in relation to others. The only Europeans who "must be" "self-serving and evil" are those who have acted that way.

Identities are both. They are all socially constructed (a discourse we use), but they are also facts (a way people are understood and how this relates to others and the world around them).

Goddammit, why couldn't Bernie have won.

I'll grant all that you wrote, but would then counter the implicit assumption that other, non-Western peoples don't engage in the same sort of aggressibe behavior, just not as effectively over the past few hundred years due to a number of factors, including the West's relative technological superiority:

The Aztecs conquered surrounding tribes before the Spaniards set foot in the New World. Ditto for the Incas. The Iroquois fought the Huron. The Lakota fought the Comanche. The Arabs conquered many lands and peoples during the rapid spread of Islam - including some in Europe - and before that fought amongst themselves until one group became dominant. The Ottomans did the same at a later stage, also spreading into Europe and subjecting the population to their interests. The Chinese fought amongst themselves until finally being consolidated by the strongest contending power, and then were conquered by the Mongols and later by the Manchus. The Japanese sought to expand into China and other parts of southeast Asia. The Persians attempted to subject the Greeks (amongst others). I'm not too familiar with sub-Saharan African history, but in modern times we've seen a large amount of intertribal warfare. The list goes on and on.

So it would be something like Nietzsche's understanding that what is being attributed strictly to Europeans may be an essential fact of life more generally - life as 'essentially' appropriation, exploitation, excretion, aggression, etc. - rather than a particular feature of any one region or race or ethnicity. I would stop short of his view, as I understand it, that IF this behavior is congruent with life as honestly assessed (instead of the way we'd like it to be), then it should be seen as 'good', or, at the very least, 'beyond good and evil'. I have my reasons for disagreeing with his tacit metaphysics and perspective, but that may be a topic better handled at another time.

I am, however, very much open to the idea that there's something peculiar about the modern European drive to dominate and oppress. It's a topic that intrigues me a great deal in fact and I'm curious to hear your opinion on the matter.

You guys ever hear of "faithless electors"?

As far as I understand it, the actual electoral college votes around December 13th or something. The popular vote of Nov 8th determines electoral college votes based on the assumption that the electors will carry out the will of their state based on only a pledge.

The vote is anonymous for at least some states, and while some states have laws designed to circumvent the possibility of a faithless elector, this can in fact happen and in theory could change the results of an election...

So I'm wondering... What are the chances of the "protesting" that is going on right now challenging the faith of enough electors? Wouldn't that beat all?

So I'm wondering... What are the chances of the "protesting" that is going on right now challenging the faith of enough electors? Wouldn't that beat all? — VagabondSpectre

It would have to be a hell of a lot more protest for this to have any chance. But let's say the electors could be motivated to vote Hillary in instead. How do you suppose the Trump supports would respond to that? What would the Republican Party do? What of all the red states? How would their governments respond?

Their would no longer be any smooth transition of power, of that I can guarantee you. There's a reason why the losing party is gracious in defeat and talks of working together, even if that doesn't actually happen. There's a reason why none of the Democratic leaders are joining in the protests, or encouraging them, or asking the electors to vote other than who their state chose.

So let's say the electoral college does this, and the country doesn't go down in flames. What happens the next presidential election? Now a precedent has been set. The electors can defy the states and vote in someone else. How will people feel about voting then?

It would have to be a hell of a lot more protest for this to have any chance. But let's say the electors could be motivated to vote Hillary in instead. How do you suppose the Trump supports would respond to that? What would the Republican Party do? What of all the red states? How would their governments respond? — Marchesk

I don't know. I would probably feel angry personally if I was American, as if hoodwinked, but some people would be happy surely. It could lead to some crazy shit, for better or for worse.

Their would no longer be any smooth transition of power, of that I can guarantee you. There's a reason why the losing party is gracious in defeat and talks of working together, even if that doesn't actually happen. There's a reason why none of the Democratic leaders are joining in the protests, or encouraging them, or asking the electors to vote other than who their state chose. — Marchesk

Yea I do get that, but I would not put it beyond either party to try and make a move if enough unrest was there to help it fly.

So let's say the electoral college does this, and the country doesn't go down in flames. What happens the next presidential election? Now a precedent has been set. The electors can defy the states and vote in someone else. How will people feel about voting then? — Marchesk

Well the electors would be committing party suicide I reckon. I'm not exactly sure where they all come from but I do know that they are in part chosen for their loyalty and reliability in voting for who they're told to vote for; their career as an elector would be over for certain being replaced by new electors. A new degree of precedent would be there for sure, but to be honest it could also lead to some serious reform down the road (the electoral college is certainly a peculiar beast to say the least).

Since the fall of Sanders I've been morbidly hoping for Trump to win as a kind of last ditch way of throwing a spanner into works of the current political establishment in hopes of somehow enabling electoral and other forms of political reform. Now that he's elected I find myself speculating about how such reform could come about.

One way would be for Trump to get impeached in a year or two. The willingness might be there by then, and conceivably congress could try to take action against any executive orders contravening or obfuscating their role in the political process. If pence then takes over he would pretty much be in janitor mode (congress having flexed it's arm) and the following election would be approached with such apprehension and resentment that serious reform or even independent reform candidates would have more of a shot than ever before. If Trump were to be usurped via faithless electors though, admittedly I could not even guess at what the short or long term ramifications might be. I know I would have even less faith in the system that I do now... I still like to wonder what else could be changed as a result...

If Trump were to be usurped via faithless electors though, admittedly I could not even guess at what the short or long term ramifications might be. — VagabondSpectre

A constitutional change to the election process. The President is elected by popular vote. Then one needn't worry about faithless electors as there won't be an electoral college.

Marchesk, again, you're confusing the application of words as social construct with that they denote as social construct, which is a use-mention error.

The problem is, the only way to make the conversation interesting is to equivocate: if you emphasize that it's a social identity, then you can't actually say anything interesting about white people, since as the word is actually used it means people of European descent. On the other hand, if you talk about the word as actually used, none of your social construcitonist claims are going to follow.

Notice that he did not frame the debate in terms of how white people have historically been seen, or something like that. That would have made what he said true rather than false, but it would have been totally uninteresting from the perspective of what he was trying to claim, which was that being white was itself a social construct, and this is why he didn't say it.

He is a man of integrity, which I respect, but his proposed policies are from cloud cuckoo land.

Interesting anecdote, Erik. I made a similar point in one of my classes this semester during the week we covered postmodernism. It seemed to me that postmodernists were "essentializing" the Enlightenment, science, Western civilization, and so on just as much as their perceived opponents were allegedly doing so to other things. Two semesters ago, I had a professor who literally admitted that he would prefer to live in a medieval Islamic theocracy than modern America. I had to ask him if he was being serious, and he said he was.

I think the alt-right is another example of how the relativism of their worldview comes back around to bite them in the ass. You can't enthrone victimhood and identity politics and not expect white men to start playing the game at some point. And because of the postmodernist's commitment to cultural, moral, and epistemological relativism, there's not a damn thing they can do about it; except, of course, to contradict themselves by making the essentializing claim that white men can't be victims, which they often do. Rational consistency does not matter to these people.

Goddammit, why couldn't Bernie have won — darthbarracuda

Because the Clinton campaign and the rules of the Democratic Party (like the use of super delegates) prevented him from winning.

May I join you in a howl of lamentation that Sanders is NOT the President-elect?

Of course. Do you think Sanders is done with politics now?

Do you think Sanders is done with politics now? — darthbarracuda

He's still Senator and has two years left. He's 75; he might be willing to run again as Senator -- I don't think 79 year olds make good presidents because the job is so demanding. The Senate is important but it's demands are much less grueling for it's members.

My guess is that he will not run for President again.

Another "Bernie Sanders" is probably not on the assembly line. His history isn't solitary and unique, but there are a limited number of people who would be like him. That said, he wasn't the last energetic, clear-headed progressive in the country. There are probably a couple of hundred idealistic clear-headed ambitious very progressive people who could run for President on the Democratic ticket. (No, I do not have a list.) A few of them might have a chance to win.

The problem is keeping out the ambitious, energetic, opportunistic pragmatists who would, if elected, deliver more of the same. The two Parties are always prepared to deliver more of the same. Democrats and Republicans institutionally embody "more of the same".

The kind of sweeping political changes that could call forth high-quality leftist-progressive politicians might be constructed in the next 4 years. It depends on how intense the reaction to Trump is, and how soon it jells into an effective movement. Demonstrations of the sort we have had for the last 2 or 3 days are a good start, but that would have to turn into an mass organized campaign within a few months if it were to have a political chance in the next biannual and quadrennial election. If it's BS as usual for the next three years, and then somebody pops out of the woodwork in 2020 to run on a reform platform, nothing much will change.

Another "Bernie Sanders" is probably not on the assembly line. — Bitter Crank

:(

Not at all, for the alt right only expesses the very values of oppression and ideology that feminism took out (and is taking out). The post-modernist aren't relativists. Feminism is, for example, a project of objective ethics-- the feminists treatment of women is ethical, the alt right's is not.

What we have is not a relativism biting anyone in the arse, but an ideology reacting in an attempt to avoid it's subjugation and destruction. The alt right wants to oppress women in ways the feminists rightly argue are objectivity immoral.

Men have always played the game, proclaimed and thought themselves superior. The alt right rhetoric about women can be found all over commentary about women's nature and place prior to the rise of feminism. It's not new.

Doesn't the 'one-drop rule' speak to a more complicated, quasi-metaphysical understanding of whiteness? (Note: I'm definitely not saying that the idea of racial or bloodline purity begins and ends with europeans - just that the whole idea of purity/impurity, here, as elsewhere, is central.)

Calling someone black who's 95% european and 5% african - this goes way beyond simple description doesn't it?

So when you say "[white] as is actually used it means people of European descent," this certainly hasn't been exactly true in the past (and really still isn't, the one-drop thing still operates on a subconscious level and you can see it everywhere) ). People primarily of european descent were/are often still considered black first.

Again, this isn't necessarily an arcane or archaic understanding of whiteness - just look at how people agree on the race of celebrities of mixed descent. If there's any ambiguity, people tend to err on the side of black (or 'foreign' or something.)

One, I think it's just counterfactual that anyone abides by a 95-5 rule.

Two, I agree that there's a notion of white as the absence of ethnicity rather than an ethnicity, which plays into a host of complicated mythologies surrounding white exceptionalism on both sides – that you can't be racist against whites, that there is a such thing as 'people of color' (white not being a color, but the absence of color, in this mythology), that white people have 'no culture,' that to be white is to be a colonizer, that cultural appropriation can only flow from whites to other people, that white people are the only ones with no right to a homeland, that there are no 'indigenous' white people anywhere in the world, that Nat Geo feels that showing white breasts is for some reason less okay than showing non-white breasts (white people having transcended animality or physicality that comes with gross ethnic ties), that white people are not 'allowed' to get angry or identitarian in quite the same way as non-white people, because they are expected to be adult and above that, white virtue including self-abasement and lack of in-group loyalty, and whiteness as a moral/spiritual/social and not physical category, primarily focused on evil in a narrative of crime and redemption.

All of this is out there, and all of it is nonsense, but I think it's mostly liberals that play this sort of stuff up, and it comes out of academia, not the way people organically think. Liberalism is not the way people naturally think, and requires politically-charged educational institutions to keep it in place. On the conservative side, the notion that being mixed spoils your blood, this is just obviously not a notion particular to being white. Obama was half white, and for political reasons that had to be suppressed in the popular imagination. But in the hood, well, you tell me how black he could have stayed.

All of this is out there, and all of it is nonsense, but I think it's mostly liberals that play this sort of stuff up, and it comes out of academia, not the way people organically think.

Well, it's certainly liberals who elaborate whiteness in the ways you point out. But I think that same academic bubble you decry may, despite your best intents, may be operative in how you're approaching and thinking about this. None of this stuff is born in academia, it's just a foreseeable articulation of something already brewing from beneath.

Like, I have academic interests and skew liberal, but that's not the world I live in. I spend half of my work hours talking to tow truck drivers. People do organically think this way. That's what I was getting at with the none-too-academic past-time of deciding the ethnicity of a celebrity. It's a good litmus test for the way people spontaneously understand race. Maybe it's not 95-5, but you can bet 66-33 will score 'black' for white people watching tv. And, I think, many black people as well.

Obama was half white, and for political reasons that had to be suppressed in the popular imagination. But in the hood, well, you tell me how black he could have stayed.

Yes, but that's the point. If Obama is black as America's president, yet white as just another guy in the hood, then things are very complicated here - it's not as simple as european vs african descent (though obviously it's tightly woven with real genotypic & phenotypic differences.)

Or put another way: the nat-geo thing about which breasts are showable, and which celebrity is what race - these are pervasive and organic. All the self-reproach basically builds on this with a dialectical twist.

Yes, but that's the point. If Obama is black as America's president, yet white as just another guy in the hood, then things are very complicated here - it's not as simply as european vs african descent (though obviously it's tightly woven with real genotypic & phenotypic differences.) — csalisbury

Obama as a black president is a media creation, and I'm skeptical about that as a litmus test because the media can claim whatever it wants with virtually no basis in fact – they could have called him Asian on grounds he was from Hawaii, if that was what the narrative needed. So that doesn't speak to me about racial attitudes so much as media virtual reality.

My point was just that, the pop view of ethnicity sees mixed people as, well, mixed. And it's a universal tendency among people to favor their ethnic in-group and to dislike mixing with others. If it were true that whiteness had a special role here, then it would make no sense for half white-black and half asian-white kids to feel an identity crisis on either side, which they often do. They can feel between worlds, not firmly of the non-white one.

It's a good litmus test for the way people spontaneously understand race. Maybe it's not 95-5, but you can bet 66-33 will score 'black' for white people watching tv. And, I think, many black people as well. — csalisbury

Do you think that black people disavow mixed white-black children as non-black?

All the self-reproach basically builds on this with a dialectical twist. — csalisbury

I think the self-reproach is caluclated and manufactured in academic institutions. Not to say academic institutions aren't themselves real, but they like the media exist in a kind of hyper- or virtual reality, and you have to specifically indoctrinate young white people to be self-effacing, which is what such institutions do. In other words, it's a real phenomenon, and organic in the sense that all real things are organic, but it has no natural inertia behind it. If you destroyed the institutions, you would destroy the sentiment, whereas destroying the more grounded ethnic sentiments I've alluded to would require destroying far deeper (maybe even biological) institutions. Which, to be fair, seems to be part of what constitutes leftism as an ideology independent of any particular political position: the upheaval of older, more grounded institutions by newer, less grounded ones in order to impose a priori reorderings of the universe according to rationalistically determined lines of the way things ought to be.

"people of color"

stopped watching lol

they could have called him Asian on grounds he was from Hawaii, if that was what the narrative needed

First, the idea that racial attitudes can be neatly separated from media virtual reality doesn't make sense to me. Second, I was introduced to Obama by a political nerd long before his campaign and I immediately saw his picture and thought of him as black. Maybe I'm not representative. Maybe other white people would have seen him as asian. But I doubt it. What are your intuitions here?

My point was just that, the pop view of ethnicity sees mixed people as, well, mixed. And it's a universal tendency among people to favor their ethnic in-group and to dislike mixing with others. If it were true that whiteness had a special role here, then it would make no sense for half white-black and half asian-white kids to feel an identity crisis on either side, which they often do.

I agree, and admitted as much in my first post on the 'one-drop' thing. That's why those in power tend to install their own ethnicity as an absolute and create a 'one-drop' rule. This is the social-construct piece. It takes a an actual irl set of physical characteristics and makes of them this metaphysical and pure center, any deviation from which immediately casts you outside the center. I don't think this is a uniquely european thing. But in America History, white people have tended to have the power.

Do you think that black people disavow mixed white-black children as non-black?

I honestly don't know. I live in Maine and don't have much irl experience with this. My 'many black people as well' comment is based entirely on things I've read (You'll love this - one main source is Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye). And I may be entirely wrong.

Certainly white people spontaneously, reflexively view mixed white-black children as black.

I'm assuming, based on your comment about Obama in the hood that you think it cuts both ways?

I think the self-reproach is calculated and manufactured in academic institutions.

Yes, and no? It's certainly manufactured there, but no one coldly, rationally built the blueprint. I think it's probably more an emergent phenomenon. It comes from somewhere.

Maybe I'm not representative. Maybe other white people would have seen him as asian. But I doubt it. What are your intuitions here? — csalisbury

He looks both white and black to me. It shows in his accent and mannerisms as well. He can affect both white and black English, and he affects either depending on the audience he's talking to, very naturally, suggesting native competence with both dialects. He can never go into full AAVE because that's just not allowed, but he does slip in some 'ain't nobody's' when talking to a majority black audience, and drawls his vowels appropriately.

Worth watching:



(Note the preacher's use of the word 'negro' as well)

I don't think this is a uniquely european thing. — csalisbury

OK, then we're in agreement. Desire for racial purity and mythology situating one's own ethnic group at the metaphysical center of everything are way older than history, history is a wee baby by comparison.

I honestly don't know. I live in Maine and don't have much irl experience with this. My 'many black people as well' comment is based entirely on things I've read. And I may be entirely wrong. — csalisbury

I don't really either, because I think southern California where I grew up is desensitized to certain kinds of ethnic admixture, especially white-Mexican. So all I can go off of is what people say online, and I've seen some Eurasian and white-black people report these sorts of things, and I have no reason to disbelieve them.

More recently I've lived for a couple years in a black neighborhood and then a Hispanic one in Chicago, and people generally seem to be more racist and aware of racial divides, though I'm not sure how it affects mixed people.

Yes, and no? It's certainly manufactured there, but no one coldly, rationally built the blueprint. I think it's probably more an emergent phenomenon. It comes from somewhere. — csalisbury

I disagree that it's not done rationally. Maybe not coldly, because I think emotions – even hysteria – are mixed in. But curricula are not quite the same as spontaneous cultural lore. And part of keeping it in place is actively suppressing people's natural repulsed reaction to it.

You should also pay attention to when people use the word 'folks' as opposed to 'people,' if 'folks' is not part of their native dialect. 'Folks' are not quite the same thing as 'people.' And it's no accident that black people are usually the 'folks.'