just checking in. white people still don't exist right

Submitted by twovests in vote_satan

I wrote a 1400 word post, and then a 670 word post, etc. I can't write this post without yapping!

Most of the post is just trying to re-iterate "hey, we all still agree that there is no such thing as white people, for these reasons", and "also, the ideology of 'white people' implicitly supports white supremacy."

All of that just to derive the verbiage that "white supremacy identifies me as white", or "I'm identified as white" for short, is how I would feel most comfortable identifying.

"White people don't exist" as a literally true statement seemed to be discussed pretty often ever since I was politically aware. It seemed like a bog-standard social justice understanding, alongside "reverse racism doesn't exist". I saw it when I became a card-carrying SJW in the early 2010s, then again in 2015 with BLM, then again in 2020 with BLM again.

But belief in white people seems at an all time high and there seems to be no appetite for denying the existence of a White People any more. This is concerning, since the existence of a White People is really really crucial for white supremacy, and white supremacist nationalists are in control of the US government now.

I feel like, now more than ever, it's really really important to qualify that white people literally don't exist, every time it comes up.

So...

Is that qualification necessary? Do I sound incomprehensible? Am I "the friend who is too woke"? Or is "white people don't exist" a statement everyone already agrees on, so much so that it's not worth even bringing up?

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neku wrote (edited )

i think its correct to say that the concept of whiteness is constructed based on the necessities of western imperialism. i think you can see that when you think about the borders of whiteness, eg anti-slavic rhetoric, white jewishness, anti-italian/spanish/greek racism due to their darker tones despite their european background (and position within european imperialism), etc. but i think that its also correct to say that white people as a category exist. i think its productive to highlight the contradictions in the ingroup/outgroup identification of whiteness and emphasise that whiteness is extremely heterogeneous in terms of genetics, background, etc. but i think it doesnt help that in your post you dont really elaborate on what you mean when you say "white people dont exist". like, at all? as a category? as a descriptor? as a race? i understand that you're thinking about white people in the Karen/Barbara Fields Racecraft social construct sense but not expanding on that in your writing means that your point isn't coming across

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twovests OP wrote

Yeah, and I agree with this entirely.

The question in the title and at the end were sincere, when I posted this, there was another reality where the sentiment was "yeah, we know, you're 100 years behind". But now I have my answer and it's something worth expanding on actually.

I'd start by saying "white people don't exist" is kind of a punchy short version of it, but I do still feel contention about identifying as white without qualification. I wouldn't "Well actually 🤓☝️" someone who is talking about white people. I do agree that "white people" as a group exist but it's mostly useful to describe their proximity to privilege, not about culture.

Every time I try to write anything succinctly on the matter I end up still writing so many words. (I ended up writing 500+ words in response to Holly on the matter! And I had to cut out ~200 words from this reply to get down to 400)

My draft essay is 1500 words atm and not done. One of the struggles is in trying to find the posts and essays I read years ago and I'd be referencing in the essay.

And like, once I have all the citations I need, why not just link to those? I think the instinct of "not talking over" people is a well-intentioned one but which I think also provides a permission/incentive structure for people to stay deleteriously silent, but I don't have anything new to say. And ultimately, the reason I'd want to post it is just to touch base with, "Hey do people still think these things?"

(you can ignore this) If I were to summarize each paragraph of my draft essay into a sentence: Whiteness is an intentionally constructed ideology. White culture is meaningless (and it'd be sus at minimum to identify with it). White supremacist ideology does exist and therefore so does white privilege. Ethnicity, ancestry, and upbringing aren't usually meaningless though. (Also, cultural adjacency to whiteness seems like a spectre that haunts everybody except white people, but that's not my thing to say? See: Jstpst post I want to reference, Key and Peele interludes..) "White people" can't be defined in a meaningful way. "White people" are insulated from having to think seriously about this or identify with white-supremacist struggles, which has gotta be contrary to human instinct. (Then many paragraphs re: white supremacist radicalization, the bordersof whiteness, and how a white-nationalist state weaponizes the definition, needing scotus citations.) In conclusion: Dead racists who believe in White Jesus want to disentangle 100 billion humans throughout history along their imaginary lines, that's as silly as the Four Humors

But anyways I spent 30 minutes on this reply so maybe I should just touch up my essay and post it here as a comment

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hollyhoppet wrote

i have never heard this "white people don't exit" thing and it feels uncomfortably close to the "colorblindness" idea of the 90s. like imagine walking up to a person of color and telling them "white people don't exist." like what the fuck?

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twovests OP wrote

Geeze, I'm glad I checked in here with the question. I guess I should explain some of it. I do sound incomprehensible and like "the one friend who's too woke".

For starters, I wouldn't target a stranger for the color of their skin and introduce myself saying "white people don't exist". It took me 1400 words to think about how to express the idea on an internet forum where people already knew me. But I also live in an academia-dense city now and if I did introduce myself that way, they might already be on board with the statement, before hurriedly adding distance between themself and me.

This isn't an original thought of mine, and it's not an argument I'm reading from 'white people'. It's the opposite of "colorblindness" (because believing in white people and identifying as such allows you to insulate yourself from engaging seriously with matters of race and racism, but that's a lot of words to justify).

The short of it is that 'white people' is something that can't be defined, it has malleable borders, and those borders are defined by a culture of white supremacy. And white supremacist ideology does exist, and so does white privilege. But 'white people' as a concept never existed, until that identity was constructed to invent a hierarchy for the purpose of the Atlantic slave trade.

Like, if someone identified with "white culture" then you'd reasonably suspect they're a nazi, because who else would think about the characterizing parts of their upbringing and ancestry and think being white is the most salient descriptor? Not "American" or "my family is Polish and I was raised near San Diego" or whatever? Only people who believe in and subscribe to white supremacy would say their culture is "white culture". Triply so for "white pride".

Like, to the extent "white culture" is a salient idea, it's intentionally constructed by white supremacy to produce a world that privileges white people, and it needs to be understood as a not-legitimate concept and destroyed before it becomes a real thing. (Again, this is not a unique take of mine, people were saying this well before I was born.) If I were trying to be funny, I'd say it's kind of like Santa Claus in movies, where he draws his powers from people believing in him.

It's also why we capitalize the B in black but not the w in white (and for which there were like 1000 essays on the matter since 2020, and about the differences between Black American identity and African American identity, etc.)

Good reading to this end are the book Racecraft (which is tangential but similar thinking and I am only part of the way through), but also this idea has been repeated pretty often. This interview with Walter Mosley, this essay (from someone who is very Christian mind you), and this recent Code Switch podcast are the more salient things on my mind, but you can probably find dozens of other essays and posters on the matter. I can scrounge up more sources

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hollyhoppet wrote

ok fine i get it now i think, but as someone who isn't nose-deep in theory this sounded pretty outrageous at first

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twovests OP wrote

yeah, that is what i was afraid of vis-a-vis "sounding incomprehensible"

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twovests OP wrote

man i can't not write paragraphs.

i tried writing an ancillary digression to get things out of the essay and ended up writing 1600 words. that's too many. i spent 90 minutes here

i think i am going to keep these words to myself. i am languishing and wasting away writing these essays. demoralizing use of time perhaps

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twovests OP wrote

another 800 words. this time on words on to kill a mockingbird, disillusionment, and how ridiculous it is that white nationalists center their ideology of grievance and individualism on Ruby Ridge, and not on the Tulsa massacre or the MOVE bombing.

but i don't think it's worth reading these things and i don't think it's worth writing it. i think i am exhibiting part of the structure of white supremacy by self-policing myself against writing my "racism is fucked up huh" for fear of the social risk of being misunderstood or being wrong about something

i feel quite inarticulate and my brain is very bad. i don't know if anyone sorts by comments / all / new, hope not, but i figured i'd at least write a comment about my unposted post.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is good though and i think anyone who wants to see it banned in schools should be killed. i think that would just improve the world

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twovests OP wrote

300 word post to ask "hey this is like the bush admin but worse now right? i was a baby then but, this is worse?"

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