• Rob Bos
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      1 year ago

      Whiteness is arbitrary and can be withdrawn pretty fast. That’s part of the problem, white isn’t a race, it’s an ingroup.

      Ask a Catholic how quickly they can be exempted from white club.

      • @banneryear1868
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        111 year ago

        That’s race in general too, same thing happens with mixed black people who grew up in an affluent white context.

        Race is basically “made real” through racism, which is largely dependent on economic relations. Our modern notion of race didn’t really develop until the 1700s. To me being anti-racist is about criticizing the notion of race itself, with the understanding that it’s been made in to a real construct that has power through racism.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        Muslims used to be considered pretty white before 9/11, Italians used to not be considered white in the early 1900s.

        • @banneryear1868
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          51 year ago

          It was really a class distinction at first, the landed gentry used it to justify and explain their position in society. As empires expanded and exploited more territories it gained power as an explanatory framework for why some people were just destined to be worse off.

        • @RampantParanoia2365
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          -101 year ago

          Ok, well I’ll just tell this to the next black kid in my town who’s shot at because they rang the wrong doorbell. “Have you tried meditation?”

          • @[email protected]
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            1 year ago

            Iirc, there was a black American woman whose land sat on an oilfield. I think either she got royalty or sold the land for profit. She was then led to sit in the train with other whites, as she deserves such treatment for a “white woman” according to the conductor.

            The world is a lot more shit yet nuanced at the same time than you’d realise.

            • Ann Archy
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              11 year ago

              I would like to get a source on that, I have never heard of it before. In any case if that actually happened then it was A) a pretty extreme statistical outlier, or B) some scheme to get her to sign the papers.

          • @banneryear1868
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            31 year ago

            Race has power even if it doesn’t really exist, just like God. It’s been reified/made real through the practice of racism. Barbara and Karen Fields call this Racecraft, in their book of the same name.

            • @[email protected]
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              41 year ago

              Karen Fields calls this Racecraft

              My mind immediately pictured a racist version of minecraft.

            • Ann Archy
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              -11 year ago

              “In biological taxonomy, race is an informal rank in the taxonomic hierarchy for which various definitions exist. Sometimes it is used to denote a level below that of subspecies, while at other times it is used as a synonym for subspecies. It has been used as a higher rank than strain, with several strains making up one race.”

              I think the debate should instead be about which strain we belong to.

            • @RampantParanoia2365
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              01 year ago

              I’m saying race has a very real effect on people’s lives. It exists.

              • @yuriy
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                21 year ago

                “Race is a construct” and “race doesn’t exist” are two very different statements.

      • Ann Archy
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        1 year ago

        Doesn’t change anything, it’s possible to identify with constructs, such as being gay, seeing that nobody seems to be “just” gay anymore, and it’s more on the line of a spectrum. Where is the line drawn for any semantic definition?

    • Flying Squid
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      151 year ago

      Jews are only white when it’s convenient.

      • @RampantParanoia2365
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        21 year ago

        I mean, I tan pretty well, and I’ve got pretty big lips for a white boy, but day to day, I have light skin, blue eyes, and light brown hair.

        • @[email protected]
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          61 year ago

          Doesn’t matter, if your ancestors touched the Mediterranean then your white status can be revoked. Only the North Sea gets permanent membership.

          • Ann Archy
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            1 year ago

            I’m Polish, and they only begrudgingly accept us as white.