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50books_poc2011-08-01 11:52 am
pauraque) wrote in 50books_poc2011-08-01 11:52 am
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21. Nell Irvin Painter - The History of White People
What is Whiteness? Who is White?
These are questions that many people (and especially people who consider themselves white) never seriously ask, as though the category of whiteness is a natural one. It isn't, of course -- it's a socially constructed idea that has developed and changed considerably over many hundreds of years.
This book takes us through the history of that idea from its earliest known roots in antiquity, and ultimately goes on to focus mostly on Britain and the United States, where various different "white races" were long spoken of and ranked in value. The gradual incorporation of light-skinned people into one big group called White proceeded (and continues to proceed) in waves in the U.S., corresponding to waves of immigration, backlash against it, and an eventual admission that such-and-such a group is at last "American".
You've probably heard this phenomenon mentioned as a derailing tactic in discussions of race. ("Irish people were treated worse than black people") That is not what Painter is doing at all. She understands that the racialized ill treatment of white groups by other white groups does not erase anti-black racism -- it illuminates it! As the definition of who can be "white" has expanded over the centuries, it only sharpens the line between white people who might be able to become "just plain American" someday if they work hard and assimilate, and black people who, no matter what they do, never can.
It is depressing and upsetting to see how disprivileged groups have been played against each other in this. Non-"Saxon" whites have been both overtly and subconsciously encouraged to claim their whiteness by hating blacks -- taking sides with the bully to avoid being targeted themselves.
Painter incisively analyses the simultaneous lumping of white Americans into one big safe group, and splitting themselves back into ancestral ethnicities after assimilation has already taken place -- "Rejecting the burden of white guilt that Malcolm X laid on them," Painter writes, "white Americans were morphing into Italian Americans and Jewish Americans and Irish Americans. What they had in common was not being black." She gets exactly what has always bothered me about this -- it creates a set of moving targets, where no one is just "white", everyone can claim an ethnic identity that shields them from charges of racism and racial privilege, and nothing is ever anybody's fault.
This is a long, detailed book. Painter is not an author who passes over things quickly, and at times I wondered why she was spending so much time on particular historical figures and their views on race. But I think I get it now -- it is important to understand racist beliefs as belonging to people, not only to cultures or time periods. They aren't disembodied concepts that float in the air, people actually think, say, and write them. Often, people who are still openly admired today.
And looking at it that way, I understand entirely why the book is called The History of White People, and not The History of Whiteness or something similar. It is tempting to try to keep these things at arm's length, to be "objective". Tempting, but quite wrong.
a: Painter Nell Irvin, African-American, non-fiction, history, race
These are questions that many people (and especially people who consider themselves white) never seriously ask, as though the category of whiteness is a natural one. It isn't, of course -- it's a socially constructed idea that has developed and changed considerably over many hundreds of years.
This book takes us through the history of that idea from its earliest known roots in antiquity, and ultimately goes on to focus mostly on Britain and the United States, where various different "white races" were long spoken of and ranked in value. The gradual incorporation of light-skinned people into one big group called White proceeded (and continues to proceed) in waves in the U.S., corresponding to waves of immigration, backlash against it, and an eventual admission that such-and-such a group is at last "American".
You've probably heard this phenomenon mentioned as a derailing tactic in discussions of race. ("Irish people were treated worse than black people") That is not what Painter is doing at all. She understands that the racialized ill treatment of white groups by other white groups does not erase anti-black racism -- it illuminates it! As the definition of who can be "white" has expanded over the centuries, it only sharpens the line between white people who might be able to become "just plain American" someday if they work hard and assimilate, and black people who, no matter what they do, never can.
It is depressing and upsetting to see how disprivileged groups have been played against each other in this. Non-"Saxon" whites have been both overtly and subconsciously encouraged to claim their whiteness by hating blacks -- taking sides with the bully to avoid being targeted themselves.
Painter incisively analyses the simultaneous lumping of white Americans into one big safe group, and splitting themselves back into ancestral ethnicities after assimilation has already taken place -- "Rejecting the burden of white guilt that Malcolm X laid on them," Painter writes, "white Americans were morphing into Italian Americans and Jewish Americans and Irish Americans. What they had in common was not being black." She gets exactly what has always bothered me about this -- it creates a set of moving targets, where no one is just "white", everyone can claim an ethnic identity that shields them from charges of racism and racial privilege, and nothing is ever anybody's fault.
This is a long, detailed book. Painter is not an author who passes over things quickly, and at times I wondered why she was spending so much time on particular historical figures and their views on race. But I think I get it now -- it is important to understand racist beliefs as belonging to people, not only to cultures or time periods. They aren't disembodied concepts that float in the air, people actually think, say, and write them. Often, people who are still openly admired today.
And looking at it that way, I understand entirely why the book is called The History of White People, and not The History of Whiteness or something similar. It is tempting to try to keep these things at arm's length, to be "objective". Tempting, but quite wrong.
a: Painter Nell Irvin, African-American, non-fiction, history, race