This diary grew out of a comment in reply to Denise Oliver Velez’s diary ‘Attention news media covering Hurricane Irma— Puerto Rico is part of the U.S.’; I am indebted (as we all are) to Denise for educating me about the true history of America in her wonderful diaries, and for our ongoing dialogue about racism at the heart of our nation’s institutions and culture.
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I’ve written two previous diaries about the rendering of racism invisible, while it simultaneously pervades every domain of our lives, hiding, as it were, in plain sight : ‘Racism without Racists’: Pretending the election wasn’t about white supremacy won’t help. (Nov. 29, 2016); White privilege and white entitlement give rise to white supremacy, whether we recognize it or not. (Aug. 20, 2017).
Let me begin with excerpts from each; from ‘Racism without Racists’:
How might a white person hide their racist attitudes, even from themselves—that is, to claim that they are ‘not a racist’? By normalizing the reality that is racist, in a way that can be characterized as not racist…
The presence of diverse cultures has never translated to respect for that diversity by the dominant white majority, nor has the dominant white majority fully accepted the principles of an inclusive, pluralistic society, with equal protection of the law, equal justice, equal opportunity educationally and economically. (emphasis in the original)
From ‘White privilege and white entitlement’:
White supremacy, and its political expression, white nationalism, are not separate conceptually from the kind of unconscious (or perhaps unreflective, partially conscious) white privilege and white entitlement displayed by the students of Jia Tolentino (those young men and women had been tutored in white privilege and white entitlement by their parents, peers and neighbors their whole life). White privilege and white entitlement, unacknowledged but pervasive, are the nutrient agar from which white supremacy propagates…
It is not only logically indefensible to distinguish the ‘average white folk’, who swim in white privilege and white entitlement, who support and voted for Trump, from the explicit white supremacists, the Nazi and klan marchers; the average white folk who say ‘don’t lump us all together’, ‘we’re not all racists like them’ are attempting an abdication of moral responsibility and accountability— they provide the ecosystem in which white supremacists can flourish, while disclaiming any association.
The various normative expressions of racism— white privilege, white entitlement and white supremacy— must be viewed as both preconditions and products of the political and economic institutions of a nation that was literally founded on purely racist principles.
Prof. Cheryl Harris, writing in the Harvard Law Review, provides a comprehensive and horrifying history of the legal definition of whiteness, and how that definition served as the basis for reifying the racial political and economic hierarchy from earliest days of the US:
Because the "presumption of freedom [arose] from color [white]"and the "black color of the race [raised] the presumption of slavery," whiteness became a shield from slavery, a highly volatile and unstable form of property. In the form adopted in the United States, slavery made human beings market-alienable and in so doing, subjected human life and personhood - that which is most valuable - to the ultimate devaluation. Because whites could not be enslaved or held as slaves, the racial line between white and Black was extremely critical; it became a line of protection and demarcation from the potential threat of commodification, and it determined the allocation of the benefits and burdens of this form of property. White identity and whiteness were sources of privilege and protection; their absence meant being the object of property… (pp. 1720-21)
...the settlement and seizure of Native American land supported white privilege through a system of property rights in land in which the "race" of the Native Americans rendered their first possession rights invisible and justified conquest.This racist formulation embedded the fact of white privilege into the very definition of property, marking another stage in the evolution of the property interest in whiteness. Possession - the act necessary to lay the basis for rights in property - was defined to include only the cultural practices of whites. This definition laid the foundation for the idea that whiteness - that which whites alone possess - is valuable and is property. Although the Indians were the first occupants and possessors of the land of the New World, their racial and cultural otherness allowed this fact to be reinterpreted and ultimately erased as a basis for asserting rights in land. Because the land had been left in its natural state, untilled and unmarked by human hands, it was "waste" (pg. 1721).
The direct manifestation of the law's legitimation of whiteness as reputation is revealed in the well-established doctrine that to call a white person "Black" is to defame her. Although many of the cases were decided in an era when the social and legal stratification of whites and Blacks was more absolute, as late as 1957 the principle was reaffirmed, notwithstanding significant changes in the legal and political status of Blacks. As one court noted, "there is still to be considered the social distinction existing between the races," and the allegation was likely to cause injury. A Black person, however, could not sue for defamation if she was called "white." Because the law expressed and reinforced the social hierarchy as it existed, it was presumed that no harm could flow from such a reversal. (pp. 1735-36, emphasis added)
Harris’ piercing analysis makes it plain why it is misguided to conceptualize economic justice as somehow distinct from social justice, or to argue we can and should ‘move past identity politics’ (for more on this, see also my diary ‘Think economic issues matter? Want to fix income inequality? Then fight discrimination.’) :
Whiteness is not simply and solely a legally recognized property interest. It is simultaneously an aspect of self-identity and of personhood, and its relation to the law of property is complex. Whiteness has functioned as self-identity in the domain of the intrinsic, personal,and psychological; as reputation in the interstices between internal and external identity; and, as property in the extrinsic, public, and legal realms. According whiteness actual legal status converted an aspect of identity into an external object of property, moving whiteness from privileged identity to a vested interest. The law's construction of whiteness defined and affirmed critical aspects of identity (who is white); of privilege (what benefits accrue to that status); and, of property(what legal entitlements arise from that status). Whiteness at various times signifies and is deployed as identity, status, and property, sometimes singularly, sometimes in tandem. (pg. 1725)
If we are to address the abuses and inequities of our political and economic systems, we must recognize them clearly, and understand them fully for what they are, and what they have always been: instruments for establishing and maintaining white supremacy.