DAMN. Mic Drop. Race is not about learning where we come from, having a cultural heritage, or having a shared human history. Race is a self-fulfilling category, which minimizes similarities and emphasizes differences in order to reify its boundary. The point of race is always boundary, always separation between superior and inferior. Exactly who is defined superior—currently on the “White” side of the racial line—has always changed, and is defined purely by the will of those making the definition. There is no way to be sure that one will always end up on the good side, or the bad side. The only assurance is that there will always be a difference between White, and not. The only guarantee is that there is always a wrong race, and you are constantly in danger of being part of it. You may have dark skin, but why are you in the wrong neighborhood? You may have straight hair, but why are you wearing a hoodie? If you listen to the wrong music, live in the wrong area, date the wrong people, speak the wrong language, wear the wrong item of clothing, or eat the wrong food, you can easily be raced by those who will benefit by doing so. The only point to an exclusive country club is the ability to deny membership. Having light-colored skin might get you in certain doors, but there is always someone just waiting for the opportunity to kick you out. Because for every “race traitor” that is discovered and punished, one more race cop has a chance to show everyone what side it is on. To follow those rules—to respect the race cop and to do what it says—is to be White on the internet. White is not a culture, it has never been. To be Irish, Spanish, Nordic, or Russian—these are potentially cultures, if a person from those places or backgrounds acts and thinks with culture. But ‘White’ is not a place, there are no people from there. There is no music, food, fashion, or language that was developed in a White place and white time. To ‘be White’ means to have the power to tell people they are not White, and to decide what they are not allowed to do. To ‘be White’ means to benefit—either implicitly or explicitly—from those White rules that you have made, and are continuing to enforce. Everything about the internet allows this hegemonic Whiteness to continue to exist. Whiteness acts as if there is nothing wrong with the rules it makes. White judges, White shames, White wraps itself in its own supposed impartial authority, while taking that honorific all the way to the bank. White has no idea how high its pedestal is, because White has never tried to step off of it. And the minute someone attempts to threaten Whiteness, White paints itself as the victim, attacked by all these traitors to White equality and White fairness. The opposite of White is not black. It is part of White’s logic to only consider races as opposites, to present them as even sides that oppose each other. But “black” was only created because White was the rule. White is the weapon. The opposite of “knife” is not “victim.” To be white is not to be a person holding the weapon at another—it is to be the weapon itself. thestate.ae/how-not-to-be-white-on-the-internet/
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:48:20 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015