There are uses of "racial essence" terminology that are innocuous and even helpful and some humorous.
A stand-up comedian cracks a joke about a guy's "whiteness" making him dance lousy. Or a black New York Times writer who I once read describing the essence of the African American experience--or as he wrote: their "blackness".
Today, we see the term "whiteness" to engage and disrupt the idea of long-standing racial hierarchies in society. I have little doubt this term used this way comes from a place of trying to do good. I also have no doubt that this use is glaringly racist.
See the images below.
This use of the term "whiteness" recently occurred in a Seattle, where city employees underwent a training called: “Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness.”
First, this training was segregated to just the white employees. A special training for a specific race. There, they were to work on "undoing your own whiteness." They were to also learn how to give up their "white normative behaviors."
A space alien observing us humans--or, heck, any person from East Asia--would see this training description and scratch their heads at the apparent racism.
Any white person off the street would approach and wonder: "Undo my whiteness? Give up my white behavior? What is that even supposed to mean, and how would one undo who they are?"
The biggest source of this confusion is that "whiteness", in these situations, means something along the lines of: "indoctrinated beliefs and behaviors that enforce racial hierarchies." Studying the source and reduction of these injustices is great. But calling it "whiteness" implicates every member of that group (no matter where they are in the world) and indicates it's a defect all people of one group are born with. It's inherent. It's original sin.
This inappropriate labeling then allows for abuses such as racially segregated trainings trying to get those in attendance to undo their own harmful essence. And it enables worsening racial relations, because it enforces the idea of inherent, threatening differences.
Anytime someone uses a demographic label as a definition for something negative--particularly when in a serious way--it's unethical. Whether it's saying "gay" to mean "lame"; or saying "Jew" to mean "haggle"; or in this case, saying "white" to mean "racially exploitative."
In my lifetime, we're going to look back and wonder how this vein of racism was so openly prevalent. (Today there are whole college departments on "whiteness studies".) Maybe we can hasten this realization by recognizing it for what it is.
Keep calling it out. The goal, whether the people doing it (including those with European ancestry, less melanin in their skin) understand it or not, seems to be to invalidate the inherent culture within those who grew up in the American "white" mainstream culture. While this is typically under the guise of eliminating systemic racism (which does exist, and should be reduced to a practical minimum) the loudest-mouthed idiots who see in black and white want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and become what they claim to despise: racist.
To invalidate someone's inherent culture is extremely violent in a non-corporeal sense. And we see how insane people get when they strongly integrate that dissonant self-hatred (think Aids Skrillex for a stereotype).
Although most won't take it to that extreme, it does soften the backbone of a typical person who will be more likely to get out of the way instead of asserting themselves in important political matters. I've seen it recently in the people I know in the wake of George Floyd's murder. It's an attempt to further shatter American cultural identity, which is again throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The individual people of systemically poorer-served cultures within America might think that's a great idea, because they feel they have little to lose. But I disagree, there is always a lower bottom until we're all dead.
Well put. First, I hadn't heard of Aids Skrillex until today, so thanks for that. Haha.
But, yeah, I went from wanting to call it out regularly, to getting better at letting it not get to me, to now realizing this is something that needs to be stood up to in healthy ways. Because it doesn't seem to be a movement that will willingly recede, and meanwhile a lot of harm is coming from it. I've been saying the white self-hatred isn't helping black people. I flip that around--I'm better at my service work when I'm proud of who I am. See my next post for a case-in-point.