Showing posts with label whiteness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whiteness. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Time to Retire Whiteness


“Whiteness–the whole constellation of practices, beliefs, attitudes, emotions that are mixed up in being white–is the problem. Whiteness is degraded and depraved[…] To the degree that we accept any of the meaning that the dominant society gives to whiteness, we white people are degraded and depraved.” 
― Robert JensenThe Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege





Way, way past time. Whiteness is a ghost
invented by fake science and a priori supremacist
hubris. Famous skeptic David Hume should have been
skeptical about his racism. Wasn't.  Joseph
Blumenach invented "Caucasian" out of nothing.
It is nothing.  We're all one species, obviously.
No races, but (don't take the bait) that doesn't mean we stop
confronting racism or that we aspire to "color
blindness."  If you want to get down with your
ancestry.com ethnicities, cool.  Just set that
white shell aside, if you're wearing one.
Because it's probably  made you do and think
some crazy shit. Mainly it's about people
and cultures,  growing up, recovering from historical
madness, and doing the right things.




hans ostrom 2017

recommended: Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (2010)

Friday, April 1, 2011

My White Body

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My White Body

My white body has brought me ease
in this USA society that's marked black
and brown bodies, that marks them still.

My body white and masculine has functioned
as a passport, yes it has. Has often let me
be as invisible or as noticed as I prefer.

Has allowed me to prefer. I hear the voices
of contrarians: Have my white body and I
been excluded, ignored, worked hard, and


maybe even hated?  Oh, sure. But not so
as to make my white body's experience
and me equivalent to that of those marked

by this USA society. I've been reading
The Slave Ship: A Human History by
Marcus Rediker, 2008. You know, you

think you know, but you don't know--
that is why history is written, read.
Admit it. Admit you have a white body

according to the culture's rules, I told
myself. And let's not whitewash the issue.
This isn't Tom Sawyer's fence.

What's an admission worth? Not much.
It's a move, a mental shift. What must ensue
after the admission must be more productive

than just the admission. Otherwise the move
becomes just more hoo-hah from a mind inside
a white body. My white body has brought me ease.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom