Whiteness is one hell of a drug

[ismnotwasm]

65. From my link:

White versus Whiteness

Race is scientifically insignificant.
Race is a socially constructed category that powerfully attaches meaning to perceptions of skin colour; inequitable social/economic relations are structured and reproduced (including the meanings attached to skin colour) through notions of race, class, gender, and nation.
Whiteness is a set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals and groups; it is normalized in its production/maintenance for those of that group such that its operations are "invisible" to those privileged by it (but not to those oppressed/disadvantaged by it). It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies (for those who are of mixed ancestry and "pass" as white, this normativity, I would assume, would not occur).
Distinct but not separate from ideologies and material manifestations of ideologies of class, nation, gender, sexuality, and ability.
The meaning of "whiteness" is historical and has shifted over time (i.e. Irish, Italian, Spanish, Greek and southern European peoples have at times been "raced" as non-white).

Click here to see our glossary definitions of White Fragility, Whiteness, White Privilege/White-Skin Privilege and White Supremacy