Is it ok to be white?

[LittleRaven]

Follow this URL to find out!

...

Ok, now that Fuzzy's had a moment to recover, allow me to present some context.

Is it OK to be white? The question is at once disingenuous, facetious, satirical, and self-parodic. It is also one of the consequential questions being posed in earnest by the moral and political vanguards of our time. The question invites the typical reader to resist its implications—to deny that the question is one that anyone would think to ask, or that people are asking. But people have thought to ask it, they are asking it. It is the sort of question that one doesn’t think to ask at all unless the answer is going to be no.

The essay that the link goes to discusses the history of the meme and the effect it is currently having on our political discourse, and I found it to be well worth the read. Because I don't expect this particular meme to die out quickly...not in the age of Trump. And while it was born in the depths of 4-Chan with dreams of weaponizing it to puncture what they view as a biased media and reach the 'normies,' it possesses a unique power in our confused age.

I suspect that this is because 'white' has such a loaded meaning in the world at large and in America particularly. Yes, it's a skin tone. But it's much much more than that to many people. And while the obvious, immediate answer to the question is yes, of course it's ok to be white...as the essay lays out, it's pretty easy to build a case for the other side. Many well respected people have. Recall James Baldwin

Just so does the white community, as a means of keeping itself white,elect, as they imagine, their political (!) representatives. No nation in the world, including England, is represented by so stunning a pantheon of the relentlessly mediocre. I will not name names I will leave that to you.

And how did they get that way? By deciding that they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By persuading themselves that a black child's life meant nothing compared with a white child's life. By abandoning their children to the things white men could buy. By informing their children that black women, black men, and black children had no human integrity that those who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this debasement and definition of black people, debased and defined themselves.

And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white.

Of course, it's critical to understanding Baldwin to recognize that he views 'being white' as a choice, not a condition of birth, which injects a certain amount of nuance in his position. But Baldwin also wrote that in the early 80s, before the idea of white privilege had been as thoroughly explored in an academic setting. It seems difficult today to argue that a white person, regardless of the purity of his intentions, could 'choose' to walk away from the implications of his skin tone.

But Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing today, and he doesn't mince words either.

It has long been an axiom among certain black writers and thinkers that while whiteness endangers the bodies of black people in the immediate sense, the larger threat is to white people themselves, the shared country, and even the whole world. There is an impulse to blanch at this sort of grandiosity.

...

But there really is no other way to read the presidency of Donald Trump. The first white president in American history is also the most dangerous president—and he is made more dangerous still by the fact that those charged with analyzing him cannot name his essential nature, because they too are implicated in it.

If we are treating 'whiteness' as an identity, and that identity is irrevocably bound to a history of oppression and degradation...well, then no, it's not ok to be white. Especially when that identity is so closely bound to Trump, who many believe represents an existential threat to the US and to the world. And who could argue that being white is not an identity, or that the white identity can be cleansed of its historical deeds?

And it only gets more complicated from here. Because if the answer to the question "Is it ok to be white" isn't no, then the answer to the question "Is ok to SAY it's ok to be white?" most definitely seems to be no. Just look at the Twitter storm that Notch kicked off when he Tweeted the meme, along with a few choice words about privilege. Or the headache that various colleges are going through whenever the posters show up on their campuses.

“My initial thought was not here,” Dolly England said with a sigh of frustration.

I sympathize with Dolly...this is a nightmare for anyone in her position. You can't go after someone for saying "It's OK to be white," at least, not here in the US. But the statement almost never shows up in a vacuum...and context, as always, is king. If a black speaker in the US where to tell a gathering of black students to 'Make their ancestors proud." I suspect nobody would bat an eyebrow, but make everyone in that scenario white and people would be (rightfully) running to bar the door.

I don't have a good answer for any of this. I'd love to hear one. In the meantime, my hat is off to whoever it was in 4-Chan that came up with this little gem - I suspect it will be showing up a lot over the coming year or two.

[Admiral X]

Of course it is, as much as it is okay to be any other race. It's not like anyone had any choice in the matter. Though the reaction from the regressive left only helps to illustrate how regressive they are.

[Darth Wedgius]

If we are treating 'whiteness' as an identity, and that identity is irrevocably bound to a history of oppression and degradation...well, then no, it's not ok to be white. Especially when that identity is so closely bound to Trump, who many believe represents an existential threat to the US and to the world. And who could argue that being white is not an identity, or that the white identity can be cleansed of its historical deeds?

If a black speaker in the US where to tell a gathering of black students to 'Make their ancestors proud." I suspect nobody would bat an eyebrow, but make everyone in that scenario white and people would be (rightfully) running to bar the door.

I believe this to be racism.

If identifying as white means being heir to the misdeeds of all white people, then it seems to me fair to similarly burden everyone else. White people enslaved black people. Black people enslaved black people, and continue to do so. Asians enslaved Asians. Native Americans enslaved Native Americans.

White people were also, I believe, largely responsible for bringing modern medical care and education to other breeds of man, and why would the negatives outweigh the positives?

[Antiboyscout]

White people were also, I believe, largely responsible for bringing modern medical care and education to other breeds of man, and why would the negatives outweigh the positives?

All positives are dismissed as they are assumed to be built on the backs of the oppressed, and thus, they are not gifts to but are instead OWED to the formerly oppressed.

[PlasmaHam]

Of course its okay to be white, just like it is okay to be black, Hispanic, Asian, or Indian. This obsession over race is just ridiculous. And before people start ranting about the alt-right invented this issue as some sort of secret ploy to cast whites as racial victims (you know who you are), we must recognize that no one even cared about this issue until radical and regressive lefties started demonizing the concept of "whiteness".

https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/dna-a ... er-whites/
Here is another recent article I read, about some Leftie advocating for "white death", whatever that is suppose to mean.

White people were also, I believe, largely responsible for bringing modern medical care and education to other breeds of man, and why would the negatives outweigh the positives?

Yep, but white people are still the bad guys, because.... reasons.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think the key to the context is, well, "white culture".

Because there isn't white culture, or rather, there isn't a single White Culture.

There's German culture. There's Irish Culture. There's Italian culture. And you know what? Most people have no problem with those.

You can have an octoberfest or an Irish Heritage celebration or some pasta festival, and virtually nobody (I say virtually because there are always outliers and we, as a species, are nothing if not psychologically heterogenious) has a problem with it.

But uh...white culture? With these different origins all over this side of the caucus mountains, the only things that tie these disparate elements together are the history of "you work our fields, you serve our tables, and you can't sit with us."

[PlasmaHam]

But uh...white culture? With these different origins all over this side of the caucus mountains, the only things that tie these disparate elements together are the history of "you work our fields, you serve our tables, and you can't sit with us."

Really though, that history can apply to nearly every culture and ethnic group. Slavery, discrimination, oppression, those cultural concepts have existed since Biblical times, long before European whites became the dominate "culture" in the world.

And it seems like a huge stretch to assume that the only thing uniting European cultures is oppression of others.

[Robovski]

I find it insulting to say whites have no culture. White Americans have customs and ways, such as a strong individualist and self-improvement streaks, Christian moral basis, a Protestant work ethic, general capitalist outlook... This culture produces media of all kinds and *gasp* some of it is produced by white people. I consume it everyday, as do Billions around the world as products bought and sold, stolen and shared around the world.

[Darth Wedgius]

the only things that tie these disparate elements together are the history of "you work our fields, you serve our tables, and you can't sit with us."

Then that would also expand to African, Asian, and Native American cultures, who did the same thing.

White culture is basically European culture, or at least I would interpret it as such, and I believe there is a bit more to it than that. Europeans share about as much common culture as Africans or Asians, to the best of my knowledge.

In any case, though, to identify as white does not even require cultural underpinnings. It's an ethnicity as much as black or east Asian. Reinforcing this would be the attacks on people for being white; those who hate white people for being white recognize that some people are white. In fact, wouldn't that pretty much be a requirement?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm gonna say it's totally fair to be nervous/wary around things that say they are "Pro-white", because, well, any of ya'll familiar with the term "white genocide"? White Power? The fourteen words?

Pro-white statements are used as dogwhistles by racists in ways that, say, "black lives matter" are not.