Belated IBARW-07: Pride and Identity
August 16, 2007
So. This whole “racial pride” thing. Mention it, and the trolls come out from under their rocks and start yammering away. That’s OK. I was planning to babble a bit about it myself.
Apparently my shall-remain-nameless family member (and please don’t think she represents my whole family with her beliefs) was appalled at the idea of me dating across color lines because it meant I had none of this “racial pride” stuff. My response to this was to glance down at my pink and freckled arms and say, “Why should I be proud of being white?” Which evoked her huffy “it’s no use to explain it to you” conversation-ender, of course. Which leaves me to try to figure this out on my own.
To my mind, pride and identity are tricky concepts. One identifies with certain groups: I’m a writer, a woman, a pilot, a citizen of the U.S.A., a New Orleanian, a Boulder resident, Catholic by birth, Wiccan by choice. Some of these are easy to take pride in because they represent accomplishments: if I’m a pilot, it’s because I worked hard to earn that license and keep it current. If I’m a writer, it’s because I sit down and write every day. Others of these are accidents of birth. I cannot take the credit for having two X chromosomes or being born in a New Orleans hospital. So pride in being a woman comes from being associated with what women as a group have achieved. Pride in being a New Orleanian comes from associating with the history of that city, its rich cultural heritage, its determination to survive. Pride in being an American comes from sharing in and benefiting from the ideals of freedom and equality encapsulated in its Constitution.
Now, women aren’t saints; New Orleans is a city well acquainted with slavery and corruption; the U.S.A. has been and still is guilty of terrible injustices. A group needn’t be perfect for a person to take pride in belonging to it. It need only (”only”!) involve something worth taking pride in to stand in opposition to those things that cause shame.
For me to take pride in a group association, I have to first identify with that group–not just admit I share characteristics with them, but identify as one of them–and, secondly, I have to recognize achievements belonging to that group. I don’t consciously identify as “white,” any more than I identify as “right-handed” or “brown-haired.” I mean, I’m not going to join a Right-Handers Appreciation group or participate in Size 6-1/2 Shoe Wearers meetups. And if any group tried to get me to join simply because I was white like them, I’d probably run away. I just can’t think of any pride-worthy achievement belonging uniquely to that set of humans commonly described as “having white skin.”
OK, sure, Neil Armstrong is “white.” Also male. Also a U.S. citizen. But–to paraphrase the upcoming documentary whose name I can’t seem to remember–the first man on the moon is an achievement that belongs to all humanity. The Founding Fathers were “white,” but the framing of the Constitution is a U.S. thing, not a white guy thing.
This isn’t just arbitrary selectiveness. When a bunch of rebels got together to form a new Union, they did not write, “We the White People of the United States of America.” They wrote, “We the People.” End of sentence. When women got together to push for the vote, they did it as all women together; they didn’t separate themselves by color. White supremacists may want to own those achievements, point to them as reasons to be proud of their lack of melanin, but the people who actually fought and won those battles would probably have something to say about such coat-tail riding.
Really, when I think about “white people” as a self-identifying group–when I try to think of what people have done when they got together and actually did say “we the white people,”–the only “achievement” that comes to mind is that of oppressing and excluding everyone else. Oh, yeah, and being freakishly obsessed with preserving the recessive gene that makes them unsuited for long hours in the sun. Which is why interracial couples distress them so.
Now, turn that around. Here in the U.S.A., we celebrate Black Heritage Week every year. We also have annual Gay Pride parades. And we celebrate Great Women in History. So some will disingenuously protest that it’s not fair that wanting to celebrate white heritage gets you branded a racist.
Well, and it should. The only “heritage” that the disparate group called “white people” share is that of oppression and exclusion. If you want to celebrate segregated water fountains and “coloreds need not apply” signs in shop windows, feel free; I won’t. Which is not to say that I wouldn’t celebrate the heritage of nations whose people are primarily Caucasian-colored, like Ireland and Sweden and Great Britain and so forth. Each nation has national achievements to be proud of. Each has a culture to celebrate. But if you lump together every human being with pinkish skin, regardless of any other characteristic, you won’t find a lot in common between them. Like being five-foot-two, skin color is just a physical characteristic. When you try to make a culturally identifying feature out of it, you run smack into the Aryan Nation.
So, once again, why doesn’t that invalidate the idea of Black Heritage? Well, there’s this thing about oppression. It creates an environment of adversity. And it creates an environment of devaluation. These are bad things–and the struggle to overcome them creates a culture. The skin color commonly called “black” doesn’t identify a particular national heritage in and of itself; Egypt is not Yoruba is not Haiti is not Ghana. But take people from those differing nations and throw them together in a land where melanin-enriched skin means second-class-citizen treatment, and they unite behind a common cause. They identify as a culture. Their achievements in the arts and sciences have the extra cachet of being accomplished in spite of crushing oppression. And the struggle against oppression creates a heritage in and of itself. If “We, the People” who rebelled against mother England have something to be proud of, so do the People who gathered in the churches, fought to get into the voting booths, and refused to sit at the back of the bus.
Would there be a need for special appreciation for the achievements of dark-skinned humans if light-skinned humans hadn’t spent the last few centuries trying to keep them from achieving anything at all? Without oppression, would the oppressed people–be they black, or female, or gay–have a struggle against that oppression to look back on with pride?
So I guess “white people” do have one big achievement. Through oppression, they created “black heritage.” Funny, this isn’t an accomplishment that my racial-pride-obsessed family member seems to want to acknowledge.
Here ends today’s rant. If you’ve got something to say about it, you know what to do. Try to be civil this time, though, ’cause I doubt I’ll feel like putting up with trolls today.
Um. Valid points, certainly, but may I point out that Western culture as we know it is largely the work of Caucasians? Obviously this is far from a complete picture, and it gets trickier as you get further south in Europe, but certainly if we limit the scope to English culture, “White people” must bear both the praises and the blame for much of it. It seems to me that if one insists on celebrating race, a dubious pursuit, in my opinion, “White people” have things to celebrate as well.
But let’s step back one level of abstraction. It seems to me that race is an arbitrary, and anachronistic division at best: a process of indulging innate xenophobia and/or uncanny valley problems by lumping regional human morphological differences into supra-national and sub-national groups of people who might not otherwise have anything in common. When populations are being rearranged in such a fashion, the organizers are either following innate drives without sufficient questioning of them, or they are doing so with an eye to changing a balance of power somewhere. Those organizers are almost always the biggest benefactors from the latter case.
If you want something to celebrate, then as you say, celebrate something you have achieved. If you want a cause greater than that, how about the achievements of the human species, this long-legged, hairless third species of chimpanzees. There’s plenty to celebrate in there. And everyone is equally entitled to celebrate it.
-Jim
Comment by James R. Strickland — August 16, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Wow…that Ajax is just…wow. With entertainment like that who needs cable. Ajax must have very little to do with his/her/it’s time.
I particularly like this[Nicole’s] post because it lays out the point well. And she’s right…White as a group in this [USA] country hasn’t any thing to celebrate as a culture.
However I would contend that is only the most prevelant culture of “white” in America.
Suburban culture is a very “white” culture. While in the last thirty years it can no longer be counted as such…that is where it began…and problems that come with it are not “white” in nature but Suburban in nature…
But then lets talk about heritage for a moment. “white” heritage is usually defined in this country by country of ancestral origin…some which has been specifically taken away from the black heritage scheme by way of the slave trade leading to a generalize “African” heritage that bears little resemblance to the countries that have been in or are in Africa. That really a horrible thing in my mind, but I digress.
While you state that identifying with a group and being part of a group are two different things I have to wonder, even though I agree.
For instance…I’m an Armstrong. That means that I belong to the defunct Scottish clan of Armstrong. I’m proud of that because I identify with the ideal that I have a right to be free and protect me and my own…a core idea of what I believe it means to be an Armstrong.
But history is written by the victors. The Armstongs were a blood thirsty clan who killed many English citizens which include children, in order to keep their sovereignty. They lost and were dissolved…it’s surviving members are scattered across the globe.
So…am I aloud to be proud of my heritage or am I just the same as those that killed English children for being proud?
It’s a sticky line.
Comment by Michelle — August 17, 2007 @ 10:07 am
What in the world does “New Age Patty Hearst” mean anyway?
I can’t even wrap my head around the context.
Comment by Michelle — August 17, 2007 @ 10:09 am
Well, your writing skill leave a lot to be desired. Run-on sentences is the key phrase here.
I know who Patty Hearst is. That’s not what I asked. You’re research also needs help. The SLA was not communist, socialist or marxist…they were anti-fascist though their definitions were wrong. Supposedly they were black liberation…but they only had one black member.
Actually in the 50’s people like us were not stunned into silence…otherwise we would not be here today.
Comment by Michelle — August 17, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
You know what, guys? AJAX is going bye-bye. I’ll come back and address the interesting things y’all have to say after I delete the exceedingly foul-mouthed, racist babblings of the troll.
[Hrm. Having deleted those posts, I belatedly realize that may make it look like Michelle was accusing James of run-on sentences and strangely surreal Patty Hearst references and such. Sorry. From here on out, I’ll just delete AJAX’s text and replace it with “comment deleted” or something.]
[Another belated thought: Where’s TNH’s disemvoweller when you need one? I may have to start doing that via a text editor and regex.]
AJAX, I did warn you I would require civility from here on out, you know. Calling another commenter a “cunt” doesn’t make the grade. Just, y’know, for future reference.
Comment by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little — August 17, 2007 @ 8:23 pm
[post disemvowelled for your enjoyment! -NJLL]
cn’t lt myslf g frm ths blg-lg yt bcs jst rll my ys nt hvn mrvllng t n nd s s sch drppng fmng t th mth nt-wht tmpr-tntrm drm btng nd th xtrm ntr f rcl-pltcl hypcrsy prsntd by ncl
————————————
“K, sr, Nl rmstrng s “wht.” ls ml. ls .S. ctzn. Bt–t prphrs th pcmng dcmntry whs nm cn’t sm t rmmbr–th frst mn n th mn s n chvmnt tht blngs t ll hmnty. Th Fndng Fthrs wr “wht,” bt th frmng f th Cnstttn s .S. thng, nt wht gy thng.”
—————————————-
wll lts s th frst mn n th mn ws wht, ‘yh s wht’, th frmrs f th .s. cnstttn wr ll wht, ch nd vry n, ‘yh bg dl wh crs’.
ncl my dr lttl mss mrxy pppt, why dn’t y wv yr mgc wnd nd mk nl rmstrng blckfc nd mk ll f th frmrs f th cnstttn s blck rcd ppl, n fct why dn’t y lttrly d ths s rc xrcs by gttng y sm pcs f nl nd th cnstttn sgnrs nd wth blck clr pn drkn thr lly-wht psty fcs s thy ppr s blckmn nd thn wlk rnd sm blck ppl whr vr y fnd thm nd sk ch nd vryn f t wld mk ny dffrnc t thr rcl slf-stm f ll f ths ntd mn f hstry wr blckmn, nd s f ny f ths blck ppl wld fl th srt f pthy nd ndffrnc y r tryng t cnvy tht ll th ppl f th wrld shld b cmpltly ndffrnt s t th rc dntty f ths mn f hstry n qstn.
nc gn th lftst lt r jst drwnng n thr hypcrsy, f th bv mntnd mn f hstrcl rknwn wr f th blck rc thr wld b n nd s t th ndlss clbrtn blcks wld hv cncrnng ths, cn ssr y th blck rc pmp ldrs wld hv mllns nd mllns f mgs f ths mn md nd ths mgs wld b plstrd n blck rs vrywhr; lqr strs, hp hp shps, bbq jnts, smk shps, nght clbs nd nt jst n vry blck cmmnty bt n vry gvrnmnt bldng, prk, lbrry, tc tc tc. lk t wht th blck ldrs d wth thr dfd MLK hw mny MLK rmndrs d w hv strtd ll vr th ntn?
blck rc pmp ldrs wld nvr vr hv nyn blck r wht r nyn ls frgt tht ths mn mntnd bv wr blck rcd mn.
nd s y s whn sy th wht rc-cltr xtrmntn s rl, mn t s vry rl. rmmbr s wll sm 15 yrs g frst cm crss strs f cllg stdnts bjctng t bng tght th hstry f ‘dd wht mls’ ws shckd, tht shld hv strck nrv wthn my mnd nd rght thn nd thr shld hv tkn th plng nt rsrchng wht ws gng n. grntd t s ndrstndbl t hr blck stdnts grp bt bng fd ‘wht hstry’ bt th stpd dlts shld hv hd th prfssr wlk p t thr dsk nd bsh th dts psd th hd wth th ‘whtmn’s hstry’ txt bk t hpflly hv th blck ngrt lrn rspct fr th wht rc nd ts hrtg nd cltr nd hstry, nd myb, jst myb, th slln ppty blck ngrt wld, f h hd ny wsdm, lrn frm th wht rc t dpt hs wys t lrn hs sccss nd t prspr s h hd.
n clsng ncl lt m sy f y wr brn blck tht wld b th sngl mst mprtnt wy n whch y wld dntfy yrslf, nd vrythng ls wld b scndry, nd bcs y hppnd t b brn wht, nd r lftst, y cnnt s ny sgnfcnc f nyknd wth tht dntty, t n mr mns nythng t y thn tht cllctn f pmpls y hv n yr btt. n yr mnd t s nly th nn-wht wrld wh hv rc nd bcs f thr rc thy r spcl nd hv rcl lf nd sl nd r n yr dmnt crtcl t th srvvl f th wht rcd ppl, whts mst b srrndd by th nn-wht ppls f th wrld thrws th wht rc wll d t nd bcm xtnct, whch s f crs wht rc-trtr- ddwht trsh lk y hp t s hppn sm tm dwn th hstry pth.
Comment by AJAX — August 17, 2007 @ 8:29 pm
[O HAI! I ATE UR VOWLZ! -NJLL]
k btch ncl
lk th cwrdly sht-trsh tht y r y wnt t dlt m
nd why s tht? t s tht bcs stpd wrthlss slss mpty nthngs lk yrslf hv n blty t frm ny cnscs thght bynd th crp thy fd y n yr gvrnmnt rn mrxst trnng cmp
pr ncl jst lk wmn, pssy, f crs, cnt, nly gd fr fck tht s ll
(nd f crs cnts lk y nly mk m pk)
thnk gd m nt rnd n th flsh wth sch mpty flff s y. my gdnss btchs lk y mk m wnt t g gy.
hw n th wrld r y bl t hld cnvrstn wth ny mn wll nvr knw, h gt t myb th rd-dpr shrll pc sldrs lk yrslf, r myb th prfm scntd ffc qrby wh hv crsh fr.
nywy g hd mk my dy dlt m, hv spnt fr t mch tm lrdy wstng my tm n ths blg-rg
ws hpng fr sm ntrstng spcy wrdy ntrctn bck nd frth, bt n th ppr thn ncl hs hdch frm ll th hrsh wrds brng t th tbl, sh s sffrng frm mntl ndgstn, nd sh prbbly fls mnstrl crmp dvlpng
s g bck t yr blck lvng wht htng pc wrld ncl, y r nthng, wld wp y ff th pvmnt n ny dbt
Comment by AJAX — August 17, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
Wheee!
OK. Addressing the points worth addressing…
I think what James says about Western Civ being mostly a creation of Caucasian peoples dovetails nicely with what Michelle said about her Armstrong ancestors. There’s a lot of good and bad that was done: expansion good! genocide bad! It’s very sticky.
But why is it important to note that Caucasion peoples settled the Americas and Europes, but not that, say, predominately right-handed or heterosexual people settled those places? Why is skin color so much more an important physical characteristic than right-handedness, height, or shoe size?
(And how much of the absence of black peoples in our understanding of the founding of Western Civ comes from their status among the white peoples who get the cred? Slavery and racism didn’t start in the U.S.A. There are many situations in which it’s more accurate to say that while white peoples got the credit for westward expansion, they got it done of the backs of the “races” they exploited to do it.)
I find pointing out peoples’ nationality is more compelling that pointing out their skin color. Nationality usually implies ways of behaving that are similar: language, religion, culture, ways of seeing the world. To link the Irish with the Polish as kin bonded at the hip (or as people who owe each other some sort of race loyalty, as our favorite troll would insist) on the basis of skin color seems frightfully arbitrary to me.
As for pride in the accomplishments of a group I belong to… I think that becomes a matter of identity again. I say that I am proud to be a woman because of what so many women have accomplished on the long road toward equality, toward gaining the recognition they deserve for their experiences and their intelligence–and when I say that, I make a conscious choice to identify myself with that cause. I’m declaring my appreciation for those privileges I enjoy due to the risks they took and the fight they fought. And I’m declaring my loyalty to their cause: I will settle for no less than they did, and I will continue the progress that they began. The opportunities open to me are not nearly as dramatic; they fought for the vote and now I fight for equal pay and to end objectifying speech. But I will do what needs doing wherever I can do it.
If I didn’t–if I chose to take pride in being a woman, but simply ride on the feminists’ coat-tails rather than continue their work, it would be a rather hollow sort of pride, wouldn’t it? So it does become pride in what I personally am trying to do, in the end. I only have the right to be proud of my association with my feminist heroes (heroines? But why have two separate words?) if I am willing to stand up for their cause.
If I try to view this whole “racial pride” thing through that lens, my pinkish skin turns into a liability. If I were of African or Haitian descent, I could take pride in the accomplishments of the so-called “black race” (skin color as race is a biological fiction, which makes me uncomfortable using that terminology, for all that its perpetration has made it a societal non-fiction) in struggling for equality. I could declare loyalty to that struggle, realizing that I could vote, own property, marry, even own my own body only because of what my heroic antecedents had accomplished. I would be part of a culture of the oppressed who fought to end their oppression.
But I’m not black. I’m white. And when I look back at the accomplishments that can truly be attributed to the “white race” (as opposed to being more accurately attributed to any one nation or individual), I see the small-pox blankets given out to the natives in this country, the KKK hanging trees with strange fruit, the Nazis’ fixation with blonde hair and blue eyes, AJAX’s frothy ravings about us being race-traitors… I can’t declare loyalty to that. I can’t be thankful to that. I can’t take pride in that–not only because I’m not proud of it, but also because I won’t take up that mantle. So. I won’t identify with it.
Heck-o-la, I was born on the same day of the year as Hitler. If that unchosen, born characteristic doesn’t oblige me to be loyal to him, why should any other unchosen, born characteristic oblige me to be loyal to him or anyone else with white skin? I’m loyal to many people who share my skin color, but not because of our shared skin color.
Put another way: Two black people in the U.S.A., meeting for the first time, they can already say they share a history of oppression and the struggle to end that oppression. They probably share other communal bonds based on where’s they’re from, what football teams they root for, etc., but looking only at skin color, you can already link them to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Black” becomes a term of community because of that shared struggle. Two white people meeting for the first time–what history do they share, in terms of skin color? What makes “white” a term of community? Well… white privilege, I guess. Whoop-de-doo. Not having been arrested for Driving While Black In The Wrong Neighborhood. The luxury of being totally unaware of the societal advantages their skin color lets them enjoy. They know that people who looked like them once owned people who looked like the other pair of hypothetical people meeting for the first time. That’s not a community to be particularly proud of, unless they’re like AJAX and their secret handshake comes with the refrain “Damn glad we’re white!”
So in the end I think we choose which communities we identify with based on whether we want to be identified with them. I don’t want to identify with anyone who makes “white” a requirement for membership. I’d rather identify with others based on things I’m proud of. Being a woman. Being a human. Being a writer, a pilot, a Wiccan. And etc.
[Any points I missed, I plead guilty to having done so, and I offer only the excuse that there’s a lot to respond to and trolls to delete and/or disemvowel while I’m at it. Just gently prod me about anything you’d like addressed.]
Comment by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little — August 17, 2007 @ 9:13 pm