It's irrelevant to this particular discussion on whether "whiteness" is a relatively recent invention. — Marchesk

Once again, the lack of melanin in the skin of Europeans was a fact about them before there was a society to allegedly construct it. There's nothing to discuss here. TGW has so thoroughly interred your stupid claim into the ground that you now appear a sucker for punishment.

Once again, the lack of melanin in the skin of Europeans was a fact about them before there was a society to allegedly construct it. There's nothing to discuss here. TGW has so thoroughly interred your stupid claim into the ground that you now appear a sucker for punishment. — Thorongil

My argument was never about the range of melanin in Europeans (notice how Northern Europeans tend to have less than Southern). TGW decided to make it about that. Anyway, history says different about the racial categories of white and black.

The "post-enlightment" doesn't demand anyone be ashamed who who they are per se, at least not unless they are doing something wrong — TheWillowOfDarkness

But then postmodernists conveniently claim that simply being white is to be in the wrong, the very point of dispute here. This is have one's cake and eat it too, so don't talk about the Enlightenment eating itself. It doesn't propose any such monstrous relativism.

My argument was never about the range of melanin in Europeans. — Marchesk

Oh? So stop equivocating, then.

Equivocating about what? I noted that Europeans have considered themselves to belong to different groups over time. You said that didn't have anything to do with race being a social construction. It appears you and TGW think that the entire European continent belongs to an objectively real racial category, one discoverable by science.

Yes, the European continent is objectively real. Hahahahaah

Equivocating about what? — Marchesk

What the word white refers to.

It appears you and TGW think that the entire European continent belongs to an objectively real category, one discoverable by science. — Marchesk

:-O

Shame is an important motivating force in the world today. I think it's a (post-)Christian thing.

Sure, I amended my wording. Although, you admitted continents were somewhat arbitrary divisions, but they can be admitted into science nevertheless.

I have to wonder though, considering your past posting history on metaphysics. Do you believe anything is objectively real?

Ooh, now a red herring? I think we can declare victory. Going to bed.

Enjoy your pyrrhic victory.

pyrrhic — Marchesk

But I haven't suffered any loss.

Which chunk of land you consider a continent is arbitrary. But the continents themselves are obviously not. You could have considered Europe three continents, or half of one, if you wanted – but Europe would have been there all the same.

I haven't really given hard thought to metaphysics in a while. I have Gnostic sympathies.

No, they don't. They describe horrors and wrongs which "white (the ethnic identity of the last few hundred years, as opposed to someone skin color)" people have enacted upon the world. To simply be "white" isn't to do anything wrong. Sure, it means to have racial advantage in the West, but that's not any sort of (un)ethical act a person performs.

I talk about the Enlightenment eating itself becasue post-modernism isn't really "relativistic." Rather it is concerned with the objectivity of our relationships as subjects. The same concerns: knowledge, reason, social improvement, individual freedom, which drove the Enlightenment also drive post-modernism-- it was born in realising the narrative of the liberal enlightenment (the free everyman individual) was not happening for many people.

If we are to value reasons and knowledge above all else, the Enlightenment was always going to dissolve into post-modernism because the universal is an inadequate description. People are always distinct. The "Enlightenment spirit," the universal story, cannot be maintained unless we abandon knowledge and reason when it comes to describing the individual. Without this ignorance of distinction, the world dissolves into an array of objective subjectivities.

hich chunk of land you consider a continent is arbitrary. But the continents themselves are obviously not. You could have considered Europe three continents, or half of one, if you wanted – but Europe would have been there all the same. — The Great Whatever

So would have Eurasia, which relates to the point of arbitrary categorizations, although I think land masses are a bit less arbitrary than super ethnic groups.

Now I'm curious if all ethnic groups of European descent are actually more closely related than obviously different ones in Asia (to one another).

To simply be "white" isn't to do anything wrong. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Good. I have no further issue with you on this point.

Seems the same to me. The use-mention distinction is a first test of decent philosophy, IMO, and failure to grasp it is the start of a lot of bad thinking. That you can call things "X" instead of "Y" doesn't mean that they just as easily could have been non-X's if you had done so. That's not how it works.

Good. I have no further issue with you on this point. — Thorongil

It's not about being of European descent or a light skin pigment. It's about the concepts of whiteness, blackness, yellowness, etc that we inherited from a very discriminatory period of time.

It depends on what we are talking about. The idea of being white is a fuzzy notion that can be extended or retracted to included various groups and even individuals. Notice how people can be accused of acting white or black, or being uncle toms or whiggers. That's not about European or African descent. The Irish and Italians weren't originally considered white. Neither were Eastern Europeans. Jews have often been left off. I wouldn't be surprised if the English or Northern Europeans didn't start out thinking only they were truly white.

Aaand it's back to equivocating. I think you may be a lost cause.

What is the cause? Convert me back to proper belief in the reality of whiteness?

Again, this doesn't strike me as interesting. The confusion of what words are used for what things, and what those things are, is a pedestrian one.

Since I apparently love equivocating so, let's say this white racial category had played out between the Northern and Southern Europeans. Would we still say that it's objectively true that Northern Europeans are white, and Southern Europeans are black? Or would we understand that "white" and "black" are just social constructs?

Again, this doesn't strike me as interesting. The confusion of what words are used for what words are used for what things, and what those things are, is a pedestrian one. — The Great Whatever

Sure if it's just a word game and has no social implications, like who gets favored treatment in a society, and who gets looked down on, based on skin color.

Or let's say, aliens show up, and they've taken human form to make colonization easier on us, but they don't have any pigment in their skin, because maybe they prefer really cold climates, or they don't like going outdoors.

Will we still consider Europeans to be white? What if the aliens want to call themselves white, and insist that Europeans are really pinkish? Furthermore, since the true white aliens are technologically superior, and get to lord it over us, all sorts of notions are attached to being truly white, as opposed to less nice notions of being pinkish.

Is that not a social construction by the aliens, forced on us?

But the point here is it doesn't. In the situation I was pointing out, "European heritage" or "white" is a social identity category. The one of the various European societies who came to dominate the globe in the last few centuries. It doesn't mean "my ancestors were European." It means: "I am of the ethic group which colonised the world between the 16th and 21st century." — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is an extremely tendentious usage. One has to go out of one's way to think that more than a handful of your friends use "white" in that way.

When I say "I am white" I definitely do not denote the meaning ""I am of the ethic group which colonised the world between the 16th and 21st century."" I mean that my ancestors came from Britain. The ruling class of Britain colonized the world, not the peasants of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or England, for Christ's sake. My ancestors were not ruling class, either -- not in Britain and not in the US.

It is true that some non-ruling class subjects of the various colonizing crowns of Europe served in their majesties' armed forces (willingly or not) and were sent hither and thither to back up the colonial forces. Most of them didn't have much choice in that service. For the most part, the shat upon in Britain were not a lot better off than the shat upon in Nigeria or India.

Your usage of the word white (and the meaning you load into it) is as lazy and stereotypical as you think racist language is.

I remember a class discussion back in college involving Edward Said's Orientalism that I found interesting. Predictably, it pertained to Western colonialism and oppression - specifically in the Middle East in this case - being prepared by historians, novelists and other intellectuals who served as some sort of vanguard for the later military, political, social and economic domination of the region. The inhabitants of the area were depicted as lazy, sensual, undisciplined etc. and juxtaposed to the rational, orderly and elevated French and English who would eventually serve as their overlords. It was this intellectual 'essentializing' of the 'other' which paved the way for the actual physical subjection which occurred later.

After weeks of learning that this essentializing was not based upon the 'objective' search for truth (there is no such thing) but was instead entirely in the service of power, I told the teacher that it seemed like Mr. Said was doing precisely what he accused others of doing: essentializing Europeans as greedy, self-serving, deceitful and just plain evil.

His response to my naïve comment/inquiry, after months of telling us how identities were not grounded in reality but were 100% social constructs: 'Well, aren't they?'

I wasn't satisfied with his response but didn't press further on whether he felt identities were drawn from actual facts (or at least interpretations of facts) or were complete fictions guided by nothing more than power interests. Seemed like he wanted it both ways for some reason; complaining incessantly about the injustice of European hierarchies and domination while simultaneously perpetuating his own sort of inverted hierarchy with its own type of essentializing. Reminds me of Nietzsche's take on the successful Christian inversion of Greco-Roman values in the world of antiquity.

Anyhow apologies for that irrelevancy. I'm finding this discussion very interesting too and don't have a settled opinion on the matter.

When People say:
I am Han Chinese
I am North African
I am Native American
I am European
I am South American
I am Arabian
I am Russian
I am Norwegian
I am East African
I am yellow, black, white, red, brown, beige...
I am -- any number of geographically located adjectives -- they generally are identifying as something that is good in their experience.

We derive our meaning as persons from many layers of experience, including religion, language, race, ethnicity, diet, altitude (sea side to alpine), landscape, education, music, and a few dozen other factors. If people want to claim that one of their layers is race, I think they are entitled to that, and they are entitled to think positively about it.

I would not appreciate you, WOD, or anybody else telling me that my religion, diet, clothing (or lack thereof), sports, or anything else -- including race and ethnicity -- were actually negative factors that I should apologize for or remain silent about. I would be inclined to invite you to go fuck yourself in some politically incorrect way.

Some people say "I am Black and Proud" because they are or wish to be. Their ancestors may have been a slave, they may be the progeny of a white slave owner somewhere along the line. They may have been a poor sharecropper; they may have been in jail; they may have been screwed by every guy in the cell block; they may be illiterate; but they now claim Proud Black Man because that is how they think of themselves, and perhaps that pride came at a high price. Who are you to say "Well, that's not what black means!"

If the OED and Google Ngram are at all accurate, then nobody though of themselves as "white" until January 1, 1800. They thought they were Swedish, Welsh, Sicilian, Greek, if that.

To simply be "white" isn't to do anything wrong. Sure, it means to have racial advantage in the West — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, it doesn't.