“How we became white people”, by Christian Lander… now on CNN.com…
PsyDip’s reaction…
Color-based & Power differential-based privilege:
The broader core issues
The broader core issues
PsyDip agrees with Christian Lander's "How we became white people" - a timely, "light-hearted" article on international race relations and assimilation in the United States - but PsyDip adds further important qualification. White immigrants to America have certainly had an easier acceptance rate in their quest to be considered prototypical Americans. This is historical fact (see, “How the Irish Became White”, by Noel Ignatiev). At the same time, there is a key addition to the story: the same dynamics of white assimilation in multi-racial America hold true with equal potential risk for other colors of people in other majority-minority, power-differential environments outside of America (and within a future Latino majority America) and will likely continue to hold true well into the future, unless and until skin color becomes as arbitrary in our minds as eye color. That is to say, when considering “boiled down” human nature and when methodologically controlling for which color is in the majority as well as which color is in the higher-powered societal position, what you find is that the issue is not the color of white per se, but rather same-color/culture affinity, magnified by power gaps.
The dimension of color, including white, is “merely” a marker that triggers the human mind to assume cultural affinity with the like color. Further, when that color is a learned marker for higher status, deference tendencies (or rebellion tendencies) are magnified, as a function of perceived potential risk or opportunity. If this were not fundamentally true about human nature, we would not see racial discrimination in non-white societies/cultures (we do). If this were not fundamentally true, we would be taking the racist position that some colors of humans are somehow genetically superior in their ability to overcome their own color-based and culture-based preconceptions, above other colors of humans. In short, no color of humans has been shown to be genetically superior at not being racist.
In fact, when we have observed racism and xenophobia in non-white societies such as in Japan and China, or between different groups not of Northern European origin in Near East Asia, Africa, and Latin America, etc., we have observed the same basic human nature to grant at least non-conscious favoritism to those of like color, especially to those of like color in higher-powered positions. We have observed these dynamics in the United States as more closely tied to whiteness primarily because of the fact that the United States was not only officially founded by whites of Northern European extraction, but also because the United States is the only country in the world that has become such a cutting edge, social experiment of multi-racial/cultural inter-mixing to this level of interaction and principled equality. This dynamic is underpinned by the historical fact that Europe’s ecology and history gave rise to its conquest of the world prior to the inverse (see “Guns, Germs, & Steel”, by Jared Diamond). In an alternate world, had Japan, for example, developed first and then conquered the New World first, it is myopic to think there would be no such thing as “Japanese or ‘yellow’ privilege” in America, were the majority and ruling population of America of Japanese descent. Certainly the atrocities of wartime Japan in the 1930s and 40s have given no hint to the contrary.
We have to learn not only about “white privilege”, but also about “color-based privilege” in general and “power differential-based privilege” in general. These deeper and broader phenomena put the onus more squarely and truthfully onto the basic pitfalls of human nature, as opposed to one manifestation of it. In this analysis, “color-based privilege” includes the color white and every other color of human being, past, present, and future. The notion of “white” versus “people of color” is actually a social construction, aimed at shoring up support for one or another group’s goals. We need only look at President Obama to see the product of a “white” parent and a “black” parent, and to note that technically his biological origin is 50% white and 50% black, were it not for the forces of social construction to the contrary. Scientifically, race has no such biologically-based demarcations to put “white” in one category and “of color” in another – rather human phenotypes run along multiple continua and their proportions are constantly in flux as a function of interbreeding (some scientists even think Homo sapiens carry some Neanderthal genes from long ago interbreeding: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0429/Study-suggests-humans-mated-with-Neanderthals).
If all white people never existed, or suddenly became extinct, or at least were relegated to the minority population and the lower economic class in the United States and in the world, clearly the challenges we humans as a species face with “color-based privilege” and “power differential-based privilege” would continue to persist. The challenges would exist among other colors of people, as a function of color polarization in society, vis-à-vis majority-minority population numbers and power differentials. If we ever hope to overcome tribalism in an ever-globalizing and ever-diversifying world, we need to come to grips with these basic facts about our nature as a species and to work toward gracefully overcoming them collectively, regardless of color. Given our common genetic propensities, it would seem then that the ways forward are primarily socio-cultural. That is, education, equal opportunity, and increased positive cross-racial, cross-cultural, and cross-class contact. We owe as much to our children and our children’s children.
Further reading on human skin color at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History...
http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/skin-color
An interesting study on children's racial beliefs, attitudes, and preferences...
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/05/13/expanded_results_methods_cnn.pdf
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