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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhiteness Is a Pandemic
I dont have much to add here today that hasnt already been said.
Whiteness is a public health crisis. It shortens life expectancies, it pollutes air, it constricts equilibrium, it devastates forests, it melts ice caps, it sparks (and funds) wars, it flattens dialects, it infests consciousnesses, and it kills peoplewhite people and people who are not white, my mom included. There will be people who die, in 2050, because of white supremacy-induced decisions from 1850.
A line can and should be drawn from the actions of the white supremacist who walked into three Atlanta-area massage parlors yesterday, and allegedly killed eight peoplesix of whom were of Asian descentto the relentless anti-Asian rhetoric pollinating national discourse over the past year. The former president, and the party of the former president, can and should be blamed for this and the sudden increase of racist violence against Asian Americans. The line doesnt stop there, though. It extends back 400 years and has tentacles clawing everywhere white supremacy exists here, in America, which is everywhere.
Theres a line connecting this act of terror to the 11 people killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, and the nine people killed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015, of course. But also to gentrification, to red-lining, to racial profiling, to gerrymandering, to voter oppression, to mass incarceration, to the war on drugs, to the subprime mortgage crisis, to the vast disparities in both COVID deaths and who receives COVID vaccinations, to how the men and women who stormed the capitol just went home and had dinner with their families afterward. While we were still processing and recovering from what we witnessed, they were already back on their couches, watching Criminal Minds.
White supremacy is a virus that, like other viruses, will not die until there are no bodies left for it to infect. Which means the only way to stop it is to locate it, isolate it, extract it, and kill it. I guess a vaccine could work, too. But weve had 400 years to develop one, so I wont hold my breath.
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/whiteness-is-a-pandemic-1846494770
ck4829
(35,038 posts)As in 21 year old white man shoots up a place - He suddenly becomes mentally ill and a kid.
Mr. Scorpio
(73,630 posts)cayugafalls
(5,639 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)ismnotwasm
(41,965 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)doesn't erase smearing all white people as a plague on mankind.
ismnotwasm
(41,965 posts)In that social structure reverse racism cant exist. White colonialism is a fucking plague on mankind. White people are just people, when theyre not being poisoned by the toxicity of whiteness.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)because whites are nearly 3/4 of the populace including white Hispanics. BUT, our social structures and power structures are multiracial even if power is not equally distributed between populations of vastly differing numbers.
I repeat, the outrage would leap off the screen if anyone likened AA or any other minority to a disease, something vicious racists always do. The step before in toxicity is to characterize a people as disease carriers, then move to calling them a disease.
Since the next step is to call for eradication, everyone should be able to understand why social scientists see likening races to diseases as signaling extremely bad attitude.
Nothing any enlightened person should tolerate.
misanthrope
(7,408 posts)to rid the world of whiteness. Someone has to have a final solution, right?
ismnotwasm
(41,965 posts)Treefrog
(4,170 posts)It was obvious immediately to me where that article came from.
Mr. Scorpio
(73,630 posts)Asking such a question is practically unfathomable for most of white America. Instead, a standard response would be to disregard the fact that one's own racial group identity many times trumps ones own individuality. But the fact is that being white in America really means that you have no imperative to consider ones own whiteness in regards to anything.
However, we're actually a nation founded on white supremacy, and that has always made it the default to one degree or another. America is a country where resistance against white supremacy has primary fallen on those most victimized by it and who have no direct power over it. Where our primary tool to demolish it is to plead on the mostly deaf ears of the white majority.
White people in this country have to make an active effort to exercise self-awareness of their own whiteness and what that actually entails and to not be white supremacist, whether consciously or unconsciously.
White America could simply choose to abolish white supremacy, however it has yet come to the consensus to not take a path of least resistance. In the interim, frankly, I feel that, since white supremacy has always been so prevailing, expecting white people to actively abolish would be akin to asking human beings to stop breathing air and breath water instead. But until this universal pivot is made, we are all left with the consequences of living under the default of whiteness as defined by white supremacist ideals.
And as we have seen time and time again, these are consequences where the resistance against abolishing white supremacy usually embodies some level of violence.
As long as the oppression of white supremacy exists, good people cannot remain silent about it.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)created it and benefit from it. It takes conscious effort, beyond just not calling someone the n-word or having Black friends. It takes hard work and sacrifice. White supremacy is a killer. Acknowledging that is not racist.
Goodheart
(5,308 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)EndlessWire
(6,455 posts)Racism is a two-way street. I found it very offensive.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)not a two-way street.
EndlessWire
(6,455 posts)If you think POC can't be racist, you are naive.
"Whiteness is a public health crisis..." What a racist thing to say. I am white, and I am offended by the quoted article. And, Hortensis nailed it dead on.
If we don't stick together, nothing can be accomplished. Replacing one type with another is fruitless. And your cute ass nitpicking is annoying.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Dr. Strange
(25,916 posts)Provided you allow the option of white supremacy being an active choice, as opposed to being a passive thing. There's a danger in "essentializing" things like white supremacy and racism. Saying things like all white people are racist trivializes white supremacy and racism. When I was a kid, racism was considered bad: you could make racist choices, but doing so was considered a character flaw.
But some have turned it into this passive thing. Being racist is no different from being gay or trans. It's just an immutable characteristic, for which there is no conversion therapy. This strikes me as pretty dangerous.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)supremacy -- anti-racist -- is the choice. And for many, many white people, it's a difficult choice to dismantle the very thing they benefit from. You see it here on this very thread.
WarGamer
(12,354 posts)Many are 100% bigoted.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I s'pose we all have anecdotes we interpret in such a way as to better serve our own narratives. 100%.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Geez, this is dumb. How is this going to help anything?
How come Covid and other bad things happen all over the world?
People are being arrested and prosecuted for January 6!
And there have been mass shootings carried out by nonwhite people! That is more complex than skin color.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Crunchy Frog
(26,578 posts)I'm sure that the world would become a utopia if that happened because ONLY white people ever behave badly.
Nexus2
(1,261 posts)as has been tragically illustrated recently.
AZProgressive
(29,322 posts)My comment is strictly focusing on gun homicides and there are some things that are consistent when it comes to the issue.
------
Ninety-seven percent of mass shooters are male.(www.statista.com) The overwhelming majority are white.(www.statista.com) Beyond that, mass shooters share weaker links. They have beliefs ranging from misogyny(www.researchgate.net) to white supremacy. Some are seeking revenge. Many have a history of domestic violence.(www.vox.com
https://www.aafp.org/news/blogs/freshperspectives/entry/20190918fp-massshootings.html
milestogo
(16,829 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)EndlessWire
(6,455 posts)That's a really offensive remark. You're not helping anything.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Goodheart
(5,308 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Whiteness, upon a time, did not include Palatine Germans (Ben Franklin referred to them as 'swarthy'), Irish (go look at a Thomas Nast cartoon from Harper's Weekly; Irish were depicted as bestial, simian, and barely human), Italians, Jews, etc.
Goodheart
(5,308 posts)"White supremacy" is a term we can agree upon. "White privilege", as well. But, obviously, once embraced by white people as appropriate they lost their shock value for this particular Mr. Young. It's being white, itself, that appalls him. And if that's not what he means then he needs to find other language that doesn't say so. Just as "dryness" means the state of being dry, just as "blackness" means the state of being black, "whiteness" means the state of being white. Already, "white supremacy" and "white privilege" together embraced EVERYTHING Mr. Young wished to convey, but that wasn't his true goal, now was it? That wasn't enough for him. His primary aim was to shock. And I'm not having it.
Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)Lets get with the program.
just kidding .
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)"being white" and "whiteness."
Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)Given your knowledge of race you would have no problem
if we used the term being black and blackness?
I assume thats no problem with you.
You cant have it both ways.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)tonedevil
(3,022 posts)Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)Help me out, you give it a shot.
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)hoping they might by chance make sense. Now it is confirmed.
Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)nt
EndlessWire
(6,455 posts)roamer65
(36,744 posts)Enslaved Africans as a labor force after 90 percent of Native Americans were killed via our imported viruses and the slaughters.
I have no retort to his article, because it is true.
mountain grammy
(26,598 posts)White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy... Chris Rock
https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/12/1/7313467/chris-rock-interview
Also.. "Let's hope America keeps producing nicer white people."
misanthrope
(7,408 posts)Homo sapiens. They do it. Because humans like to burn things and have for many tens of thousands of years.
Every continent where homo sapiens goes, they make an environmental impact, often to the point of widespread damage or destruction. Without exception.
It has nothing to do with any of the specious "racial" markers humans delude themselves with, or their level of technological achievement. Humans unleash carbon. That carbon is warming the planet.
EndlessWire
(6,455 posts)tonedevil
(3,022 posts)Goodheart
(5,308 posts)Raine
(30,540 posts)Crunchy Frog
(26,578 posts)misanthrope
(7,408 posts)More of this, please
Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)If you read it that way, you read it wrong.
Get offended, doesn't change anything. You read it wrong.
Sputtering but, but, but he said... won't change it either.
You read it wrong.
You probably also read it without understanding what is meant by the concept of "whiteness".
And maybe he should have spelled that out for people but he was speaking to an audience that already knows what is meant by the concept of "whiteness".
The concept of "whiteness" was defined by white supremacy.
White privilege is the child of white supremacy. So if you understand white privilege exist, and many on this board make that claim - then you also understand that your white privilege comes from white supremacy and the racist ideas of what defines "whiteness" in a society dominated by white people who constructed laws, rules, regulations, socio-economic classes, concepts of beauty, ideas about everything from intelligence to how strong a person is to how clean they are to what diseases they carry - to whether or not they were free or enslaved.
An entire "culture" based on racist thinking. An entire society structured on racist thinking.
That white made right. That white was superior. That white set the standard for beauty. That white set the standard for how to apply laws - and who gets those benefits. White set the standard for civil rights - who got to vote. Who received an education. Who got to live free or who got to live in chains.
That is what is meant by the concept of "whiteness". That white skin alone meant better, deserving, human.
White people can reject the concept of "whiteness" as it is applied to them by the same white society that constructed its own supremacy based on their white skin - by rejecting white supremacy. By acknowledging the white privilege that is the direct result of white supremacy. That is the direct result of the concept of "whiteness" and "whiteness" was defined by the racist thinking of white people.
Damon Young plainly states white supremacy kills white people too. And it does. Especially poor white people. MLK understood it. Hence his poor people campaign.
Damon Young plainly states a few of the ills caused by thinking "whiteness" means superior/better/human - "gentrification, to red-lining, to racial profiling, to gerrymandering, to voter oppression, to mass incarceration, to the war on drugs, to the subprime mortgage crisis, to the vast disparities in both COVID deaths and who receives COVID vaccinations, to how the men and women who stormed the capitol just went home and had dinner with their families afterward."
It was exactly their sense of "whiteness" that made the insurrectionists think they could storm the Capitol and then just go home, like they didn't do anything wrong. To celebrate and brag about their illegal actions.
Recall the video where the white woman was shocked the police pushed back on them with pepper spray saying, They - the police - aren't supposed to do that to them - she said the police were supposed to treat Black Lives Matter that way instead.
That's nothing but embracing the concept of "whiteness". That your white skin somehow meant the laws didn't apply to you. That police were not supposed to bother you no matter what you're doing because, golly, you're white and white means right in America.
Damon Young isn't saying death to white people when he writes - "White supremacy is a virus that, like other viruses, will not die until there are no bodies left for it to infect."
Because, simply, and something you'd think would be obvious - white people don't have to embrace white supremacy. They can reject the concept of the racist construct of "whiteness". And if you reject racism and all it has spawned, you are a body the virus of white supremacy can't infect.
You become one less body to catch the disease.
White people can inoculate themselves against white supremacy.
He is not saying reject being white people. He is saying reject the racist ideas of what "whiteness" means.
DUer ismnotwasm posted a link explaining what is meant by "whiteness".
Maybe that will help people understand what is being said better.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)I'm still so angry over the latest round of deaths by racism and ignorance that I have kept my comments limited to K&R and some quick words. (and some of the comments made about the deaths/victims)
I'm afraid of what I might say.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Goodheart
(5,308 posts)But I've got something even more valuable: if you don't want to offend by language then don't use offensive language.
If I were, for example, to define in my own particular community of understanding that "blackness" means everything beautiful about black people... intelligence, strength, creativity, beauty.... and then I advanced that term outside of my own circle, even when I meant to admire rather than to insult, a great many people would take offense. And you know it.
"White supremacy" is totally acceptable. "Whiteness" is not and never will be, despite your spin.
Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)Goodheart
(5,308 posts)Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)are always...er...correct. And a special kind of adorable.
LMAO
Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)Do people who dictate to WHITE people get to say what is and isn't acceptable ?
Do people who dictate to ASIAN people get to say what is and isn't acceptable ?
Do people who dictate to HISPANIC people get to say what is and isn't acceptable ?
Do people who dictate to NATIVE AMERICANS people get to say what is and isn't acceptable ?
And does the author of the OP get to dictate to WHITE people what is and isn't acceptable ?
Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)And he sees a difference between whiteness and white skin.
Because when you look at America's history you see all the evidence of how people with white skin defined their whiteness.
They defined it as being supreme/superior.
That's why slavery. That's why Black Codes. That's why Jim Crow. And the list goes on. Because being white, their whiteness, was defined as being better than black people, Asian people, Hispanics/Latinos. etc..
That's why laws against the Chinese.
That's why the attacks on Hispanics/Latinos.
That's why the racist attitudes against everyone not white.
Because people with white skin defined whiteness as being better than everyone else. They defined their whiteness as white supremacy - because of their racism.
And the years and years of whiteness acting on that definition - a definition white people gave to themselves by claiming to be superior (as evidenced by all the racist laws and well, hello - slavery) - has shaped America. Has shaped everything about America.
No one should be dictating to minorities how they perceive or feel about the racism against them.
Damon Young was not being racist against white people.
Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Inaccurate inference or bias?
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)Mr. Scorpio
(73,630 posts)Solly Mack
(90,758 posts)like the 3/5ths Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Act, slavery in and of itself, assorted Jim Crow laws, and The Black Codes (to name a few) that never once, while these racist laws were being discussed, voted on, and implemented, that not one single time did racist thinking about what white skin means (or whiteness) ever came up or played into the laws being passed. As well as the thinking behind the laws being passed.
That not once did white people's racist definition of what it means to be black (or native, or Asian, or brown or anything but white) never ever came up.
From some remarks, you would think that the whiteness of the oppressors was merely an accident of circumstance and had no bearing on how people of color were treated.
I guess the Anti-Coolie Act of 1862 (they actually called it that), the Page Act of 1875, the Chinese Exclusion Act had no basis in how white people saw themselves or how they saw and how they defined what it meant to be Chinese. Nah. They were just angry. That's it. Racism had nothing to do with it.
You would get the impression that the racist ideology of white superiority/supremacy was based on something other than having white skin and the racist definition of what whiteness meant during 400 plus years of slavery. And into the present.
The one poster who said whiteness is a phenotype is factually correct - but I don't think John Calhoun was thinking - You know, my whiteness is just a phenotype - when he was oppressing black people by defending slavery.
White supremacy, which ruled America for hundreds of years, and still causes damage, did not see their white skin that way. They defined their whiteness as superior. As evidenced by America's history of mistreatment, abuse, discrimination, and oppression of everyone not white.
I don't think the KKK and non-affiliated white people were thinking it (whiteness is a phenotype) while lynching black people and burning them out. Or falsely accusing them of rape or talking to a white woman, or attacking black people for not getting out of the way in time when a white person walked by, or refusing to sell homes or rent to black people, or not hiring black people for jobs, or forcing black people into substandard education by refusing them current books and equal money. Or with Poll Taxes, literacy tests, and all forms of voter suppression - both past and present.
I don't think white people were thinking my skin is just a phenotype, nothing more, when they were pushing "separate but equal".
I don't think they were thinking it when they attacked black students for trying to go to school during integration.
I don't think those "white" and "colored" water fountains were indicative of a society where white people saw themselves as the same as black people - that white skin and black skin, both the exact same phenotype, were equal.
I don't think the U.S. government was thinking it when they implemented racist laws.
They were thinking that their white skin made them better than everyone else. That their society would be/ and was built on the idea that whiteness meant supremacy over everyone else.
The long racist history of whiteness being defined just that way in America can't be denied - there is simply too much evidence.
Sure, change has happened. Sure, some people are better informed. But that doesn't change how the racist ideas of what whiteness means has impacted and continues to impact how life in America is for everyone not white.
electric_blue68
(14,818 posts)Whiteness as the end all, and be all Construct is what "lowers" (which shouldn't be true) everyone else and the the blocks, restrictions that result from that both broad, and subtle are nearly endless as you, and Young have pointed out.
If like the parable of the seed -
As a parent if your child is inoculated with anti racism they are far less likely to have these seeds of racism to sprout, and florrish in them.
Celerity
(43,096 posts)Bonx
(2,051 posts)Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)Imagine if someone said.............._______ is a public health crisis..(fill in the blank)
Sorry..i dont feel guilty because im white. its an accident of birth.
im not a racist, i dont hurt anyone.
white guilt is bulls**t.
Are there a few bad whites...yes
Are there a few bad ____ people...yes
this post is racist....not the poster...the post.
Raine
(30,540 posts)if this post called out any other color it would have been immediately removed!
Mr. Scorpio
(73,630 posts)It's not a unique perspective in the least.
https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com
hunter
(38,302 posts)Yes, it was complicated.
Response to Mr. Scorpio (Original post)
BannonsLiver This message was self-deleted by its author.
Calculating
(2,955 posts)Yeah, I'm sure if all white people disappeared the world would be a paradise...not.
Rustyeye77
(2,736 posts)Only white people seem to be guilty.
i dont like this thread.
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)white supremacy?
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Mr. Scorpio
(73,630 posts)ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)No one is expecting anyone to feel guilty for being white. You are being expected to acknowledge that our society was built upon the supremacy of a white European heritage and do what you can to dismantle that legacy because it HARMS people.
Mr. Scorpio
(73,630 posts)electric_blue68
(14,818 posts)How can some of you not get this?
1/6 was all out there to be seen at some of it's worse.
And all the followed before that these past 5 years.
How do you ignore the list of laws, actions cited that effect black people and POC every day?
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)gulliver
(13,168 posts)betsuni
(25,376 posts)Goodheart
(5,308 posts)"White supremacy" and "white privilege", while still valid terms of actual conditions, have lost their shock value. Using those terms in a new essay probably would not have even been read, because we've all accepted the notions.
Mr. Young had to use offensive language to get noticed.
Response to Mr. Scorpio (Original post)
Donkees This message was self-deleted by its author.
Sugarcoated
(7,716 posts)Goodheart
(5,308 posts)If Mr. Young were truly interested in persuading people over to an accurate view of white supremacist history he wouldn't try to bludgeon them with language. But his true goals, obviously, are to garner attention with shock value (well done on that score) and to let off some steam, to which he's perfectly entitled.
His language is racist, and is no better than if a white person were to use "blackness" in a an essay of his own.
BGBD
(3,282 posts)in those two articles of course would be the the "blackness" article would be roundly condemned on this and other sites, the author would lose their job, and the publisher would lose all of their sponsors.
It's very clear there is a group of people here who are only against certain kinds of racism.
Raine
(30,540 posts)BGBD
(3,282 posts)some decisively not white countries that contribute mightily to things like pollution and deforestation. War? Please, show the the race of people who hasn't spent a significant part of the last 500 years killing each other.
It's kind of amazing that things like this can be posted on this site...and then the same people who post them loudly wonder why Democrats have trouble attracting white votes.
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)brings out the Whiteness in DU like OxiClean in the laundry.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)BGBD
(3,282 posts)But change one word in the article and it would fit on the Daily Stormer.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Because if it's just one word, then the rest of the article doesn't make sense, because whiteness is definitely the issue.
Response to WhiskeyGrinder (Reply #95)
Post removed
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Acknowledging that is not racist.
BGBD
(3,282 posts)When it dehumanizes a race of people. Comparing people to viruses has been done before, with terrible consequences.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)BGBD
(3,282 posts)should find a better word. "whiteness" sure sounds like "being white" to most people.
tonedevil
(3,022 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,307 posts)Calista241
(5,586 posts)They have 4x as many coal fired power plants as the US does. China has 56 of the top 100 most polluted cities in the world. China has 2x the CO2 emissions as the US. Ten of the top 11 most polluted cities in the world are in India. The top 'white city' on the list (any city in Europe, the US or Canada) is Godow in Poland at number 371. The US doesn't have a city listed in the top 500 most polluted cities.
In the 20th Century, 10 million people were killed in various ethnic wars across Africa. There are, right now, 9 major wars being fought in Africa between various combatants, and millions of lives have been lost.
Various countries in Asia are currently in a state of conflict with 5 major wars / conflicts being fought.
I sympathize with this author, and white supremacy is definitely a major problem that needs to be addressed on a world wide basis. However, white people and whiteness, even white supremacy, is not responsible for all of the world's ills.
LeftInTX
(25,125 posts)And it isn't just white supremacists.
Just being pale is a pandemic...Skin cancer, osteoporosis, brittle teeth, pale skin etc..
I'm just glad, I'm not albino.....
Mosby
(16,258 posts)Interesting who's not on the list. It's common to think that racism/bigotry is mainly a western problem of white supremacy, but that's not the case at all.
https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/116644/the-most-racist-countries-in-the-world/amp/