Does the US have a strange concept of race or what?

[RadioRaheem84]

I have never even read about this type of thinking in Apartheid South Africa before.

I cannot believe I got into an argument with a confused teen about how basketball players Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobili, and Memet Okur are actually "white".

He asked me to name some of the best white players in the NBA today and I named several along with the three listed above. The teen (shouldn't say teen, he was really 19), said that three listed did not count because one was Argentinean, the other Spanish and the last Turkish.

I was floored. I asked him to identify what he considered white and he pointed out that white = middle class blonde haired blue eyed all American. That is paraphrasing what he said but for the most part it's what he defined.

I am not trying to sound like one of those white ethnic guys that gets all upset when ignorant American leave their fellow countrymen out of the "white" category (we've all met those types), but I am concerned at the narrowness in which White Americans, heck all Americans in general of all colors, view "white".

It's a politically charged class based term that comes with a certain cultural connotation and attitude. To be white in the States is to be, "plain", non-ethnic and all American (meaning fully assimilated to the culture, speaking only one language; English).

It's really, really weird and a testament to the level of mis-education and misinformation in our society. Something that is quite dangerous in fostering a sense of Anglo-American superiority.

On a side note did anyone catch White Miami Cuban Rick Sanchez play the race card in his anti-semitic rant?

[Barry Lyndon]

On a side note did anyone catch White Miami Cuban Rick Sanchez play the race card in his anti-semitic rant?

No, but it doesn't surprise me at all. The right-wing Cubans I have met are pretty much always white, with their resentment towards the Cuban Revolution being transparently about "those people"(brown and black Cubans) benefiting from the redistribution of their families wealth. The same goes for the anti-socialist opposition in Venezuela.

The racialization of opposition to socialism, whether from the Tea Party bigots or neo-fascists in Latin America, is pretty fascinating.

[hatzel]

I had to do some research, because I'm not really into basketball...as most Brits :cool:

I agree, though, that's idiocy. I looked them up, and was expecting to see the Argentinian showing at least some hint of native ancestry, or the Turk looking slightly Middle Eastern. But no. So...well, I think that's just a fundamental confusion of 'white' and 'white American' or something. Crazy talk! You'd never here stuff like that in England. I guess here the right-wing types would say 'British', rather than white, and then accuse black people of not being British by their definition...but I guess that doesn't really work in America...

[Tavarisch_Mike]

I got this picture that in the U.S. "white" has much more to do with cultur and class, rather then ethnicity and to get in to the withe-club you must full fill a lot of criterions. First you must cant be just 50% white, like Barack Obama and Bruce Lee, second you cant be an immigrant (like the basketball example), third you must belong to the anglo saxian culture and last you must be at least middle class, this is important and why the term "White Trash" exist to describe the, white, lumpen proletariat too not belonging to the "White-Club".

[Fulanito de Tal]

To be white in the States is to be, "plain", non-ethnic and all American (meaning fully assimilated to the culture, speaking only one language; English).

I hate it when I go to a grocery store and they label an aisle "Ethnic". That really gets me pissed. Everything is ethnic, not just non-US food.

I think that white in the US stands for two things and this is where we get confused.

1) White race - people of predominantly European genes

2) White culture - people that have predominantly white US ethnicity

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I think the Freudian concept of narcissism of small differences does a lot to explain how people get into this position. The "Anglo-Saxon culture" as the basis of the imperial American identity is interesting because in this day and age most Americans do not really have "anglo-saxon" ancestry, but that is the dominating standard and everything else is regarded with suspicion, which explains why non-English immigrants often anglicize their names, because if your name ends in -aldi, -zetti, -ski, -stein, or -berg, racist Americans will interpret your identity differently and treat you worse than if it ends in -son, -ton, Smith, or something like that. From things like what this person was claiming to you, we can see that whiteness is 100% a social construct. When explaining their concept of race, racists usually start out with phenotypic differences, because after all the word "white" is an observation on skin tone, but when it becomes apparent that white skin exists outside of the "anglo-saxon" self-monitoring group, they will fall back on narcissistic patterns of differentiation. Whiteness then becomes a way of saying, "I am better than you." For those who wish to be upwardly mobile in American society, it is necessary to become "white" whether that is by speaking with a bourgeois accent, converting to some evangelical christian bullshit, wearing suits, or downplaying any "foreign" aspects of your heritage; there is a massive pressure to assimilate to the Abercrombie & Fitch-esque, "all-American" aesthetic, because that is what is "normal."

To go further into the Abercrombie & Fitch example, I was once interviewed for employment in a stocking position in one of their stores, and the manager explained to me how their "all-natural, all-American aesthetic" meant that the hairstyles disallowed by the store for employees are the mohawk, mullet, and cornrows, obviously corresponding with anti-Native, anti-working class, and anti-Black sentiments, respectively. Fuck Abercrombie and Fitch!

[Nuvem]

I would say that here in America most of the illiterate masses consider White to be European only, but then most of them hate Europeans too.

In America "White" is a very narrow definition incorporating elements of racism, xenophobia and cultural bias which involves having a pale skin tone, being from the right country and behaving a generally mild-mannered "white" personality (white being an appropriate moniker since the cultural standard for being American is being a basically blank slate; sedated, never read more than 2-3 books independently in their entire lifetime (unless you count useless romance novels or cheesy stories about teenage girls and the struggles of puberty) (Oh my god, that was a parenthetical inside parenthesis. Now I'm doing it again. I'm going overboard with the parenthesis.), complete ignorance of and disregard for all non-American cultures and a distinctly objective standpoint on cultural and social relations). Of course, all of this is a generalization and certainly doesn't include all white Americans- just what I've observed as being pretty typical for white Americans living outside of the very large multicultural cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miama, etc. (But we all know what's in Miami: Los gusanos. )

[Il Medico]

Americans do have a strange concept of 'white', it is almost ever expanding. Way back when, you pretty much had to be WASP to be considered white here. Even Irish Catholics were left out. As immigrant groups assimilated, then were brought into the fold. Italian Americans are considered white now, when my grandmother was a kid, we were not. Also, the idea that if you com from a Spanish speaking country, your a separate 'race'. You'd think Americans realize that there are black Cubans and white Cubans and such. But for whatever reason we don't. It is strange indeed.

[L.A.P.]

America does have a pretty fucked up classification of race. I'm half Indian and it is hard to convince people that Indian people are caucasian but even if you do convince them that they still view "white" as european people only. Which doesn't really bother me as long as they know that european people aren't the only caucasians.

[Devrim]

I cannot believe I got into an argument with a confused teen about how basketball players Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobili, and Me[h]met Okur are actually "white".

I met him once. He comes from the same town as my ex-wife's parents live in. I had no idea who he was (I am not at all interested in Basketball), and somebody had to explain to me that he was mega famous.

Devrim

[Pretty Flaco]

Whenever people get grouped up by race somehow, I'm always grouped up with the "others" because I'm foreign.

It's weird; I'm Welsh and half Irish-Catholic.

[gorillafuck]

Whenever people get grouped up by race somehow, I'm always grouped up with the "others" because I'm foreign.

It's weird; I'm Welsh and half Irish-Catholic.
Wouldn't most people in the US perceive you as white, then?:confused:

[Sexy Red]

The same thing oddly doesn't apply to black people. Whether you're from Africa, South America or Ocenia and happen to be black, you're black. It's skin color, not race. Or you can call it subraces as we humans are a race as a whole.

[Pretty Flaco]

Wouldn't most people in the US perceive you as white, then?:confused:

Yes, but I'm also considered separate, at least where I live now.

I used to live in an area that was very immigrant heavy for one reason or another, but where I currently live it's different.

[HEAD ICE]

I met him once. He comes from the same town as my ex-wife's parents live in. I had no idea who he was (I am not at all interested in Basketball), and somebody had to explain to me that he was mega famous.

Devrim

I'm not contributing anything here but god damn this was a funny as fuck post.

[Ocean Seal]

Well no I have to disagree, generally in the United States the context for being white is being a non-hispanic/non-arab white. Eastern Europeans, however assimilated are considered white. And prejudice still does exist against white Hispanics and white Arabs at least in the United States. Although it is generally in the workplace/classroom because at the very least from looks it is difficult to tell apart a white Hispanic and a non-Hispanic white so its essentially less harassment from the police and others on the street. I'm a half indigenous half white Hispanic, but I look fairly white so this has generally been the case for me.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Well no I have to disagree, generally in the United States the context for being white is being a non-hispanic/non-arab white. Eastern Europeans, however assimilated are considered white.

Except for Russians. Notice that they are close to always portrayed as stiff, stupid, or the antagonists in movies and tv.

[RadioRaheem84]

My Russian friend does not consider himself white. Weird.

[gorillafuck]

Except for Russians. Notice that they are close to always portrayed as stiff, stupid, or the antagonists in movies and tv.
I haven't noticed Russians being portrayed as stupid, but it's true that they are almost every time portrayed as humorless or sinister (usually both).

[¿Que?]

I read just the first post, so I apologize if I repeat what someone's already said. Race is socially constructed. If your friend consider's Manu Ginobli white, then hey, more power to the both of them. I am from Argentina, and in fact I've never been considered (let alone treated as if) I was white ever since I set foot in this country...

I tend to have the slightest bit darker complexion than most Argentinians, and that I suspect gets magnified 100% when people realize I'm some sort of Spaniard.

[Fulanito de Tal]

I haven't noticed Russians being portrayed as stupid, but it's true that they are almost every time portrayed as humorless or sinister (usually both).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkB9OT2XVvA

[Devrim]

My Russian friend does not consider himself white. Weird.

There are a lot of Russians in Turkey. They are just so, so white.

Devrim

[Takanago]

I grew up in a small Alaskan town that was very racially homogeneous, and people there have a very odd concept of race. Because I am multi-racial (a mix of various western european and southeast asian ethnicities), people just labeled me as a generic "foreigner." It was very odd.

Though now that I'm out of there and in a different state, people now just initially peg me as "Eskimo".

[LC89]

America does has a very strange concept of race. This is my favorite one: "American is found by Europeans so you can only speak English (referring to no Spanish)"

But Spain is part of Europe...

[Obzervi]

I have never even read about this type of thinking in Apartheid South Africa before.

I cannot believe I got into an argument with a confused teen about how basketball players Pau Gasol, Manu Ginobili, and Memet Okur are actually "white".

He asked me to name some of the best white players in the NBA today and I named several along with the three listed above. The teen (shouldn't say teen, he was really 19), said that three listed did not count because one was Argentinean, the other Spanish and the last Turkish.

I was floored. I asked him to identify what he considered white and he pointed out that white = middle class blonde haired blue eyed all American. That is paraphrasing what he said but for the most part it's what he defined.

I am not trying to sound like one of those white ethnic guys that gets all upset when ignorant American leave their fellow countrymen out of the "white" category (we've all met those types), but I am concerned at the narrowness in which White Americans, heck all Americans in general of all colors, view "white".

It's a politically charged class based term that comes with a certain cultural connotation and attitude. To be white in the States is to be, "plain", non-ethnic and all American (meaning fully assimilated to the culture, speaking only one language; English).

It's really, really weird and a testament to the level of mis-education and misinformation in our society. Something that is quite dangerous in fostering a sense of Anglo-American superiority.

On a side note did anyone catch White Miami Cuban Rick Sanchez play the race card in his anti-semitic rant?

First of all, race is just a social construct, so the category of "white" is just that; a subjective social construct and has no bearing on reality. Judging from your post, it almost seems like you're bothered by the fact that you're not considered "white" by people. It seems like you want to be accepted into the special club, which is common amongst people of color. One example is how many Hispanics identified as "white" on the census, when in reality nobody in mainstream America would consider them so. They didn't want to mark the Indian box because they felt it was inferior. This is an example of self-racism which is caused by growing up in a white supremacist society.

The definition of "white" used to only include Anglo-Saxons, until it was broadened to include all Europeans. I don't feel that fighting to expand this category is the right thing, instead we should be fighting to deconstruct it entirely.

[TC]

Race is an inherently strange concept

[ellipsis]

Race is an inherently strange concept

You stole my post!

Race is a strange concept.

[Milk Sheikh]

First of all, race is just a social construct, so the category of "white" is just that; a subjective social construct and has no bearing on reality. Judging from your post, it almost seems like you're bothered by the fact that you're not considered "white" by people. It seems like you want to be accepted into the special club, which is common amongst people of color. One example is how many Hispanics identified as "white" on the census, when in reality nobody in mainstream America would consider them so. They didn't want to mark the Indian box because they felt it was inferior.

Good point, but this is true of all nonwhite people except perhaps Muslims; they seem to have some self-respect.

[syndicat]

it's strange because it has no objective basis. originally the race theory was concocted to justify mistreatment of various groups directed at non-Europeans by Europeans. in North America particularly against the indigenous and to justify enslaving Africans. but there is no actual genetic separation of the human species into "races." so the boundaries of supposed "races" (such as "Caucasian"....a complete fiction) can't be defined.

so being "white" was about deserving equal treatment. and that has ended up being flexible. the census treats people as "white" depending on what they say. so it's about how people view themselves and how the see others viewing them. insofar as it has any objectivity at all, it seems to be people who are entirely of European ancestry....but white (i.e. Euro) Hispanics/Latinos are often treated differently, as noted above.

originally the word "white" was used to refer to Anglo-Saxons. there's a hilarious quote from Benjamin Franklin from 1750 in which he says Germans aren't "white."

[ellipsis]

originally the word "white" was used to refer to Anglo-Saxons. there's a hilarious quote from Benjamin Franklin from 1750 in which he says Germans aren't "white."

like wise the irish were known as "the niggers of europe"

also quebecois soverigntists call themselves "Nègres blancs d'Amérique" or "the white niggers of america" , the title of one of their cannonical texts.
so yah like i said, race is a stupid idea, world round.

[scarletghoul]

In the USA there is a race called the 'hispanics', which is defined entirely by language. Why can some americans not accept that race is a social construct, while at the same time believing in a linguistically defined race ?? It's really weird lol.

[Amphictyonis]

Anglo-Saxon Fetish.

[MAFA]

Wild discrepancies like this just illustrate how much race is merely a social construct as in the sticky on this page. Im from an irish family and was told by someone with arabic roots that that somehow made me 'not white'
I got the just of what was being implied (oppressed/oppressors etc) but still :confused:

[syndicat]

In the USA there is a race called the 'hispanics', which is defined entirely by language. Why can some americans not accept that race is a social construct, while at the same time believing in a linguistically defined race ?? It's really weird lol.


the government treatment of "Hispanic" is a bit strange. in the census Hispanic is not treated as the name of a race....because there are Hispanics of different races...black, white, etc. it's also not based on being able to actually speak Spanish. many Hispanics in the U.S. can't speak Spanish.

[Hiero]

I was floored. I asked him to identify what he considered white and he pointed out that white = middle class blonde haired blue eyed all American. That is paraphrasing what he said but for the most part it's what he defined.


You can look at races and being white as an accumulative processes. American born of obvious Ango-European background, fair complexion and middle class sets someone up as being White. For others they have to accumulate other signifers to signifer they are white. On the other side, thoose who are appear obvious;y "white" yet lack other signifers are deemed White but some retarded form, ie "White trash". Thoose who are white but deemed not worthy.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

In Cuba they had this unuasual difinition of whos black (sp.'negro') its not as simpel that people with very dark skin color are called black, no the haire has also "fit in" thats why some people that have a light skin color are considered to be 'Negros' but some with really dark color doesnt. Which (once again) show how made up race is specially when all Cubans is a mixture of different west-african people, spanish, morros, french, chinees and some mainland meztisos(very few).

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I haven't noticed Russians being portrayed as stupid, but it's true that they are almost every time portrayed as humorless or sinister (usually both).
Funny! My fiance is Russian-Polish and he has an unbeatable sense of humor.

[Burn A Flag]

Anglo-Saxon Fetish.


Are you referring to my school American History Textbook? :rolleyes:

No joke. It includes a quote about the "anglo-saxon spirit of fair play."

[ev]

Americans aren't real human beings, lets not kid ourselves.. Marx predicted that the American brand of capitalism would result in a degenerating affect on the species resulting in exhibit A:

http://thefoodfarce.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/fat-american.jpg
Exhibit A (socially the highest form of capitalism, individually the lowest form of Homo sapien - American/America)

[Political_Chucky]

I hate it when I go to a grocery store and they label an aisle "Ethnic". That really gets me pissed. Everything is ethnic, not just non-US food.

I think that white in the US stands for two things and this is where we get confused.

1) White race - people of predominantly European genes

2) White culture - people that have predominantly white US ethnicity
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3067/3108880614_509cc3589a.jpg
Yep! For some reason when ever I'm looking for my hair grease, which is used mostly by blacks but not exclusively, its always in the ethnic section. Its "seperated, but equal" in the same aisle of hair products and then I'm running around like a mad man trying to find it.


Americans aren't real human beings, lets not kid ourselves.. Marx predicted that the American brand of capitalism would result in a degenerating affect on the species resulting in exhibit A:

And thats the funny thing to me. The product of capitalism is that we have cheaper food(and by cheap I mean by the way its made and priced), yet fatter poor people.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1493098/why_poor_people_are_starving_and_getting.html

[ZeroNowhere]

Americans aren't real human beings, lets not kid ourselves.. Marx predicted that the American brand of capitalism would result in a degenerating affect on the species resulting in exhibit A:

http://thefoodfarce.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/fat-american.jpg
Exhibit A (socially the highest form of capitalism, individually the lowest form of Homo sapien - American/America)
Oh no, not fat people! :rolleyes:

[Kaze no Kae]

OP: to be honest, it might actually be a positive misconception, in that while it's almost universally accepted that racism is bad, so many people have difficulty accepting that other prejudices including xenophobia are as bad as racism, so basically this represents a back door to making xenophobia socially unacceptable in practice - something that would be much more difficult to do in Britain because as Krimskrams said the opposite misconception is far more common here.

[syndicat]

food that's cheap tends to be high in sugar and starch, like french fries at a fast food place, or sugary sodas. in the body dense carbs like that get stored in fat cells because the body can't use it as energy (unless someone's doing really a LOT of exercise).

[Political_Chucky]

food that's cheap tends to be high in sugar and starch, like french fries at a fast food place, or sugary sodas. in the body dense carbs like that get stored in fat cells because the body can't use it as energy (unless someone's doing really a LOT of exercise).

I would eat AmPm food everyday for my lunch break(Gas station food :\ lol) and I kept in average shape. I was 5'10 165-170 pounds usually. Once I got fired from my warehouse job, where I was an order puller for Petco picking up 50 pound bags of dog food for orders well over 4,000 pounds,
I blew up because I was still eating that crap but no more labor. I blew up like 40 pounds and now im trying to fend it off.

Thats the reprucussion of fast or cheap food. People who do have the money can buy tasty, yet nutritious food while us low level workers are left with crap. You CAN have a good nutritious diet for cheap, but its usually not the best tasting food in my opinion.

[Le Libérer]

Foods that are nutritious cost more money. CC Deville once said, he was discriminated against more for being overweight than when he abused drugs. Being fat is more unaccepted socially.

I spent $5 yesterday on a pint of strawberries. Fresh salmon costs me $8 a lb. I spent $13 on one meal, where as the same amount of money would have bought me 3 or 4 meals at McDonalds. Theres something terribly wrong with that.

[synthesis]

CC Deville once said, he was discriminated against more for being overweight than when he abused drugs.

I don't know if I agree with this (nor do I understand how this thread came to this topic of discussion) but perhaps this fellow was just very skilled at concealing his drug habit.

[Le Libérer]

I don't know if I agree with this (nor do I understand how this thread came to this topic of discussion) but perhaps this fellow was just very skilled at concealing his drug habit.
If you knew who CC was, you would know, he had a very serious drug problem, overcame it, and gained alot of weight. He found his weight gain to be more socially unacceptable. And in his line of work, doing drugs is very common where as their are very few overweight rockstars.

[synthesis]

If you knew who CC was, you would know, he had a very serious drug problem, overcame it, and gained alot of weight. He found his weight gain to be more socially unacceptable.

Oh, the guy from Motley Crue or Poison or something, right? It's just as likely he didn't just didn't notice it as much, because of the drugs, obviously. Of course there is a class element here as well - he could afford to not give a shit what other people thought of him and his hobbies.

[Le Libérer]

Oh, the guy from Motley Crue or Poison or something, right? It's just as likely he didn't just didn't notice it as much, because of the drugs, obviously. Of course there is a class element here as well - he could afford to not give a shit what other people thought of him and his hobbies.

Theres also a class element to being overweight in general. Its the under privileged who are chronically obese. Its a very real stigma. I would think CC was more concerned over being overweight because it made him feel less important.

[hatzel]

Theres also a class element to being overweight in general. Its the under privileged who are chronically obese. Its a very real stigma.

Who remembers when being fat and gout-ridden was still a sure-fire sign of one being a card-carrying member of the aristocracy? Ah, the good old days...


http://publicaffairs.uth.tmc.edu/hleader/gfx/2005art/gout.jpg

[hatzel]

...but to drag something back up from the last page and make an only slightly useful comment on it:



One example is how many Hispanics identified as "white" on the census, when in reality nobody in mainstream America would consider them so. They didn't want to mark the Indian box because they felt it was inferior. This is an example of self-racism which is caused by growing up in a white supremacist society.

A Mexican comrade may be able to confirm for you that there are many people in Mexico who would there be officially categorised as 'white' (because they do make a point of noting these things on...what was it I saw? A passport? ID card? Something like that...) who might not be considered quite white enough for Americans. I mean, relatively speaking, the Mexican 'whites' have paler skin than than the rest of the population, so it's fair to call themselves 'white', even though what is 'white' for Mexico clearly isn't as pale as the average 'white' individual in a white-majority state like America. If they are considered 'white' in Mexico, then there is no reason to believe that these people and their descendants may continue to see themselves as white, irrespective of what anybody else thinks, and as such it may not be as simple as merely claiming that it's some Hispanic desire to be considered 'white', or anything about self-racism.


Somebody mentioned Argentina before, which is a good example, too. Argentinian 'whites' actually are white. I mean, European white, as white as anything. I'm sure that Mexican 'whites' in Argentina would also be put in some other category, because comparatively-speaking, Argentinians are a lot whiter than Mexicans, across the board...from what I understand...that is to say, there's more 'native' in the Mexican gene-pool than there is in Argentina, for whatever reason. I don't know history, don't ask me. I might even just be making all this shit up, but I'm pretty sure I'm not...

[Political_Chucky]

Theres also a class element to being overweight in general. Its the under privileged who are chronically obese. Its a very real stigma. I would think CC was more concerned over being overweight because it made him feel less important.

You know, there IS a big connection with being extremely overweight and drug addiction. Science has proved that a percentage of overweight has a rise in dopamine levels in the brain when they are exposed to food, and has showed that the neurons that raise these dopamine levels are considerably smaller compared to the regular person. Drug addicts have the same effect, with smaller neurons, yet more work to raise their dopamine levels to regular. I think I worded this right, heres some articles.

http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2010/03/dopamine_and_obesity_the_food.php

http://www.edtreatmentcenters.com/food-addiction-symptoms.php