“The White Anti-Racist is an Oxymoron: An Open Letter to ‘White Anti-Racists’” by Tamara K. Nopper (published in Race Traitor and ChickenBones under the name Kil Ja Kim in 2003)
I received an annoying e-mail about white people and their struggle to do anti-racist work. I keep reading and hearing white people talk about their struggle to do anti- racist organizing, and frankly it gets on my nerves. So I am writing this open letter to white people who engage in any activist work that involves or affects non-whites. Given that the US social structure is founded on white supremacy, and that there is a global order in which white supremacy and European domination are at large, I would challenge any white person to figure out what movement or action they can get involved in that will not involve or affect non-white people.
That said, I want to begin with what has become a realization for me through the help of different politically conscious friends. There is NO SUCH THING AS A WHITE ANTI-RACIST. The term itself, ‘white anti-racist ́ is an oxymoron. In the following, I will explain why. Then, I will begin to detail how this impacts non-white people in organizing work specifically, along with how it affects non-white people generally.
First, one must realize that whiteness is a structure of domination. As such, there is nothing redeemable or reformed about whiteness. Intellectuals, scholars and activists, especially those who are non-white, have drawn our attention to this for years. For example, people such as Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Barbara Smith, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Ida B. Wells, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Frank Wilderson, Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton, and many, many others who are perhaps less famous, have articulated the relationship between whiteness and domination.
Further, early on people such as Douglass and DuBois began to outline how whiteness is a social and political construct that emphasizes the domination, authority, and perceived humanity of those who are racialized as white. They, along with many other non-white writers and orators, have pointed to the fact that it was the bodies who were able to be racialized as ‘white ́ were viewed as rational, authoritative, and deserving. Additionally, and believe me, this is no small thing, white people are viewed as human. What this means is that when white people suffer, as some who are poor/female/queer do, they nevertheless are able to have some measure of sympathy for their plight simply because they are white and their marginalization is considered an emergency, crisis or an issue to be concerned about.
Moreover, even when white people have been oppressed by various dimensions of classism, homophobia and heterosexism, they have been able to opt for what DuBois, in his monograph Black Reconstruction brilliantly called ‘the psychological wage of whiteness. ́ That is, whites who are marginalized could find comfort, even if psychological, in the fact that they were not non-white. They could revel in the fact that they could be taken as white in opposition to non-white groups. The desire for this wage of whiteness was also what drove many white people, albeit marginalized, to engage in organized violence against non-whites.
Of course, legal cases such as the Dred Scott Decision along with many different naturalization cases involving Asian individuals, has helped to encode a state- sanctioned definition of whiteness. But there are other ways in which white people are racialized as white by the state. They are not stopped while driving as much as non- white people. Their homes and businesses are not raided and searched as much by police officers, INS or License and Inspections (L&I). White people's bodies are not tracked and locked up in prisons, detention centers, juvenile systems, detention halls in classrooms, and ‘special education ́ classes as much as those of non-white people. White people’s bodies are generally not the site of fear, repulsion, violent desire, or hatred.
Now some might point out to me that white people are followed, tracked and harassed by the police. This is true. White women experience state-sanctioned discrimination. Queer whites are the subject of homophobia, whether by individuals or by the state through laws and police violence. Some activist whites are harassed by the police. White people who play rap music and wear gear are stopped by cops. Poor whites can be criminalized by the state, especially around welfare issues. What I want to point out is that, while I do not condone police violence and harassment, there is a way in which white people will not be viewed as inherently criminal or suspect unless they are perceived as doing something that breaks particular norms. Further, the breaking of particular class and sexuality ‘norms ́ is highly racialized, meaning that it is generally when white people engage in acts that appear to the state not appropriately ‘white ́ that they are subject to state violence. In other words, white people experience state violence when their bodies engage in acts normally considered deviant and inherent in non-white people.
Other racial groups, particularly Blacks and Native Americans, are considered inherently criminal no matter what they do, what their sexual identity is or what they wear. Further, it has always struck me as interesting that there are white people who will attempt to wear what will signify ‘Blackness, ́ whether it is dreadlocks (which, in my opinion, should be cut off from every white person’s head), ‘gear, ́ or Black masks at rallies. There is a sick way in which white people want to emulate that which is considered ‘badass ́ about a certain existential position of Blackness at the same time they do not want the burden of living as a non-white person. Further, it really strikes me as fucked up the way in which white people will go to rallies and taunt the police with Black masks in order to bring on police pressure. What does it mean when whites strategically use Blackness to bring on police violence? Now I know that somewhere there is a dreadlocked, smelly white anarchist who is reading this message and who is angry at me for not understanding the logic of the Black masks and its roots in anarchism. But I would challenge these people to consider how they are reproducing violence towards Blackness in their attempts to taunt and challenge the police in their efforts.
Now back to my point that white anti-racism is an oxymoron. Whiteness is a social and political construct rooted in white supremacy. Drawing from the work of Frank Wilderson, I understand white supremacy as a structure and system of beliefs rooted in European and US imperialism in which certain racialized bodies (non-white) are selected for premature negation whether through cultural, physical, psychological genocide, containment or other forms of social death. White supremacy is at the heart of the US social system and civil society. In short, white supremacy is not just a series of practices or privilege, but a larger social structure and system of domination that overly-values and rewards those who are racialized as white. The rest of us are constructed as undeserving to be considered human, although there is significant variation within non-white populations of how our bodies are encoded, treated and (de)valued.
Now, for one to claim whiteness, one also is invested in white supremacy. Whiteness itself is a political term that emerged among European white ethnics in the US. Some who used the term white were those who were part of the dominant social structure, such as the slave owning class, which included many of the US ‘founding fathers. ́ Others were European ethnics, many of them reviled, who chose to cast their lot with whiteness rather than that with those who had been determined as non-white. In short, anyone who claims to be white, even a white anti-racist, is identifying with a history of European imperialism and racism transported and further developed into the US.
However, this does not mean that white people who go around saying dumb things such as ‘I am not white! I am a human being! ́ or, ‘I left whiteness and joined the human race, ́ or my favorite, ‘I hate white people! They're stupid! ́ are not structurally white. Remember, whiteness is a structure of domination embedded in our social relations, institutions, discourses, and practices. Don’t tell me you're not white but then when we go out in the street and the police don’t bother you or people don’t ask you if you’re a prostitute, or people don’t follow you and touch you at will, act like that does not make a difference in our lives. Basically, you can’t talk, merely ‘unlearn ́ or think through whiteness, as all of these annoying trainings for white people to ‘unlearn ́ racism will have you think.
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