The latest far-left concept: "multiracial whiteness"

[ThatRobGuy]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...rt-we-must-think-terms-multiracial-whiteness/

The author of this piece referred to the fact that 1/3 of Hispanic voters vote republican as "unsettling".

They also go on to say this:
Many Black and brown voters have family and friends who fervently backed the MAGA policy agenda, including its delusions and conspiracy theories.

One of the organizers of the “Stop the Steal” movement is Ali Alexander, a Trump supporter who identifies as Black and Arab. The chairman of the neo-fascist Proud Boys is Enrique Tarrio, a Latino raised in Miami’s Little Havana who identifies as Afro-Cuban; when he arrived in Washington for the Jan. 6 march, he was arrested for allegedly burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church the month before.

What are we to make of Tarrio — and, more broadly, of Latino voters inspired by Trump? And what are we to make of unmistakably White mob violence that also includes non-White participants? I call this phenomenon multiracial whiteness — the promise that they, too, can lay claim to the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination.


So in a nutshell, when you can't broadly label a problematic group as being a "white group", attribute their negative behavior to "whiteness".


I've touched on this before, but these are the kinds of talking points that are going cause the left to lose voters in the long run unless a moderate voice on the left rebukes sentiments like this.

To equate negative/hateful/conspiratorial viewpoints as being synonymous with "whiteness" isn't going to be well received.

If a publication ran a story about a rash of white people stealing cars, and chalked the explanation up to "Caucasian Blackness", there would be a massive outcry.

I can't be the only one who sees this sort of rhetoric as counterproductive, right?

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

Contrary to popular portrayals of the Proud Boys as "white supremacist", they are in fact a multiracial organization.

Hispanics aren't really are race as such, and many of them indeed identify more with whites than with blacks. Some Asians do too.

The profile of the Trump supporter is white, male and working class. If you meet two of those three categories, there's enough overlap that there's a good chance you may find something appealing in Trump.

Rudyard Kipling expressed a similar sentiment in "Gunga Din":

An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide
’E was white, clear white, inside
When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!

Of course, Kipling meant it as a high compliment.

 

[FireDragon76]

The reality is that many Hispanics don't perceive themselves as being some kind of monolithic racial "other", much less "brown" (they aren't all indios, a few aren't even of Spanish or Indian descent at all). That's one area that the liberal elites need to learn a thing or two about before presuming to speak for all minority groups.

I don't like perceived agreement with conservatives. But sometimes the liberal elites who promote this kind of politics are just divorced from lived reality in their racial categorization.

 

[Strathos]

Anyone can fall for hate and dangerous conspiracies, you don't have to be white, and it doesn't make you white to do so.

 

[timothyu]

Must be why Biden said something like “If you’ve got a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.” ?

[STAFF EDITED]

 

[Speedwell]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...rt-we-must-think-terms-multiracial-whiteness/

The author of this piece referred to the fact that 1/3 of Hispanic voters vote republican as "unsettling".

They also go on to say this:
Many Black and brown voters have family and friends who fervently backed the MAGA policy agenda, including its delusions and conspiracy theories.

One of the organizers of the “Stop the Steal” movement is Ali Alexander, a Trump supporter who identifies as Black and Arab. The chairman of the neo-fascist Proud Boys is Enrique Tarrio, a Latino raised in Miami’s Little Havana who identifies as Afro-Cuban; when he arrived in Washington for the Jan. 6 march, he was arrested for allegedly burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church the month before.

What are we to make of Tarrio — and, more broadly, of Latino voters inspired by Trump? And what are we to make of unmistakably White mob violence that also includes non-White participants? I call this phenomenon multiracial whiteness — the promise that they, too, can lay claim to the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination.


So in a nutshell, when you can't broadly label a problematic group as being a "white group", attribute their negative behavior to "whiteness".


I've touched on this before, but these are the kinds of talking points that are going cause the left to lose voters in the long run unless a moderate voice on the left rebukes sentiments like this.

To equate negative/hateful/conspiratorial viewpoints as being synonymous with "whiteness" isn't going to be well received.

If a publication ran a story about a rash of white people stealing cars, and chalked the explanation up to "Caucasian Blackness", there would be a massive outcry.

I can't be the only one who sees this sort of rhetoric as counterproductive, right?

Clearly being on the Left is no guarantee of insight into racial issues. But that is hardly breaking news.

 

[FireDragon76]

Anyone can fall for hate and dangerous conspiracies, you don't have to be white, and it doesn't make you white to do so.

It didn't help when Biden told a black man that if you didn't vote for him, you weren't really black. Alot of black people resented that sort of paternalism, and supporting conservative politics is a way for them to feel self-empowerment, even if it seems strange to liberals who don't understand the lack of perceived immediate loyalties.

 

[timothyu]

But sometimes the liberal elites who promote this kind of politics are just divorced from lived reality in their racial categorization.

What would they call the leftist multi-raced group that attacked the Dem offices in Portland the other night?

 

[FireDragon76]

Clearly being on the Left is no guarantee of insight into racial issues. But that is hardly breaking news.

Having said that, it's picayune compared to the baggage from 4 years of the Republican party being reshaped into a dangerous personality cult. In comparison, the Left's dysfunctions are things I am willing to live with, and so are many others. Annoyances aren't attrocities.

 

[Rene Loup]

I can't be the only one who sees this sort of rhetoric as counterproductive, right?

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."
~Friedrich Nietzsche

While I am not a fan of his work, I certainly do enjoy this quote. Anyone can make this mistake and we all need to be careful of this. Scapegoating is part of the process leading to genocide.[1][2][3][4]

If this keeps up, it is only going to prove that they are no longer looking for equality. Instead, they are looking for revenge. Forgiveness can go a long way. I know this because I made the decision to reject a label and forgave those who hurt me because of it.

1. Eight Stages of Genocide: From Classification to Denial
2. https://people.umass.edu/estaub/opcm.pdf
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201312/the-psychology-scapegoating
4. Definition of SCAPEGOAT

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I can't be the only one who sees this sort of rhetoric as counterproductive, right?

It's not just that, it's stupid and silly. It makes me want to make up my own category to describe it like people who promote this are "high functioning non-sentients".

It also is funny concerning terms and categories like Hispanic. That is a socially constructed category, or at least a new one. It wasn't invented until the late sixties with Cesar Chavez and didn't really catch on until the 1970s. Before then Hispanic Americans, like Cubans and other groups were simply considered white/ Caucasian, and generally self identified that way.


And our whole concept of race is kind of weird historically speaking. People act like it is innate to think that way but the ancient world did not, they labeled people based on their nationality, or general ethnic heritage and not strictly on their skin color.

 

[FireDragon76]

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."
~Friedrich Nietzsche

While I am not a fan of his work, I certainly do enjoy this quote. Anyone can make this mistake and we all need to be careful of this. Scapegoating is part of the process leading to genocide.[1][2][3][4]

If this keeps up, it is only going to prove that they are no longer looking for equality. Instead, they are looking for revenge. Forgiveness can go a long way. I know this because I made the decision to reject a label and forgave those who hurt me because of it.

1. Eight Stages of Genocide: From Classification to Denial
2. https://people.umass.edu/estaub/opcm.pdf
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201312/the-psychology-scapegoating
4. Definition of SCAPEGOAT

It's easy to lose perspective on the scale of the problem. What @ThatRobGuy is talking about is annoying, and even alienating to some voters with weak affiliations, but it's at best a moment for dialogue rather than civil war. Liberals and Democrats do need to take notice of the shifting politics of race in the US, and not merely attribute it to confusion, but seek to understand peoples motivations on their own terms.

It's not just that, it's stupid and silly. It makes me want to make up my own category to describe it like people who promote this are "high functioning non-sentients".

It also is funny concerning terms and categories like Hispanic. That is a socially constructed category, or at least a new one. It wasn't invented until the late sixties with Cesar Chavez and didn't really catch on until the 1970s. Before then Hispanic Americans, like Cubans and other groups were simply considered white/ Caucasian, and generally self identified that way.

They used to be called "Latin", and it wasn't necessarily a racial category.

Of course, at one many ethnicities that today we consider unremarkable have been considered inferior others. Irish in early America, and even in Britain until recently, were treated with contempt owing to their perception of being another race of people. And in parts of the US, being Greek was worse than being black (one reason many Greeks supported the civil rights movement of the 1960's).

Of course, Chinese and Japanese faced the worst discrimination of any ethnic group in the US in the late 19th and early 20th century, and were the only ethnic group barred from immigration at one time. But they are still considered another race, even if they face far less discrimination than in the past and aren't often included in these discussions, conveniently overlooked when discussing race and politics in America. It's not at all surprising, for instance, that alot of Vietnamese-Americans and Hmong Americans, unlike most Asian-Americans, are consistent Republicans, owing to the legacy of colonialism in Vietnam and the history of the Vietnam war.

 

[durangodawood]

[STAFF EDITED]

Must be why Biden said something like “If you’ve got a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.” ?

Who said?

 

[Vylo]

There has been a significant movement of white hispanics into areas of white supremacy, considering themselves white. This has happened before. I would have been considered non-white/aryan by past KKK members for being Italian and Irish.

 

[FireDragon76]

Who said?

I remember it was a clip that was actually widely circulated and condemned by alot of progressives at the time on their podcasts.

It was definitely one of Biden's worst gaffs and betrayed the worst paternalistic tendencies that centrist liberals sometimes hold under the surface.

 

[public hermit]

And what are we to make of unmistakably White mob violence that also includes non-White participants? I call this phenomenon multiracial whiteness — the promise that they, too, can lay claim to the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination.

This is too easy and it muddies the waters. We have significant differences and they're not going be addressed unless we acknowledge some nuance. White supremacy, and general white folk arrogance, is a real issue. But this is counterproductive, I think. Not every problem reduces to race. We have class issues that are "multi-racial" so to speak.

 

[FireDragon76]

There has been a significant movement of white hispanics into areas of white supremacy, considering themselves white. This has happened before. I would have been considered non-white/aryan by past KKK members for being Italian and Irish.

Alot of groups like the Proud Boys, in addition, aren't strictly racist per se, in the sense of adherence to white supremacy as a doctrine. They are more like cultural chauvenists and sexists with fascist tendencies and a penchant for violence.

This is a new thing in a new century, and doesn't easily fit into the old tropes. Liberals are going to have to think more critically than simply projecting past ideologies onto present extremist groups.

 

[durangodawood]

I remember it was a clip that was actually widely circulated and condemned by alot of progressives at the time on their podcasts.

It was definitely one of Biden's worst gaffs and betrayed the worst paternalistic tendencies that centrist liberals sometimes hold under the surface.

Staff edited out the low grade slur he made out of Bidens name. For the best. But it's the slur I was pointing to in my response.

That said, Biden has said some really dumb things in his time. He sort of "shoots his mouth" now and then.

 

[FireDragon76]

This is too easy and it muddies the waters. We have significant differences and they're not going be addressed unless we acknowledge some nuance. White supremacy, and general white folk arrogance, is a real issue. But this is counterproductive, I think. Not every problem reduces to race. We have class issues that are "multi-racial" so to speak.

Indeed. I listened to two weeks of PBS News Hour and found it annoying how the journalists were reducing the story of January 6th to one of race. This kind of extremism that attracts people to wild conspiracy theories is beyond race, and Trump's base, though predominantly white, was not exclusively so.

 

[Rene Loup]

It's easy to lose perspective on the scale of the problem. What @ThatRobGuy is talking about is annoying, and even alienating to some voters with weak affiliations, but it's at best a moment for dialogue rather than civil war. Liberals and Democrats do need to take notice of the shifting politics of race in the US, and not merely attribute it to confusion, but seek to understand peoples motivations on their own terms.

Yes, I agree with having dialogue, as long as it remains civil, respectful, and does not amount to yet another game of the Oppression Olympics. As someone who was already given a harmful label with negative connotations, using a specific ethnicity as another harmful label with negative connotations does not sit well with me at all. Basically, we need to seek our common humanity instead of dividing ourselves with identity politics.

Labels have power. When a labelled person is treated as the label more than an actual person, that person will be more likely to adopt that label as his/her own identity. I see this all the time on forums for people in my own situation. One of the greatest decisions I have ever made was ditching this whole, "It's the neurotypical's fault why we're so miserable" mindset called "Autism Culture" and embraced Judeo-Christian values instead.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
~Galatians 3:28 (NKJV)

Bible Gateway passage: Galatians 3:28 - King James Version
Bible Gateway passage: Galatians 3:28 - New King James Version
Bible Gateway passage: Galatians 3:28 - New International Version
Bible Gateway passage: Galatians 3:28 - International Children’s Bible