Clever Blog Title

whatifwe-could:

âpihtawikosisân: I’m not white, but I’m white.

ayiman:

apihtawikosisan:

A post I made over three months ago.  Bears reposting, since strawman arguments about me claiming to be a person of colour, etc have been tossed up by a troll.

apihtawikosisan:

I’m a fair-skinned Métis.  And I don’t just mean a little pale, I mean you can signal planes with my skin.  I’ve got freckles, and the sun hates me with a fiery passion.  I used to have reddish hair, but I actually think that was from all the iron in our water because when I moved into the city, my hair just went brown.

So I get a lot of people assuming I’m white.  Which…I am, if white is an inaccurate description of a skin colour.  And because people assume I’m white, I have that fair-skinned privilege (until I open my big mouth anyway).

I know it’s not polite, and it’s very much tongue-in-cheek, but sometimes around non-natives I like to make comments about ‘white people’ just to see the reactions.  Because people look at me, see my florescent colouring, and think, ‘huh?’  So I say something else…until someone says, “But…you’re white.”
To which I say, “I’m not white, but I’m white.”  And I leave it at that.

White is a stupid word.  I personally don’t like using it.  Mostly because it gives people an opportunity to hijack the conversation with “that’s racist!” But also, the whole history of ‘who is white’ is fraught with ridiculous and arbitrary divisions, and ‘white’ to me comes along with supremist baggage that is ahistorical and well…silly.

‘Whites’ have and still are oppressing the crap out of other ‘whites’ over religious or political differences…which to be honest I don’t want to have to discuss and acknowledge before I go ahead and say what I wanted to say in the first place, thanks.  So yeah, I avoid it.  Unless I’m in a space where I don’t have to be ‘on guard for accusations of reverse-racism’ all the time.

But I need words to convey meaning, so what do I say instead? 

Settlers has become a good term.  Non-natives, though this isn’t limited to the so-called ‘whites’.  Europeans?  A bit clumsy that unless they actually come from Europe and well, Europe isn’t that ‘white’ anyway, no matter what the right-wingers want, so unless I mean ‘someone from Europe’, it’s not a great option. 

Each term has its limitation, but I use them because I’m weird like that.  (I also refuse to say American to refer to someone from the United States, because I have been lectured soooo many times by latinos on the subject.  Citizens of the US, US citizens, USians in a pinch.) 

‘White’ comes along with a lot of cultural connotations.  Once it’s discovered I’m not culturally white (a concept I don’t even want to bother trying to define as this is an imposed concept, not something made up by ‘non-whites’ to engage in ‘reverse-racism’, sorry), there is a change in how people treat me, positive or negative, depending on the people. 

But I am not a POC.  No matter how culturally NOT white I am, the fact that I ended up so pale means that is how people see me first.  The whole “I’m not white but I’m white” thing started because I was sick of people thinking it was ‘safe’ to be racist around me, believing they had an ally because we share skin tone.  (Sort of.  I’m kind of paler than most ‘white’ people are too.)

Growing up having pale skin was hellish for me, but I’m pretty much over it now.  I can’t do much about it aside from recognising how it affects the way people see me, whether I like it or not.  And most of the time, that view affords me privileges I have never earned. 

Only rarely is my skin colour a ‘barrier’, and I use that term pretty sarcastically.  For example, I wouldn’t feel comfortable inviting myself into a POC-only space because frankly, how is it it worth it to take up people’s time and energy insisting that I belong because I’m native?  If I were invited because people already know this and it wouldn’t be an issue…fine…but the fact is, once more, I’m not a POC.  I don’t need to be in that space.  I can be an ally without inserting myself into those spaces. 

Poor me, and the awful ‘barriers’ I face with this pale skin.

Anyway, mocking the fact that I have fair-skinned privilege is something I do a lot, but it doesn’t make it go away.  It’s good to remember that, I think.

relevant.

Reblogging to think on later

thisweekinwhiteness:

Although harassment via inbox is fairly common for POC members of Tumblr, the Tumblr staff have repeatedly failed to take the needs of POC into account, even when those harassing POC are not anonymous. The blog POC Harassed is a steadily-building archive of screencaps sent in by various POC members.

Every other Thursday, we’d like to highlight a response from Tumblr Staff sent after a POC member contacted them about harassment. If you have one you’d like us to post, hit print-screen and  send one in! We will keep doing this until Tumblr staff begins to act with integrity.

Please help signal-boost what POC Harassed is doing!

Stay Vigilant,

This Week in Whiteness

As white-passing people of color, we have our own set of struggles.

We have to hear all the horrible, racist things that our white friends (and sometimes even our not-white friends) say about people of color that they wouldn’t dare say if we were visible poc. And because we look white, we are expected to be okay with it. We are expected to understand and sympathize with the “I’m not trying to be racist but…” agenda. Basically, we are expected to support whiteness as an ideal.

When we talk about our identities being anything other than white, our white friends act like we are throwing ourselves an unnecessary pity party. They act like we are so full of white-guilt that we are trying to falsely identify as people of color to get away from it. Or, worse (and more commonly), they act like looking white is some kind of accomplishment, as if you were born inherently better than your visible counter-parts, are fully aware of their inferiority, and are being ridiculous or annoyingly humble by also identifying as a person of color. This experience is similar to when visible poc are seen as “credits to their race”. Except that the white-passing, instead of being seen as being better because they aren’t “lazy”, are seen as better by default. As if being born light-skinned, instead being a product of recessive genes, is evidence that we were meant for better things than our visible parents, siblings, and friends.

And we cannot effectively contest it because, when we do, it is held as evidence of our inborn moral superiority to visible people of color; evidence of our grace and humbleness. Yet we are not as good as white people because we are not actually white. We are still people of color, and, therefore, our words are cooed at benevolently and brushed off, as we cannot posses the wisdom and authority that comes with being an actual white person. We are light-skinned because we are better, but we are not white enough to actually be taken seriously. Our purpose in white people’s lives is not as evidence that racism is idiotic, counter-intuitive, and without any basis in logic, but to reinforce the value of racial hierarchy. And anything we say will be twisted and mangled to support the racist schema of the white people who have been kind enough to let us sit around and act white with them.

A self-aware white-passing person is constantly aware of their unmerited advantages and simultaneously unable to do much to convince the white people around them (and often other people of color as well) that we do not deserve to be on this pedestal. Or, rather, that our visible counter-parts deserve to be on the pedestal equally as much, if not more, than we do. A self-aware white-passing person realizes that when they set off a metal detector and get waved ahead instead of having to go through lengthy and invasive searches, it is because of the value a racist society has arbitrarily placed on pale skin and European features.

And then there is the isolation from visible people of color. Because while we may identify more with them, we still look white. And we are never, ever, unaware of that fact.

As a person of color, I know that I usually prefer to be with other people of color (and some non-delusional white people). So while we can’t blame them for not automatically seeing us as people of color, we also can’t just go over and say “hey I’m a person of color, too” because THAT IS SUCH A WHITE PEOPLE THING TO DO!

HOWEVER

I’ve seen a lot of stuff come through my feed, lately, about white-passing people of color trying to equate their struggles with those of visible people of color.

Personally, I don’t understand how any self-respecting poc (visible or white-passing) could do that to another poc. Every time you try do that, you are saying that you face the same discrimination as visible poc. This is just not true.

As white-passing people we have the privilege of letting people think that we’re white to get jobs, grades, respect and to avoid having our words and actions serve as a testament or evidence of our race/ethnicity. Most importantly, we have the ability to sit in a room full of white people and not have all eyes on us. When we are tired of the discrimination, we can get up and leave and be assured that, in a few blocks, at most a few cities, we will be in a place where no one knows that we’re people of color; where we can sit in peace, without being discriminated against because of our skin tone.

This is a white-passing privilege that visible poc do not have.

So, yes, we have our struggles. But they are not remotely the same as those of people who do not have the privilege of passing. Pretending otherwise is hurtful, invalidating, counter productive, and generally fucked-up.

So, please, quit trying to play oppression olympics and acknowledge your privilege like a decent human being!