zlacker

>>sn_mas+(OP)
The quote in the title of the article is really an inappropriate way to try to describe inclusiveness. It’s not about being less, it’s about including others more.

>>philis+Cg
Insulting and demeaning racial groups is the opposite of inclusion. It breeds resentment and hatred. For a time there was a focus on treating people as human and not as [racial/sex/religion]

Trend these days is to encourage openly being a bigot, just as long as it’s against certain people.

Replace the word white with any other social group and perhaps you’ll see the problem.

>>treema+Yj
"White" isn't a racial group. "White" as an idea to describe a group of (roughly) light skinned European people, came about in order to justify enslaving and subjugating other groups. Various groups worked their way into being considered white over time, in part by contributing to the subjugation of others. And various groups once considered white, later were not considered so.

"White" as what you call a "social group" was created in service of this power dynamic. Before, say, about 400 years ago, whiteness was not an idea used to identify a "race" of people.

So yeah, I'm all for being less white. I'm fine with just being like ... Irish.

You can research the history on this pretty easily, but a good place to start is a podcast series from Scene On Radio called Seeing White. My memory is a little fuzzy but I think the broad outline is correct.

>>newmnh+Vr
> "White" isn't a racial group.

I understand the academic underpinnings of that idea, but that's not how normal people understand the term "white." The Bureau of the Census, for example, certainly appears the believe that "white" reflects a racial category: https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html.

>>rayine+7x
Sure, but the history of the term matters in this context & maybe should be taught a little more. Like when we grow up these days, we sorta get the idea that White or Black are these inherent traits that people naturally have and have always had.

We rarely get the chance to see that the idea of whiteness comes from a need of protecting an in-group from exploitation, while excusing and justifying the exploitation of outsiders to that group.

The census is an interesting example because for the first 70 years or so, starting in 1790 the US census had just 3 "race/ethnicity" categories. You could be "Free white male/Free white female", "All other free person" or "Slave". Which is part of the reason for creating the category of whiteness. There's also some really gross stuff right through the 1800s where the census was tracking people with various percentages of "black blood".

https://www.pewresearch.org/interactives/what-census-calls-u...

I suppose I'm just saying that the census, as part of the machinery used to implement and maintain white supremacy, is not necessarily the best authority on race.