What Is Whiteness and Why Must We [All] Divest From It?
WHITENESS: What It Is And Why We Must ALL Divest From It
“Be ashamed of being white?!”
“Stop being white?!”
“YOU guys are the racist ones!”
“You have Black History month!”
“I have Black friends and none of them believe this mess! Wake up!”
Whew. It’s a lot, huh?
If you are white, chances are you didn’t have to think about what it meant to be white prior to the last year or so. You could just be white. Your race is the dominant race. Your race is the gold standard. Your race, in this country, is the majority. It’s all we see.
To be a Person of Color in this country is to wake up every day and be reminded that you are a person of color.
It is the be inferior.
It is to be stigmatized and marginalized.
It is to be erased.
Forced to assimilate.
Forced to be “more American.”
It is to have your ancestors brutally enslaved, abused, erased, killed, separated because of the belief in their inferiority.
And, it is to have the remanence of that inferiority continue to circulate the air today through systemic disparities, police brutality, mass incarceration, and continued overt racism from white people who still believe we should be hunted down by the KKK.
Whiteness is what started the social construct of racism.
Therefore, to eradicate racism, we must eradicate whiteness.
Pause. Let’s remind ourselves what whiteness means:
Whiteness: The idea that to be [white] is to be superior. [White] is the gold standard that everyone must adhere to. The further away from white that you are, the lesser you are.
Race is a social construct
The concept of Whiteness was introduced during chattel slavery to differentiate one's identity from the enslaved.
Classifying as white immediately gave you privilege and power (regardless of your socioeconomic status.)
Prior to the 20th century, there were different white "races" as well. Some were considered superior and others inferior depending on the era. However, even among these classifications, all [white] races were still superior to the [Mongoloid] race and the [Negroid] race.
Whiteness became the standard
Throughout history, white people, white customs, white culture, and white beliefs became the standard that every other racialized group is compared to. It created a construct that racialized groups of color, as well as their customs/beliefs/culture, are inferior. If you are white, you are considered normal. Your race/culture is the dominant culture. The majority. You are able to walk through life without thinking about being white because whiteness is dominant.
What divesting from whiteness can look like
Start by denying the gold standard of whiteness. THIS DOESN'T MEAN DENY THE WHITE RACE OR DENY YOUR ETHNIC HERITAGE! BE PROUD OF IT! However, we must deny the SUPERIORITY of white.
Understand that American no longer means white. We must deny the assimilation of non-white cultures into white culture and EMBRACE + AFFIRM each culture for exactly who they are.
Actively make room for all BIPOC communities at your table. Whatever table you sit at, make room. Extend your hand to your BIPOC neighbor and literally lift them up.
If you are white, be honest about your privilege and your complicity with white supremacy by your benefits from it. Then, use your privilege to the advantage of BIPOC and not yourself.
If you are BIPOC, check the ways you have also strived toward whiteness and deny it. This can be from beauty to dialect to education.
Divesting from whiteness does not mean eradicate white people.
Never! White people have a purpose in this world just like every other person. We are all image-bearers. We all belong.
However, as a collective, white people decided they were superior to everyone else when they founded this country and instituted chattel slavery. They believed it so much that they built an entire nation on this notion that white is superior and [Colored] was less than human.
To this day, every Person of Color remains inferior.
The belief in the superiority of whiteness is what must be dismantled.
The system of whiteness is what must be dismantled.
We ALL must do our part to divest from whiteness. White people and BIPOC. We are all complicit with the belief that whiteness reigns supreme and we must all deny that belief and deconstruct the system that it was built on.
Divesting from whiteness and dismantling white supremacy are necessary for the freedom and liberation of all people.
"In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate."
- Toni Morrison
How can you begin divesting from whiteness?