Interesting. Thank you for the tip on "Philosophize This!"
But I was confused by some of the citations. I tracked down Schorr 2020, but I don't get the 2020a and 2020b. And (you, 2022)? I guess you're just saying that you agree with him, but I don't know. B/c I don't know you, I don't know if you really did just publish a dissertation.
Those are good points. I added the citations for Schorr, and Proquest is taking forever to get my dissertation up. I'll get that citation up as well as soon as it gets published on their end. It got accepted in April and I walked earlier this month.
I've also gotten a lot better at using Substack since I wrote this, especially using links and graphics.
Thanks for the constructive criticism. It really does help.
I don't quite get definition number 2. 'Anything connected to formal Critical Race Theory or anything that comes across as anti-White.' Huh? I don't see where any of these definitions seem different to each other.
Pro-CRT people would say that they're not against White people, they're against the system of Whiteness, which hurts everyone, including White people. A morally good system would embrace equality of all persons, and Whiteness is a system which negatively impacts equality. Authors who write against 'Whiteness' wouldn't say that they're against people with light skin, they'd say they're for creating a world where 'Whiteness' is eliminated such that everyone of every skin color is equal.
However, people on the right tend to read attacks against 'Whiteness', as a systemic force, as attacks against White people. On the left it's an abstract idea that reinforces oppression, but on the right it's perceived as a racial threat against people of light complexion.
The issue is the differing frameworks between liberal (individualism) and critical theory (group identity) understandings of identity. That's kind of thorny and complex, but if it would help I could write a future post on identity and ontology (study of what things are).
But this is a motte-and-bailey tactic on the left. You can't treat "whiteness" as an abstract concept separate from actual white people. If there were no white people, we wouldn't talk about "whiteness". The ruling juntas, theocrats, and strongmen in non-white societies are never said to be practicing "whiteness".
Why not? Why do CRT advocates never say that non-white ruling majorities are enacting "whiteness" on their fellow non-white oppressed minorities?
Because that would be ridiculous.
Letting this tactic pass, as if it were valid, is akin to letting a white person say "when I call someone a n***er, it's not because they're black--even though 98% of the time they *are* black--but rather as a reference to blackness, which isn't related to skin color"
That would be BS, and we would all know it. It's the same thing with "whiteness".
The argument, as I understand it through grad school classes, is that Whiteness is a system separate from physical persons because historically different groups have counted as 'White' and 'non-White'. Here's an article from Art McDonald, Ph.D. from Pitt that explains how the Irish weren't 'White' before becoming so:
Not all people of European descent were considered White originally, and so the categorization of Whiteness grows and changes.
From a Rightwing perspective, I could say that Asians are 'White' because of how they're counted in Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity scholarship and affirmative action policies because, as a group, they outperform everyone else and throw off the statistical disparities.
This is rooted in Social Constructivism, which in its most extreme form says that -everything- is socially constructed, including race, gender, mathematics, beauty, health, etc. That's a big topic I'm going to have to tackle here soon, because it shows up all over the place in Progressive Leftwing thinking.
Yes, I'm broadly familiar with this explanation. But I see it as the sort of self-referential academic onanism endemic to the social sciences (and I say that as someone with a graduate degree in sociology).
You just can't be intellectually honest about building a *general* critique of power dynamics and structures, but then name that general critique after one particular racial group.
As many examples--including that African American History Museum infographic--demonstrate, complaints about "whiteness" are very clearly complaints about *the cultural norms and practices of contemporary white people.*
"self-referential academic onanism endemic to the social sciences"... that's a great phrase.
There's an argument that I've heard the counter to - if White Privilege is universal, and not unique to White countries, how does one explain that being Persian in Iran, or Black in Africa, is a much more privileged identity than being European. There are lots of non-White spaces where White people are openly hated and unwelcome.
If someone has a good argument for that position, I'd love to add it to the article.
Interesting. Thank you for the tip on "Philosophize This!"
But I was confused by some of the citations. I tracked down Schorr 2020, but I don't get the 2020a and 2020b. And (you, 2022)? I guess you're just saying that you agree with him, but I don't know. B/c I don't know you, I don't know if you really did just publish a dissertation.
Those are good points. I added the citations for Schorr, and Proquest is taking forever to get my dissertation up. I'll get that citation up as well as soon as it gets published on their end. It got accepted in April and I walked earlier this month.
I've also gotten a lot better at using Substack since I wrote this, especially using links and graphics.
Thanks for the constructive criticism. It really does help.
I don't quite get definition number 2. 'Anything connected to formal Critical Race Theory or anything that comes across as anti-White.' Huh? I don't see where any of these definitions seem different to each other.
Pro-CRT people would say that they're not against White people, they're against the system of Whiteness, which hurts everyone, including White people. A morally good system would embrace equality of all persons, and Whiteness is a system which negatively impacts equality. Authors who write against 'Whiteness' wouldn't say that they're against people with light skin, they'd say they're for creating a world where 'Whiteness' is eliminated such that everyone of every skin color is equal.
However, people on the right tend to read attacks against 'Whiteness', as a systemic force, as attacks against White people. On the left it's an abstract idea that reinforces oppression, but on the right it's perceived as a racial threat against people of light complexion.
The issue is the differing frameworks between liberal (individualism) and critical theory (group identity) understandings of identity. That's kind of thorny and complex, but if it would help I could write a future post on identity and ontology (study of what things are).
But this is a motte-and-bailey tactic on the left. You can't treat "whiteness" as an abstract concept separate from actual white people. If there were no white people, we wouldn't talk about "whiteness". The ruling juntas, theocrats, and strongmen in non-white societies are never said to be practicing "whiteness".
Why not? Why do CRT advocates never say that non-white ruling majorities are enacting "whiteness" on their fellow non-white oppressed minorities?
Because that would be ridiculous.
Letting this tactic pass, as if it were valid, is akin to letting a white person say "when I call someone a n***er, it's not because they're black--even though 98% of the time they *are* black--but rather as a reference to blackness, which isn't related to skin color"
That would be BS, and we would all know it. It's the same thing with "whiteness".
The argument, as I understand it through grad school classes, is that Whiteness is a system separate from physical persons because historically different groups have counted as 'White' and 'non-White'. Here's an article from Art McDonald, Ph.D. from Pitt that explains how the Irish weren't 'White' before becoming so:
https://sites.pitt.edu/~hirtle/uujec/white.html
Not all people of European descent were considered White originally, and so the categorization of Whiteness grows and changes.
From a Rightwing perspective, I could say that Asians are 'White' because of how they're counted in Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity scholarship and affirmative action policies because, as a group, they outperform everyone else and throw off the statistical disparities.
This is rooted in Social Constructivism, which in its most extreme form says that -everything- is socially constructed, including race, gender, mathematics, beauty, health, etc. That's a big topic I'm going to have to tackle here soon, because it shows up all over the place in Progressive Leftwing thinking.
Yes, I'm broadly familiar with this explanation. But I see it as the sort of self-referential academic onanism endemic to the social sciences (and I say that as someone with a graduate degree in sociology).
You just can't be intellectually honest about building a *general* critique of power dynamics and structures, but then name that general critique after one particular racial group.
As many examples--including that African American History Museum infographic--demonstrate, complaints about "whiteness" are very clearly complaints about *the cultural norms and practices of contemporary white people.*
"self-referential academic onanism endemic to the social sciences"... that's a great phrase.
There's an argument that I've heard the counter to - if White Privilege is universal, and not unique to White countries, how does one explain that being Persian in Iran, or Black in Africa, is a much more privileged identity than being European. There are lots of non-White spaces where White people are openly hated and unwelcome.
If someone has a good argument for that position, I'd love to add it to the article.