I was watching NCIS reruns on TV the other night. You know, the weekly documentary film that spends 60 minutes teaching the public about the inner workings of the Navy and Marine Corps? Highly accurate and undoubtedly educational.
Anyway, the name of the episode was "Yankee White" but it's didn't even discuss diversity-based racism or even prejudice based on which side of the Civil War your great-grandfather fought on. So now I'm confused...
I don't know about you all, but I'm largely Slavic. And my family, on my father's side, were hired out to keep the Ottomans out of Europe back before the time Vlad thought it was a good idea shish kebab his political opponents. I'm as about as pasty as you can get while throwing in some Irish, French/Alsace, German, Italian, and Russian shteddle (with the possibility of Native American), and I've got no frickin' clue what a "white race" may be.
Because, franky, even after my people saved Europe (for the glory and the gold), we were kicked to the curb by most of the rest of the Europeans either on the old continent or here in America (all of my ancestry).
My guess is he meant Aryan. Which, as any world historian can tell you, is an Oriental Tribe from Northern India. Unlike what some idiots in the dawn of the 20th century liked to believe.
Plus, in the grand scheme of things, we're all African anyway.
And it's a pretty safe bet that anyone living in the U.S. with ancestry that goes back to revolutionary times has some African in their veins. I know I do. My relatives into genealogy traced back one line to a pioneer mountain man who married a Cherokee woman who was the daughter of an escaped slave adopted into the Cherokee. This was pretty common in certain parts of the country. My elder great aunts were appalled to learn this and could (literally) only whisper about it, while my mom and I thought it was pretty damn cool.
My ancestry is filled with Slavs and Poles and Romanians and Lithuanians as far back as we can trace. Based on prevalence of somewhat swarthy skin tones in my family, I'm pretty sure we got kicked out of somewhere warmer before that.
Come on Janiece! It's obvious to me that he's talking about ALBINOS! Small group, everyone makes fun of them (see "Me, Myself and Irene") and the list of government conspiracies concerning treatment of albinos is as long as your arm . . . I mean, what do you think this "hole in the ozone layer" is all about? I'll tell you, it's a government sponsored plan for genocide! Just think, all of those extra ultra violet rays playing upon that melanin free skin . . . That poor guy has every right to be scared. You just know the religious right is gunning for him with those demonic looking red eyes anyway. Sheesh, try a little sensitivity sometime!
I hate to lend credence to that asshole, but, as a white heterosexual male, I have been discriminated against. Not by the government, but I'd be remiss in my responsibilities as a troll if I saw a whole bunch of other white folk saying they've never felt discriminated against without putting in my two cents regarding racism in America.
I've worked for a white racist and I've worked for a black racist (both at the same job). The difference was the white racist wasn't a total idiot. He knew when to keep his mouth shut and that he better not exhibit too much favoritism, and he knew better than to allow his religion (for lack of a better word) to hinder his team's performance.
He was a mean old son-of-a-bitch, but he realized that most people aren't racists and that if he provided any real evidence that he was, life would get difficult for him. So he yelled at everybody a lot, and we all thought he was a cranky old coot (which he was).
The black racist lacked any such wisdom. He too was a mean old man (but not as old as whitey), but he pretended he wasn't. He screamed until he was hoarse on at least one occasion at "everybody." By "everybody" I mean the three guys (out of about a dozen) who worked the hardest: two white guys and a "person of mixed descent," who most people casually identified as "black," but that the boss hated more than anybody.
Living in upstate New York (which I no longer do), I have been denied job, promotion, and basic respect for no other reason than that my boss was a black racist.
That wasn't the government, and there was no conspiracy (other than "don't fire that black guy. he'll sue."), and sure as hell nobody was afraid of me.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say that some racists are retarded and some are just crazy, but not necessarily stupid. I'm not saying that black racists tend to be stupid and white racists tend to only be nuts. That's just the example I've experienced personally.
Side note: I identify myself as Scottish and my wife is Irish (to my great shame and that of my ancestors, she drinks me under the table). So whenever (granted, it's not very often) I'm talking with a black American who says "my people" are oppressing "his people," I inform him that "my country" and "my people" are still owned by the same Empire who's chains his grandfather is not old enough to have seen.
I've gotten a little off-topic, and hope I haven't hijacked this post.
Trope: A region of warmish climate, near the equator.
That's one thing that amuses me about southern and southern-transplant racists; if their families go back very far, pretty much everyone is of mixed race. According to the one drop law, they should all be victims of their own Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and the Aryan nations.
The earliest plantation owners started out in the Carolinas, creating a violent slave-based culture; violence against slaves, and Scots-Irish and English violence toward each other over class and ethnic anger. My father's family branches emigrated before the revolutionary war and well before the civil war from England and Ireland (English and Scots-Irish). They started in North Carolina, emigrated from there to Alabama, to Arkansas, and finally to Washington State where I was born. We are as pasty as they come, with blood shot blue eyes and veins showing through, and we can be mean drunks.
One family branch were small time slave owners, and both branches were full of roving men spreading their DNA around while leaving their overworked, half-starved wives home to raise the passel of kids and work the rock farms. Each branch served in the civil war, on opposite sides.
My great grandfather, whose father was a Union soldier, was whispered about for being "colored" and "different." Back then it could have been because of any ethnic background darker than the English/ Scots-Irish/Irish/Germans/Dutch. We don't know how many out-of-wedlock children he sired, but we know they are out there.
His daughter, my grandmother, was whispered about too. After she lied about her age and eloped with my much older grandfather, her own family was pretty much invisible to us. She ran off with my grandfather, whose grandfather was a Confederate soldier, in the early 1900s. In Arkansas it still wasn’t a good time for one’s neighbors to suspect you might have that one drop of nonwhite blood because it could mean a much harder life lay ahead. (Imagine how many people spent their lives covering the past in order to protect themselves from each other?) These grandparents moved to Washington State and my children have no concept of what I am describing, which is a very good thing.
Many of us have one olive-skinned, brown-eyed child, so we are a light-skinned, light-eyed bunch with darker relatives thrown into the mix like mixed candy. In my birth family it is my brother. In my own children it is my daughter. Her brother is 6' 2" and lanky, with red-gold hair, hazel eyes, and fair, fair skin. She has dark skin and dark brown eyes, the end of her nose is shaped like my siblings instead of mine and her father’s (my sister is fair, but her nose is shaped like my brother's), with a 5' 4" Scots-Irish build. In the summer she is very dark because just walking outside turns her skin dark brown, and when we travel she is always the one chosen to be pulled over into that special spot with all the other darker-skinned people for extra security checking; never us, not even when we've been standing side-by-side. It's happened several times since 9/11.
It is questionable whether there ever were separate races at all, but for sure there isn't now because our DNA has been mixing for many thousands of years.
Discrimination happens to everyone for one reason or another whether it be because of our age, income, class, ethnicity, physical abilities, gender, sexual orientation, politics, religion, color of our skin, the boss plays favorites, nonconformists are not rewarded, someone at the top feels threatened by an underling smarter and more capable than they, whatever.
The difference, though, for those of us society mistakenly assumes are only "white," therefore our race or ethnic background doesn't even catch anyone's attention, is that it isn't systematic, institutionalized, socially acceptable discrimination that prevents us from receiving an equitable shot at what our culture has to offer.
We might have other valid discrimination complaints, but race isn’t one of them because it doesn’t stop our opportunities dead. That is why it just isn't the same when whitey complains about being picked on for being whitey.
Comments on this blog are moderated. Each will be reviewed before being allowed to post. This may take a while. I don't allow personal attacks, trolling, or obnoxious stupidity. If you post anonymously and hide behind an IP blocker, I'm a lot more likely to consider you a troll. Be sure to read the commenting rulesbefore you start typing. Really.
Still wondering - what exactly is the WHITE RACE?
ReplyDeleteIs it a special competition you have up there in Alaska where to see who can go from Willow to Nome in white-out conditions?
No, that's the Idtarod...
Is it a competition to see who's the pastiest after a long Alaskan winter?
Really, inquiring minds WANT TO KNOW.
I was watching NCIS reruns on TV the other night. You know, the weekly documentary film that spends 60 minutes teaching the public about the inner workings of the Navy and Marine Corps? Highly accurate and undoubtedly educational.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the name of the episode was "Yankee White" but it's didn't even discuss diversity-based racism or even prejudice based on which side of the Civil War your great-grandfather fought on. So now I'm confused...
chypad = scientific name for lily pad
I don't know about you all, but I'm largely Slavic. And my family, on my father's side, were hired out to keep the Ottomans out of Europe back before the time Vlad thought it was a good idea shish kebab his political opponents. I'm as about as pasty as you can get while throwing in some Irish, French/Alsace, German, Italian, and Russian shteddle (with the possibility of Native American), and I've got no frickin' clue what a "white race" may be.
ReplyDeleteBecause, franky, even after my people saved Europe (for the glory and the gold), we were kicked to the curb by most of the rest of the Europeans either on the old continent or here in America (all of my ancestry).
My guess is he meant Aryan. Which, as any world historian can tell you, is an Oriental Tribe from Northern India. Unlike what some idiots in the dawn of the 20th century liked to believe.
Plus, in the grand scheme of things, we're all African anyway.
And it's a pretty safe bet that anyone living in the U.S. with ancestry that goes back to revolutionary times has some African in their veins. I know I do. My relatives into genealogy traced back one line to a pioneer mountain man who married a Cherokee woman who was the daughter of an escaped slave adopted into the Cherokee. This was pretty common in certain parts of the country. My elder great aunts were appalled to learn this and could (literally) only whisper about it, while my mom and I thought it was pretty damn cool.
ReplyDeleteMy ancestry is filled with Slavs and Poles and Romanians and Lithuanians as far back as we can trace. Based on prevalence of somewhat swarthy skin tones in my family, I'm pretty sure we got kicked out of somewhere warmer before that.
ReplyDeleteMy four grandparents were Danish, Norwegian - although it was Denmark at the time, Bohemian and American Mixing Pot.
ReplyDeleteSince the Vikings tended to bring souvenirs home in the shape of slave boys and girls, who knows what is wandering around in my gene pool.
Nathan, wouldn't that have been the Middle East?
ReplyDeleteCome on Janiece! It's obvious to me that he's talking about ALBINOS! Small group, everyone makes fun of them (see "Me, Myself and Irene") and the list of government conspiracies concerning treatment of albinos is as long as your arm . . . I mean, what do you think this "hole in the ozone layer" is all about? I'll tell you, it's a government sponsored plan for genocide! Just think, all of those extra ultra violet rays playing upon that melanin free skin . . . That poor guy has every right to be scared. You just know the religious right is gunning for him with those demonic looking red eyes anyway. Sheesh, try a little sensitivity sometime!
ReplyDeleteI'm a Jew -- everyone hates me (at least according to Tom Lehrer), so my skin color doesn't count.
ReplyDeleteMichelle,
ReplyDeleteIt could have been Arkansas for all I know.
I hate to lend credence to that asshole, but, as a white heterosexual male, I have been discriminated against. Not by the government, but I'd be remiss in my responsibilities as a troll if I saw a whole bunch of other white folk saying they've never felt discriminated against without putting in my two cents regarding racism in America.
ReplyDeleteI've worked for a white racist and I've worked for a black racist (both at the same job). The difference was the white racist wasn't a total idiot. He knew when to keep his mouth shut and that he better not exhibit too much favoritism, and he knew better than to allow his religion (for lack of a better word) to hinder his team's performance.
He was a mean old son-of-a-bitch, but he realized that most people aren't racists and that if he provided any real evidence that he was, life would get difficult for him. So he yelled at everybody a lot, and we all thought he was a cranky old coot (which he was).
The black racist lacked any such wisdom. He too was a mean old man (but not as old as whitey), but he pretended he wasn't. He screamed until he was hoarse on at least one occasion at "everybody." By "everybody" I mean the three guys (out of about a dozen) who worked the hardest: two white guys and a "person of mixed descent," who most people casually identified as "black," but that the boss hated more than anybody.
Living in upstate New York (which I no longer do), I have been denied job, promotion, and basic respect for no other reason than that my boss was a black racist.
That wasn't the government, and there was no conspiracy (other than "don't fire that black guy. he'll sue."), and sure as hell nobody was afraid of me.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say that some racists are retarded and some are just crazy, but not necessarily stupid. I'm not saying that black racists tend to be stupid and white racists tend to only be nuts. That's just the example I've experienced personally.
Side note: I identify myself as Scottish and my wife is Irish (to my great shame and that of my ancestors, she drinks me under the table). So whenever (granted, it's not very often) I'm talking with a black American who says "my people" are oppressing "his people," I inform him that "my country" and "my people" are still owned by the same Empire who's chains his grandfather is not old enough to have seen.
I've gotten a little off-topic, and hope I haven't hijacked this post.
Trope: A region of warmish climate, near the equator.
That's one thing that amuses me about southern and southern-transplant racists; if their families go back very far, pretty much everyone is of mixed race. According to the one drop law, they should all be victims of their own Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and the Aryan nations.
ReplyDeleteThe earliest plantation owners started out in the Carolinas, creating a violent slave-based culture; violence against slaves, and Scots-Irish and English violence toward each other over class and ethnic anger. My father's family branches emigrated before the revolutionary war and well before the civil war from England and Ireland (English and Scots-Irish). They started in North Carolina, emigrated from there to Alabama, to Arkansas, and finally to Washington State where I was born. We are as pasty as they come, with blood shot blue eyes and veins showing through, and we can be mean drunks.
One family branch were small time slave owners, and both branches were full of roving men spreading their DNA around while leaving their overworked, half-starved wives home to raise the passel of kids and work the rock farms. Each branch served in the civil war, on opposite sides.
My great grandfather, whose father was a Union soldier, was whispered about for being "colored" and "different." Back then it could have been because of any ethnic background darker than the English/ Scots-Irish/Irish/Germans/Dutch. We don't know how many out-of-wedlock children he sired, but we know they are out there.
His daughter, my grandmother, was whispered about too. After she lied about her age and eloped with my much older grandfather, her own family was pretty much invisible to us. She ran off with my grandfather, whose grandfather was a Confederate soldier, in the early 1900s. In Arkansas it still wasn’t a good time for one’s neighbors to suspect you might have that one drop of nonwhite blood because it could mean a much harder life lay ahead. (Imagine how many people spent their lives covering the past in order to protect themselves from each other?) These grandparents moved to Washington State and my children have no concept of what I am describing, which is a very good thing.
Many of us have one olive-skinned, brown-eyed child, so we are a light-skinned, light-eyed bunch with darker relatives thrown into the mix like mixed candy. In my birth family it is my brother. In my own children it is my daughter. Her brother is 6' 2" and lanky, with red-gold hair, hazel eyes, and fair, fair skin. She has dark skin and dark brown eyes, the end of her nose is shaped like my siblings instead of mine and her father’s (my sister is fair, but her nose is shaped like my brother's), with a 5' 4" Scots-Irish build. In the summer she is very dark because just walking outside turns her skin dark brown, and when we travel she is always the one chosen to be pulled over into that special spot with all the other darker-skinned people for extra security checking; never us, not even when we've been standing side-by-side. It's happened several times since 9/11.
It is questionable whether there ever were separate races at all, but for sure there isn't now because our DNA has been mixing for many thousands of years.
Discrimination happens to everyone for one reason or another whether it be because of our age, income, class, ethnicity, physical abilities, gender, sexual orientation, politics, religion, color of our skin, the boss plays favorites, nonconformists are not rewarded, someone at the top feels threatened by an underling smarter and more capable than they, whatever.
ReplyDeleteThe difference, though, for those of us society mistakenly assumes are only "white," therefore our race or ethnic background doesn't even catch anyone's attention, is that it isn't systematic, institutionalized, socially acceptable discrimination that prevents us from receiving an equitable shot at what our culture has to offer.
We might have other valid discrimination complaints, but race isn’t one of them because it doesn’t stop our opportunities dead. That is why it just isn't the same when whitey complains about being picked on for being whitey.