Many Whites in the United States have a strong sense of ethnic identity that is tied to their immigrant ancestors’ country of origin (Italian Americans, Irish Americans, Swedish Americans) or to their experience in this country (New England Yankees, Midwestern Hoosiers, Appalachians, and so on). There are many subgroups within the White experience, but ...[m]any United States Whites with a strong sense of ethnic identity do not have a strong sense of racial identity. Indeed, ...many Whites take their Whiteness for granted to the extent that they do not consciously think about it. Nevertheless, their identity as members of the White group in the United States has a profound impact on their lives.
"White Racial Identity Development in the United States" by Rita Hardiman in Race, Ethnicity and Self: Identity in Multicultural Perspective, edited by Elizabeth Pathy Salett and Diane R. Koslow (Washington, DC: NMCI Publications, 1994).
...it has frequently been the case that White students enrolled in my class on racial and cultural issues in counseling expect to be taught all about the cultures of people of color, and they are almost always surprised to hear that we will be discussing the White group’s experience. Some students remark that they are not White; they are female, or working-class, or Catholic or Jewish, but not White. When challenged, they reluctantly admit that they are White but report that this is the first time they have had to think about what it means for them.
"White Racial Identity Development in the United States" by Rita Hardiman in Race, Ethnicity and Self: Identity in Multicultural Perspective, edited by Elizabeth Pathy Salett and Diane R. Koslow (Washington, DC: NMCI Publications, 1994).
[Blacks are mired] in a very natural process of inversion in which we invert from negative to positive the very point of difference — our blackness — that the enemy used to justify our oppression.
...One of the many advantages whites enjoy in America is a relative freedom from the draining obligation of racial inversion. Whites do not have to spend precious time fashioning an identity out of simply being white. They do not have to self-consciously imbue whiteness with an ideology, look to whiteness for some special essence, or divide up into factions and wrestle over what it means to be white. Their racial collectivism, to the extent that they feel it, creates no imbalance between the collective and the individual. This, of course, is yet another blessing of history and of power, of never having lived in the midst of an overwhelming enemy race.
Shelby Steele, The Content of Our Character (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990).
The anxiety that exists for Whites concerning the subject of race should not be underestimated. It is high even for those who believe they have mastered their biases and especially for those who have made the commitment to self-confrontation. For although many would like to believe they are free of racial prejudice and want to view it as operative only in instances of blatant bigotry, there is tension about checking this out. This anxiety has been expressed in terms of fear of discovering bad things about oneself, uneasiness about unexamined values, awareness of the pervasiveness of racism, of one’s helplessness to cope, and of a sense of a sense of entrapment... Management of this anxiety in the interest of confronting bias and achieving greater comfort and confidence in cross-racial interactions should be seen as an act of courage.
But usually Whites do not feel courageous. They tend instead to plead ignorance and to protest that they have never had to think about the meaning of being White.
Elaine Pinderhughes, Understanding Race, Ethnicity, and Power: The Key to Efficacy in Clinical Practice (New York: The Free Press, 1989).
There are few resources that focus on the need for white men to learn about their own identity. History books do not tell about the effects of slavery on the slave owners. They do not suggest that white people’s fears when they see two or more black men walk or drive through white neighborhoods may be the same fears that haunted white Southerners after slave-uprisings such as Denmark Vesey’s plot in 1822 and Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831. Nor do they describe how being part of the race that has dominated and oppressed Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and other people of color on this continent affects individual members of that race.
Oron South, "The Learning Problem," in The Diversity Factor, Vol. 1 No. 3, 1993, pp. 32-33.
There are two other students in my class who have one black parent and one white parent, and they were very black-identified, but they also got recruited very heavily by these same two [black] guys who were like, "You belong with us. Why don’t you come with us?" And I didn’t want to be recruited. Again, I wasn’t willing to make this decision that these were the only people I was going to talk to for three years, which is really what they wanted you to decide. It was okay to talk to the Latino students, you know, and the Native American students; if you had to you could talk to the Asian students, but you should avoid white students unless they prove themselves... I know so many white students who feel completely alienated; they didn’t come to Berkeley expecting to have to jump through hoops to be allowed to talk to someone who was black.
Lisa Feldstein, age 28, biracial child of a black mother and white father, quoted by Lise Funderburg in Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994) pp. 130-131.
You start talking about racial issues, especially with upper-class white folk, immediately they go into the denial stage of "Prove to me why this is true." Well, how many volumes am I going to sit here and beat my head against the wall to prove to you that our life experience may be just a little bit different from yours?
Brad Simpson, age 31, biracial child of a white mother and black father, quoted by Lise Funderburg in Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1994) p. 171.
...the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased.
Benjamin Franklin, "Observations Concerning the Increase in Mankind," (1751), Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree (New Haven, 1959). Cited in article by Straughton Lynd, "Slavery and the Founding Fathers," in Black History: A Reappraisal, ed. Melvin Drimmer (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1969).
And to answer AS and Larsen: You don't get to tell me who I am. I get to tell you. And if I happen to want to say I'm black, what business is it of yours? Are you going to tell me what "race" I belong to, based on your observations?
I did once go around saying I was part Cherokee, because that was the family story. However, there is no proof of it, save for two family photos from the late 1800's that show two people whose features look rather "Indian."
I don't self-identify as Cherokee anymore. And you don't get to tell me I'm wrong, because you can see my high-cheekbones and thin lips and the fact my tan can last for months.
As to why I said "non-white?" Because you just can't win on this freaking forum no matter what you do or how careful you try to be. If I had said there were no blacks, SOMEONE would have helpfully pointed out the Asian persons, or the Hispanic persons.
See, what my husband and I said at TAM, verbatim, was this:
Me: Have you noticed, it's a sea of whiteness here?
Him: Yeah. Why is that? Aren't any non-whites skeptical folks, too?
Me: I...I..I'm sure...there must be. No group is monolithic.
Him: I know. So where are they?
Me: (feeling helpless) I don't know. I'd like to know.
