StanleyPain  - 2008-10-06
Odd that this should show up today since I just had a discussion with someone about the myths of immigration
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The Great Hippo - 2008-10-06
FUCK yes.
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TheDevilsDictionary - 2008-10-06
Oh Lure of Whiteness! How sweet, your siren song!
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phalsebob - 2008-10-06
!
He must be a gay godless socialist!
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Ursa_minor - 2008-10-06
Wow, yes.
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baleen - 2008-10-06
I don't believe that whiteness was manipulated and implanted from above... In came from within, because in order to be a Christian and to perpetuate the crimes against humanity that Europeans did, the victims could not be permitted souls or be considered fully human. It dates further back than Virginia, when Spaniards sliced off pieces of flesh from Indians in order to test their blades. The fact that he discusses this history solely in terms of class privilege makes me appreciate this a lot less.
The latter half is a little more relevant, but still pretty populist and simplistic. This is why I have problems with American socialists.
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baleen - 2008-10-06
I see your point, but I still don't buy whiteness as something that was instituted from above.
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Diogenes - 2008-10-06 Then how would you explain the ever increasing definition about which ethnic groups count as white? At various times you have the founding fathers bitching about all the filthy Germans and wanting more white people in the country, you have Slavic people and poles invading white America, you have the the black Irish, and you have all sorts of other swarthy people like Italians and Spaniards who are European but weren't considered white until the next major wave of immigration flooded in and all the white people banded against the strange foreign new guys.
Additionally, if they simply meant "European" they would have said "European" what they needed was a flexible definition that allowed them to include some people but not other people.
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baleen - 2008-10-06
I appreciate Tim Wise, but what I was getting at was that there was an internal, spiritual justification in a profoundly religious culture that perpetuated the divisions along racial lines long after the Reformation had ended. Slavery was a necessity for the early survival and later wealth of the colonists, but in order to create cohesive, civil societies based on Christianity and set out creating the mythical histories of "Enlightened" nation states Christians had to redefine what a human being actually was based on skin color.
Whiteness has constantly been a club, and we all know its history of selective inclusion. That's not really the point. My point was that whiteness arose slowly and was more of a spiritual dilemma with champions and agitators through the ages rather than a planned stream of divisions from the ruling classes, but those existed too. Cornell West, being both a devout Christian and a Marxist historian, talks about this extensively, and I wish I could easily find a passage online that communicates it far better than I could.
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dueserpenti - 2008-10-06
You know, I've been saying this for years and nobody listens to me either. Keep fighting the good fight, Timbo.
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dr_rock - 2008-10-06
Ugh.. Imagine being the person who got stuck talking to this guy at a party (when everyone else slinks off leaving you trapped there, with this guy raping your ear).
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Jeff Fries - 2008-10-06 Per the preview image, I doubt you would notice such a rape.
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dr_rock - 2008-10-06 Well done, good sir.
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Patterns for Success - 2008-10-06 Agreed. His voice and delivery are annoying. I really don't feel like being beaten over the head about race by someone who is so zealous about his own convictions, and who sounds like an angry, unfunny Jack Black.
Angry smugness is not an appealing quality.
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Innocent Bystander - 2008-10-06
This just in: academic lectures kinda different than parties!
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dr_rock - 2008-10-06 Have you ever been to a party with adults?
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wtf japan - 2008-10-06
Did I just get preached at by some bubbafied version of Karl Marx? Cool.
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svraz - 2008-10-06
To see how this construction unfolds in the modern state it is interesting to look at the interpretation of "whiteness" in apartheid south africa. (I think there were over 20 racial classifications, with white being one of them) . Japanese people were classified/had same rights as white. Apartheid South Africa = Weeaabo State?
BTW Thanks for posting this. Is this the same guy who wrote the book "When the Irish Were Black"?
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chumbucket - 2008-10-06
black people, white people and "the man"
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zatojones - 2008-10-06
-1 star off for his preacher way of speaking. It's as irritating when it's being used to say stuff like this as it is to say stuff about Jesus.
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chumbucket - 2008-10-06 umm don't you mean Jeeeeah- ZUS
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PegLegPete - 2008-10-06
He's pretty short-sighted on his theories about illegal immigration but that was a decent rant/lecture. I agree the image "white people" have presently was in no way premeditated. I think every every group of people, civilization etc... (who are often of the same race) has tried to become stronger and more influential - therefore pressing their views on others. This reflects humanity. The means that these groups went a about maintaining power, and those they stomped on in the process is all relative to the people who have the power.
The way the world has been for a while: people with light skin holding many of the most powerful and influential positions on the world stage - seems to make some people think the lighter races are better than the darker ones. But only dumb people think that. The way I see it is - at least in America - is that there will be so much racial integration in the next couple of centuries that the face of power and influence won't look the same. Hell that face might even be Chinese.
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