‘Whiteness’ overlooked in history discussions

King liberated and civilized millions by helping America and the world to once again confront ‘‘whiteness” a movement started in 1919 by Pan Africanists led by W.E.B. Dubois and other intellectuals of the African Diaspora.

First, a few clarifications:

The old cliché that the human race is the only race is a cliché because it is true. The genome project now offers proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Outward physical appearance upon which race and racism is based accounts for less than 1 percent of our genetic makeup.

Because race has no biological or scientific bases, when we use the common language of race and racism, we start in lingual and conceptual ambiguity.

Although evidence does not matter to racist because racism (and all the other isms that diminish our humanity) is based on responses to our most primitive instincts, our reptilian brain. Research shows:

*Humans are members of the ape family, creatures of and a part of nature.

*Our ancestors evolved on the plains of East Africa. The imagined biblical Garden of Eden was the lush plains of East Africa with it’s multitude of plant and animal species not found any other place on earth. Adam and Eve were black-skinned Africans.

* Other now-extinct species of hominids like Neanderthals came out of Africa. Their extinction suggests hominids are not god’s chosen species.

Homo sapien’s survival is due mainly to good luck, which provided time to develop a bigger, more sophisticated brain. This means at least three things as it pertains to race:

*Race is not a scientific concept but a socio-economic construct created primarily to justify the economic and psychological benefits that come from exploiting others.

*We are all Africans, regardless of what race we claim. The phrase ‘‘African diaspora” also refers to all humans because our ancestors followed the food supply out of Africa to populate the rest of the world.

*We are all apes, great apes if that makes you feel any better, but given the violence, irrationality, barbarism and intellectual laziness of human apes, it is other apes that should be insulted, to paraphrase author Mark Twain.

White or whiteness is:

*A network of social, economic and cultural relations brought about by military conquest of much of the rest of the world by Europeans beginning more than 400 years ago.

*A form of property based on skin pigment creating in American and South Africa a ‘‘pigmentocracy”

*It is a standard of universal beauty and value.

*It is a mafia-like racket; membership offers a variety of unearned privileges, opportunities and rewards.

Thus, much of ‘‘white studies” is necessarily the study of dominance and exploitation that usually follows military conquest. America is a product of and much of the rest of the world has been shaped by European conquest and colonization, a major theme of human history. The era of western European dominance is just the latest.

The academic study of ‘‘whiteness” used to be divided among the social sciences, mainly history and race⁄race relations courses in sociology. It is now usually called ‘‘white studies.”

It is an academic discipline; thus, it is not about useless castigating but conscious raising and gaining insight and an understanding of the history, psychology and economics of ‘‘white racism,” a system of unearned privileges and opportunities that even its victims see as normal. Thus, raising the consciousness of victims is especially important.

One of the first questions is why would people of various shades of red and pink call themselves white?

The most likely answer can be found in Western Christianity and its holy book, the Bible, where sin and the devil are usually referred to as dark and black and sinlessness⁄godliness as white or light.

Since all the major religions are related and originated in the same geographical area, there are similar images and metaphors in all of their holy books.

Many African Americans and people of color accept these religious myths and sing songs and hymns with gusto about the ‘darkness of sin” and after conversion, having souls as ‘‘white as snow.”

That people of color are descendants of Ham, the sinful son of Noah, is the most powerful anti-black religious myth in all the major religions.

Because of his sins, his descendants were condemned to be servants. This was used to justify enslavement of sub-Saharan Africans by Muslims, Jews and European Christians.

It is out of this racist theology that we get words and phrases like ‘‘white race” and ‘‘white folks.” ‘‘Whiteness” is equivalent to, or at least next to, godliness. ‘‘Black” and all of its many shades is the very opposite.

This would mean little if those who call themselves white did not have the power to impose their will and values on others. The power to impose is the essence of racism.

How race is made may be the most interesting part of white studies. Driven to find justifications for African slavery, America has been the main laboratory for the ‘‘race making process” and anti-black racism.

The Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany and the apartheid laws of South Africa seem almost verbatim of United States black codes and Jim Crow laws and practices

The flexible definition of ‘‘white race” and how it expands to include those previously excluded is something every American needs to understand. The grandparents and certainly the great grandparents of many considered white today were considered ‘‘non-whites” or ‘‘in betweens.” Some did not become fully white until World War II, when many groups were forced to serve together.

The admission of the Irish, Jews and Eastern and Southern Europeans depended upon perceived threats from people of color - Asians, Latinos and African Americans, sources of surplus labor and strike breakers— the measure used by other outsiders to determine how close they were and calculate their chances of becoming white.

Whites of George Washington’s generation included members of the landed gentry primary of British, Scottish and French stock. It later included the first wave of German immigrants.

The racial hierarchy until well into the 1950s was roughly as follows:

(1)WASP - An elastic concept usually including people of British, Scottish, French, German and Scandinavian stock

In-betweens (neither white or black) and or honorary and probationary whites:

(2) Northern Italians

(3)Central Europeans

(4)East Europeans

(5)Southern Europeans

(6)Southern Italians

(7)Irish and Jews

Permanent Outsiders:

(8)Asians, Latinos, native Americans

(9)African, African Americans

Van Caldwell, a lawyer, lives in Kettering. He can be reached at vcaldwell@comcast.net.