Jun 25, 2025
A few people did not appreciate my response to this Threads post. I stated that many of the commentors are seeing the question and thinking only of LOOKING white instead of what it meanst to BE white.
Unsurprisingly, the ones who most attempt condescension are white men.
But I digress, since Ry is one of my favorite white men — a “token”, if you will. But I’m using his post to jump from, so I’m not putting words in his mouth.
What we are ignoring is that *being* white is an ideology. It’s a social construct that was devised in order to dehumanize anyone who did not exhibit the physical characteristics of being “white”, and thus the construct was born.
Whiteness didn’t just create racial oppression, it created classism. Whiteness was created by a French men, upheld by Germans, and then weaponized by Europeans at home and abroad.
WEIRD, RIGHT?
Whiteness has been levied against other cultures forcenturies, and until we were forced to recognize that we were (and still are) committing an ongoing genocide, many of us were happy to live our lives in complacency and ignorance.
Simply saying “I’m not white” when you were created by white people, raised in a white enviornment, and benefit from white privilege is the same as Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy.
That’s not how it works. Regardless of how Germans, the Irish, Italians, even Slavic peoplewere treated prior to the 20th century — they all still assmiliated in a successful effort to escape the oppression and persecution.
In fact, to that thumb who claimed to be German American (from the 18th century ancestor) — the Germans were accepted into the scope of whiteness almost immediately, while the Irish were still persecuted.
Why? It had nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with *cue trumpets* THE CHURCH. Americans were largely Protestant, and Irish immigrants were Catholic. Do the fucking math.
German immigrants are largely responsible for our agriculture, urban development, and education system. Where the fuck do you think “kindergarden” came from? And who do you think they used for labor?
And the Irish people helped build the fire department, the police department, and entered into politics. Suddenly, they’re also accepted into white supremacy culture. And who do you think they were arresting?
Italians? Civil engineering. Bridges, towers, roadways.
The Slavs worked in the coal mines and built the steel industry — this would be the group referred to as “hunkies”, which is an ethnic slur — some etymologists say this is where “honkey” stems from.
I’m sure I’m missing some pertinent facts, but this super long thread is really my frustration and driving the point home that just because you THINK you read, you didn’t fucking read. And so it became a Subtack post.
I will go even further to state that most white Americans who’s lineage can be traced to a point in time earlier than the 20th century — we don’t really have a standard ethnicity. I’m 3rd gen Carpatho-Rusyn from Hungary by way of Ukraine on one side, and 12th gen Irish on the other — that means my ethnicity is a big old bag of what the fuck. It all matters, but none of it matters.
Given this history, why do you care about being white? And if you don’t consider yourself to *be* white — why did you answer? Because that’s very much a white thing to do.
And if you have believe you have made a conscious choice to divest yourself of whiteness as a pattern and a social construct, why does it bother you when it’s pointed out that people are conflating whiteness (the state of being white) with the color of their skin (the state of looking white)?
Read a book.
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