Defining Whiteness

And finding gender at its root.

Sid.
Sid.
Aug 31, 2018 · 9 min read
Photo by George Becker

There’s an uncomfortable dissonance that squirms in my belly when using the term ‘whiteness’ - it feels impetuous to approach such a personal and human concept while there remains such a visceral lack of agreement on what exactly it implies. It’s an inconvenient hindrance when whiteness is one of my more favorite things to talk about. I work in healing, and though many healthcare providers would prefer to believe otherwise, we can't talk about healing without talking about privilege: whiteness, power, trauma, shame. None of these things are extricable, if even different. But even outside that particular niche, I don't think I need to argue that whiteness is now a prevailing topic in a growing variety of spaces around the globe, and it frightens me how often we continue to attempt its subsequent conversations without first laying a solid foundation through the bare minimum of defining our vocabulary. I don't believe we must all agree on the same definitions, but that we have at least the responsibility as individuals to know what we mean by a word if we are going to use it, and to communicate thusly.

For my own attempts to do so, I have a fondness for starting with James Baldwin's work, for he made the crucial clarification that what we have “is not a racial problem but a fear problem,” effectively blurring the imaginary lines between institutional/cultural oppression and emotional health.

The fear, he argues, is that of an imaginary ‘Other’ that doesn't exist, at least not in the bodies of color it's attributed to, and it is a fear of a lack of power over that Other. His essay, ‘On Being White. . and Other Lies’ explains that whiteness, a concept originating primarily in the foundation of the modern Americas, relies simply on not being that Lesser Other in order to exist at all. It was defined as not black or not brown or not Polish even, while it itself was shapeless, thereby allowing it to later decide that Poles, and others, counted as Not Black Enough too, when mutually beneficial to do so. If whiteness relies on an Inferior to know what it is, I think we can simmer the substance of it down into the belief in a hierarchy, and ones’ own right to elevated status within that hierarchy.

But by that definition, can bodies of color experience whiteness by a belief in their superiority to another group? What about when the belief in a hierarchy remains, but is instead combined with a belief in ones’ own inferiority within it? Can we talk about whiteness only as it applies to white bodies without overlooking the power of internalized racism? Or internalized sexism, homophobia, or simply the existence of shame? These inferiority complexes are byproducts - manifestations - of whiteness. It is whiteness having inseminated itself into the minds, hearts and bodies of people of color and the others marginalized in a hierarchical culture. And by this understanding, the definition of whiteness does not rest cleanly at belief in superiority, but a belief in the presence of hierarchy at all. It means we have to look at whiteness as it exists in everyone rather than particular groups, and to expand the dialogue to include a larger human history in which social hierarchies have always existed under different names.

Without doing so, or by fixating too heavily on the current ‘white’ empire, I fear we only continue through this cycle of toppling empires just so new ones can be built in their place. Whiteness is the word for power in this day and age only because of modern context, but it is a certain relationship with power, which has been passed down through human culture for millennia now, that allowed the concept of whiteness to be built at all. It is a repetitive pattern in which a group of people creates an identity for themselves upon which to justify their right to conquest. And upon conquest, they bring with them not just their economies, politics, etc. . but the culture of domination itself, which then inherently continues to control and spread to the point we have to come up with a new word for it: globalization.

So what is a culture of power? What is it about those, or about the culture and mythos of those, who began the 'white' empire that is shared in common with every other empire in history, or even with those who tried and failed to build one? What is it that drives that need, or a belief in a need, for domination? What is it that drives anyone to want to convert, control and conquer their surroundings, and how does that culture manifest itself in the everyday lives of those under those empires? By which I mean, the everyday lives of ourselves?

What's frightening about asking these questions is that it means the problem of ‘power’ stops being confined to certain bodies, or to modern day ‘white’ bodies specifically. It stops being about individuals in power, but about the mythologies and ideologies in power. It becomes a more sinister idea in that it is omnipresent. We have to acknowledge the extent to which it has raised each of us and is visibly present in every aspect of our culture. In a globalised world, colonialism is in our medicine, our education, economy, spirituality, our romantic relationships, our notions of success: all are at least influenced by the same idealizations of control and power.

And of course, we can't talk about control without talking about masculinity - not just because we live in a patriarchal empire, in which masculinity becomes interchangeable with whiteness as a socially constructed claim to superiority, but because what is masculinity in its essence? (To first clarify: although pedestalizing masculinity does often mean a pedestalization of male-assigned bodies, it is not they that I'm referring to when I use the term masculinity. I am, again, referring not to individual bodies, but to a set of abstract qualities and adjectives.) Masculinity, since the more ancient human history we have record of, just so happens to most commonly bear associations with concepts like domination, physical strength, conquest, power, and so on. So is it coincidental that those cultures that built empires also happened to be patriarchal? Sure, we can't be surprised that a culture of domination manifests in multiple kinds of hierarchies, including gendered ones, but why is it specifically and repetitively masculine traits that are favored? Is there something in our conceptions of masculinity that is perhaps not just a result of hierarchy but part of a feedback loop or even a causal factor in relationship with power and fostering a colonialising culture?

To continue the domino chain, we can't talk about patriarchy without also talking about science and intellect, our pedestalizations of which are deeply entangled with those of masculinity. Logic is another trait traditionally attributed to the latter, while the feminine represents emotion, sensation, creativity, etc. I see no happenstance then, that this globalizing culture is one in which we've come to believe logic is meant to control sensation. It is a tool to keep the feminine ‘in its place’ - we are told emotions get in the way of ‘clear headed,’ logical thinking. We are told strength is in one's ability to tend to the practical rather than to be emotionally forward. Objectivity is more ‘useful’ to the economy and your success than emotion. Intuitive healers are brushed aside compared to those who use the mathematics and clear cut boxes of ‘science.’ Inherently, I see nothing wrong with recognizing masculinity’s ability to temper femininity away from excess or provide support where femininity may struggle to. I see nothing inherently wrong even, with masculinity’s need for clean-cut lines and control. What concerns me is the fact we do not also give credit to its opposites. It is the extent to which we do not consider when it is that intuition has its role and duty to keep logic ‘in its place.’ It is the extent to which we struggle to accept even the idea that sometimes trying too hard to think logically inhibits our ability to see what intuition sees as obvious, and that intuition and even emotion are as crucial to our scientific accuracy, innovative efficacy, and most importantly, personal empowerment, as our ability to ‘logic’ is.

Each side of this spectrum can keep the other in check without needing to maintain power over it. To trust this, however, is to tear down the framework that hierarchy so desperately depends upon: the conviction that in order to thrive, or even survive, one must control. So far, it seems, we have chosen that masculinity be the one to win this zero-sum game of duality. Andrea Smith argues, specifically with the example of Europeans in the North Americas, that "in order to colonize a people whose society was not hierarchical, colonizers must first naturalize hierarchy through naturalizing patriarchy." Whether this holds true or not, I think it speaks to this fact that for hierarchy to exist within a society, it must then also exist within ourselves, whether as cause or result, so we then must ask: what parts of ourselves is it that we deem lesser than the rest of us, or than other human beings? We cannot separate our own distrust in ourselves from the perpetuation of institutional oppression - the two form a codependent loop. And it is likely that most under the power of this current empire, which at this point is most of the globe, would answer this question with things like: physical weakness or fragility. Emotional sensitivity or neediness. Not smart (by which is meant: logical) enough. Not powerful enough. It is the existence of femininity within ourselves we have learnt needs to be disciplined out of us, and the notion it might serve its own purposes is a consideration we've forgotten is even an option.

To me, all work done in the name of healing from oppression and prejudice, or the undoing of hierarchy, whether racial, economic, political, sexual or gendered, etc. (the list is fairly infinite) has a root in our relationship with gender and could perhaps even find a new kind of efficiency in being aimed more directly at feminism; but critically, I do not mean just the elevation and empowerment of specifically femme and woman-identified individuals. I like the term feminism because its root is femininity, not women. I use the term to mean the elevation of femininity as a concept, an embracing of the parts of all of us, not only of some bodies in particular, that for some reason make us so afraid, and so ashamed.

It means accepting that, if hierarchy does not exist, then there must also exist a strange yet harmonious contradiction of gender within ourselves. Individual bodies can at once embody opposing opposites without either one being inherently better than the other — merely beholden to different sets of strengths and weaknesses that may even complement each other. If we can allow this collaboration to exist within ourselves, we may find ourselves better able to allow it to exist in our communities.

By pushing culture to reconnect us with a universal feminine, we organically tear down the systems that have subjected all of us to subjugation, humiliation, and violence. We become more patient with our natural environment and its limited resources rather than decimating it for immediate gratification. We become more compassionate and willing to learn from and about those who differ from us, and those who have been systematically silenced - people of color, queer and gender variant folk, those with fat or disabled bodies, those in poverty, and those of different nationalities/ethnicities, etc. We humble ourselves to the possibility that we do not know everything, nor can we control it - that there are things that cannot be 'fixed,' only adapted to. We treat mental health more holistically by nurturing respect for, rather than the demonization of, emotion. We embrace the frequent existential crises that come with being willing to admit when we're wrong, when we've fucked up, and when we have no choice but to face the frightening and difficult task of pushing ourselves to change.

This means also, however, doing the terrifying work of trusting femininity, in all its gentleness, patience, subtlety, receptivity, and compassion, to have its own kind of power against the violence of oppression. If we continue to fear that by embracing our femininity we remain weak, the people in power may change of course, but the culture of control, what I am referring to when I say whiteness, will not.

Avoids writing bios due to consistent identity crises, which will at least probably be written about.

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