I dunno who needs to hear this but there is a difference between ethnic identity/kinship, nationality, and political identity.

An ethnic identity is based on sociocultural factors: the languages we speak, the lullabies we sing, the food we cook, our relationship w the land & waters & spirit & our ancestors, our creation myths, the rituals & celebrations of the seasons of our lives and of the earth, etc.

Ethnic groups & ethnic identity predate the creation of nation-states and settler colonial states, and will outlast them.

A nationality is a legal status.

A political identity is, as Mike Jones, Missouri Board of Education member said, "is something metaphysical."

"It's a philosophical point of view, a way of looking at and understanding the world that empowers you to act upon that world to advance your interests."

"White" is a political identity. It has nothing to do with biology.

"Women of color" is a political identity. It was created in 1977 at the US National Women's Conference as a unifying term for Black women and non-Black minoritized women to address shared political and social issues.

Over time, radical political identities tend to get de-fanged and stripped of their original agenda, like "Asian American," which was meant to be about pan-Asian solidarity & self-determination, and anti-imperialism.

Or, ppl forget that it's a political – not ethnic – identity.

Political identities are usually contextual. In the U.S., non-white political identities are created in response to white oppression, as "white" was originally created as an anti-Black and anti-Indigenous device.

This is why newly arrived African immigrants to the US may not immediately consider themselves as Black.

In Việt Nam, I am not a "woman of color" or "Asian American."

In other words, political identities are about power.

When I talk about "white people," I'm talking abt peoples of *many* ethnicities who have been folded into a political identity for the sole purpose of converting humans and land into property and profit – of racial capitalism

There are times when a political identity is also an ethnic identity. African survivors of the Middle Passage were forced to relinquish their ethnicities, but they forged a new culture, combining varied folklores, languages, music, and foodways.

(The process of whitening European peoples in the U.S. also involved them relinquishing their cultures, but instead of innovating a new culture out of ingenuity, whiteness was and is defined in contrast with anti-Black notions. I might do a thread on that later idk.)

"Black" became a political identity in the 60s. Scholars point to the turning point when Stokely Carmichael / Kwame Ture used "Black power" at a rally in 1966. Prior to that, the term for Black people in the U.S. was Negro.

"Asian" is not an ethnicity, but Asia is a geographical location. You can be a person from a place. In fact, that's how many peoples get their name. The Shanyue people living in Southern China & Northern Vietnam during the Han dynasty, for ex, are literally "mountain people."

An ethnic identity is also not dependent on nation-states. Hmong people have lived in Laos, Viet Nam, Thailand, and China for thousands of years regardless of where the borders are.

This is why, strictly speaking, when talking about ethnicity, someone could be Black and Hmong, but not white and Hmong. There is no such thing as a white ethnicity.

Once again, "white" is not biological. It's a political identity created exclusively to justify the stealing of land, enslaving of people, and wars –– for the maximum profit of the wealthy ruling class.

I hear you say “buuut, what do we call white people if not ‘white’”?

Idk, tbh. White people created this mess. They'll have to figure out how to get out of it. And whiteness studies scholars have thought about it. I recommend listening to this as a start: http://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/ 

Nationality, again, is a legal status between a person and a nation.

In the U.S., the notion of citizenship comes from a white supremacist institution that uses citizenship to legitimate mass displacement and enslavement.

Indigenous peoples didn't legally become U.S. citizens until 1924, but this was an act meant to break up Native nations and forced them to assimilate via the boarding school system.

Throughout US history, citizenship has been used as a tool to create and reinforce a caste system to exploit labor. People look at the 14th amendment giving Black people the rights to citizenship in 1868 as "the end" of making the U.S. a white man’s country. But...

... for immigrants to the U.S., citizenship continues to be a process of "hyper-selectivity," where those who are allowed in usually come from a higher socioeconomic status and have greater wealth than people in their home country *and* in the U.S. – creating an anti-Black wedge.

As Andrea Smith pointed out, the promise of citizenship gives non-Native peoples a way to take part in settling Indigenous lands. And non-Black peoples are promised that if we assimilate & participate in anti-Black systems, we will not be at the bottom of the US racial hierarchy.

Continuing this thread on ethnic identity, political identity, racial identity, and nationality, bc I continue to see their conflation muddling us up.

To recap:

✦ Ethnic identity: based on sociocultural factors, not dependent on borders or state

✦ Political identity: based on personal values & beliefs in how society should work, and crucially, relationship w power

✦ Nationality: legal status within a nation state

The whole entire mess we are in right now regarding race is our cursed inheritance of European scientific racism & the so-called Enlightenment thinkers, who constructed the whole notion of race based on arbitrary biological classification –– to then justify their superiority.

An example of how absurd this process was (and still is) –– is this French dude François B publishing an essay in 1684 dividing humanity into four "races," classifying one entire race as the Sámi people who are indigenous to northern Scandinavia & Russia.

Speaking of the Swedes, this Swedish dude Carl L. published *in a scientific journal* the five races as followed in 1767:

✦ The Americanus: red, choleric, righteous; black, straight, thick hair; stubborn, zealous, free; painting himself with red lines, and regulated by customs.

✦ The Europeanus: white, sanguine, browny, with abundant long hair; blue eyes; gentle, acute, inventive; covered with close vestments; and governed by laws.

✦ The Asiaticus: yellow, melancholic, stiff; black hair, dark eyes; severe, haughty, greedy; covered with loose clothing; and ruled by opinions.

(if you're not Asiaticus you are not allowed to be melancholic or wear loose clothing i did not make the rules)

✦ The Afer or Africanus: black, phlegmatic, relaxed; black, frizzled hair; silky skin, flat nose, tumid lips; females without shame; mammary glands give milk abundantly; crafty, sly, lazy, cunning, lustful, careless; anoints himself with grease; and governed by caprice.

If you are cringing in disgust at this point but thinking, "oh this is in the 1700s", I should tell you that scholars and scientists *rigorously* debated whether this stale piece of saltine "meant to imply a hierarchy of human superiority" IN 2009.

And if you're keeping track, there is a 5th race, the Monstrosus, mythologic humans which included:

✦ the "four-footed, mute, hairy" Homo feralis (Feral man)
✦ the animal-reared Juvenis lupinus hessensis (Hessian wolf boy)
✦ the Juvenis hannoveranus (Hannoverian boy)
etc etc

Idk if catboys would qualify as a part of this race, but the anthropomorphic man & "humanoid creatures" like the hydra & phoenix were.

No, this was not some kind of Nordic fairytales, this was published in multiple editions by a dude who gave us biological classification TODAY.

Fast forward to 1795 when the German Blumenbach came up with his own classification scheme of 5 races and color coded them:

✦ Negro (African)
✦ Mongolian (Asian)
✦ Malay (Southeast Asia)
✦ American Indian (American)
✦ Caucasian (European)

The colors this soggy piece of pretzel used for the 5 categories of humans were:

✦ Schwarz "black" (Aethiopian)
✦ Gelbbraun "yellow-brown" (Mongolian)
✦ Schwarzbraun "black-brown" (Malayan)
✦ Kupferroth "copper-red" (American)
✦ Weiss "white" (Caucasian)

At the same time, monsieur Buffon, French naturalist, mathematician etc categorized FOUR races instead:

✦ "White" European race (Race der Weißen)
✦ "Black" Negroid race (Negerrace)
✦ "Copper-red" Kalmyk race (kalmuckishe Race)
✦ "Olive-yellow" Indian race (Hinduische Race)

Mais pourquois seulement quatre races? Another monsieur René L asked and in 1847 presented SIX groups:

✦ White (Caucasian)
✦ Dusky (Indian)
✦ Orange-colored (Malay)
✦ Yellow (Mongoloid)
✦ Red (Carib and American)
✦ Black (Negroid)

They were Enlightenment thinkers and SCIENTISTS y'all, they had to have rigorous debates, obvi.

I'm taking time out of my Saturday night to type all this absurd racial & color classification because I constantly see really well meaning people saying they're "half white" or "a quarter white" and I'm just pleading yall to not play into that white supremacist language.

There is literally nothing biological about being white.

In the U.S., "white" is a political identity designated to those deemed qualified by the state to receive resources, land, citizenship, freedom, etc.

White is not an ethnicity.

The language of "half white" etc. is a colonial construct meant to control people, and specifically Indigenous peoples by limiting the citizenship of their nations and tribes. Blood quantum is chiefly used for Indigenous erasure.

"So what do I do if I have a white parent and a non-white parent." I don't have a white parent, so it's not my place to say. But I will offer this: you do not have to identify as part white. You don't have to be a quarter of a construct someone created to justify colonialism.

You are a whole person. You do not have to have a fractional identity.

Of course, race is fake, but the impact is definitely real.

For example, if you have a white parent you may have some privileges not available to those who do not, like maybe land/financial inheritance. Or if your name is something like Paisley McSmitherson Jr. The Third.

So you might have access to resources from your white parent. It's your responsibility to figure out what to do with that.

But an identity is also about the languages we speak, the cultures we cary, the struggles we're part of, the people we claim, and the people who claim us.

Speaking of the people we claim & the people who claim us, ngl, when I'm in Viet spaces w people who continue to insist they are "part white" or "part Caucasian," I sometimes wonder if there is a part of them that's (maybe unconsciously) distancing from their Viet identity, or

or that they haven't felt a sense of belonging & acceptance in Viet spaces/communities.

It can be a catch 22 situation where, someone doesn't feel comfortable identifying as Viet, so they don't claim it. And on my part if someone doesn't embrace their Viet identity, I respect that and give them space as they go thru the stages of ethnic/racial identity development.

But in organizing/movement spaces, I wish more people would understand the formation of race and political identities because they define our relationships to power –– that race is not our biological or cultural identity, that we are *racialized*.

In the words of Black literature & culture & critical theory Prof Alex Weheliye: “racialization is understood not as a biological or cultural descriptor but as a conglomerate of sociopolitical relations that discipline humanity into full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans"

Continuing this thread on political identity, ethnic identity, racial identity, and national identity to contribute more to collective discussion and understanding of identities, and in hope that if you find this useful that you would contribute to our mutual aid efforts

A recap:

✦ Ethnic identity: formed around sociocultural factors

✦ Political identity: formed in relation to institutional power

✦ Nationality: legal status btwn a person & a state

✦ Race: system of assigning unequal power based on physical traits, not biological/cultural

The reason why we have these absurd race categories and colors language that are so deeply fraught today –– where every week there's a twt discourse like, "are Southeast Asians Brown or Yellow?" –– is bc of a stale piece of pretzel named Blumenbach https://twitter.com/ximuoicay/status/1332880085599330305?s=20

Blumenbach considered the Caucasians, named after the Caucasus Mountains, "the most beautiful race." And all others are "a degeneration from the original type."

And so, "white" or "Caucasian" became a political identity.

I should mention here that there are lots of different kinds of political identity, not just racial. For example, "women of color" is a political identity https://twitter.com/ximuoicay/status/1318382030233628672?s=20

Political identities are political bc the people bearing such identities are *politicized* by state/institutional powers.

For those people, they can say they're "not political" and wish to not get involved in politics as much as they want, but their lives are always politicized.

What I mean by "politicized" is the process where a government puts all people seen as holders of a defined identity in a group IN ORDER TO DECIDE who gets what (resources, status, rights, etc.), when, and how. Or, who doesn't.

Marginalized groups form political identities for collective power IN RESPONSE to oppression. This is how "Asian American" came to be, to unite Japanese, Chinese & Filipino American college students in California. Before that, they were called "Oriental." https://twitter.com/ximuoicay/status/1318384110771990529?s=20

"Asian" is not an ethnicity or a monoculture. Though Disney, Hollywood, and boba culture (and SAT) may have made it seem so. Geographically it's home to some 4.5 billion people and depending on who you ask, has 48-54 countries with thousands of ethnic groups.

"ARE YOU SAYING RUSSIA IS IN ASIA?"

Technically Russia is part of both Europe and Asia and a Russian friend once told me that's why its symbol is the double-headed eagle, facing both west and east, to symbolize the geographic position of Russia.

Technically, countries called "Middle East" are in Asia. Central Asian ones too. But the US Census only defines people with ancestry from East Asia, South Asia, or Southeast Asia as "Asian." Iranians, Moroccans, Afghans, etc. are classified as "white."

Now why would that be...

And why is there only a "Middle East" in political discourse today, but not "Near East" or "Far East?"

Where is the Near East or Far East?

Before World War I, the Near East meant the land under the Ottoman Empire-ish, which at the start of the 1900 was around Tunisia to Egypt to Turkey to Iraq.

Before WWI, the "Middle East" included northwestern South Asia and Central Asia. The "Far East" was all countries in Southeast and East Asia and the easternmost part of Russian Siberia, called Russian Far East.

As you can see, what is considered "East" and "Asian" in political discourse evolves and shifts over time based on the colonial interests of "the west."

Similarly, racial categories shift and change to accommodate the white power structure.

Need to take a break here but I'll be back to tell you the story of when the Finnish were NOT white.

In the meantime, please support this GoFundMe if you are able. Any amount will truly help my comradefriends in this extremely tragic time for them. Tysm! https://twitter.com/wanderlusterers/status/1335366213002616832?s=20