theres a difference between whiteness, which is more of an idea that people embody consciously and unconsciously in different ways, and being white.

the issue is actually far more complicated than has been allowed in the current discourse, if you can call it that, and i think we are living with the problems from that absence of distinction.

ive been thinking about this for a long time. i not here to say i have solutions to the nations problems (lol), but i am saying that usually when i see poc expressing anger with white people, most often what they are talking about is whiteness.

this has been on my mind for a long time bc of how i grew up, where i grew up, part of my family, etc. ive been around a lot of white people in my life, as have most people in this country, and we all know on some level that lumping all white people together...

when we critique whiteness is a problem. we all know it. and yet...this aspect of the issue is generally, if not totally, absent from the public discussion. i dont think this benefits us when it comes to solving our current problems.

do i think there is such a thing as a white person who is totally absent of whiteness? probably not. but neither is there such a thing as a blackfoot person totally absent of blackfootness lol.

whiteness is as inescapable for a white person as blackfootness is for a blackfoot person. the question is, what do we do about whiteness? we discuss it as an idea that people embody it to varying degress (and not everyone who embodies it is white).

i think we are much more likely to get good results out of this approach than to simply attack white people per se, which is what i see most often. its simply not helpful, not to mention its often an expression of prejudice, which never leads to anything good.

like what is whiteness but an essential element of the mythology that was created around the american idea of race, inherited and expressed in a largely unconscious way?

i think the key is that whiteness, just like all ideas about race, can be deconstructed and seen for what it is. but being a white person, which is about phenotype, can that be deconstructed? naw. thats just biology, genes, inheritance.

the problem with attacking or critiquing someone bc theyre white is that...they cant do anything about that. its how they were born. its just as useless as critiquing someone for being born brown. it doesnt help at all, not to mention it creates resentment.

whiteness is something that can be dealt with, i really believe this. but blaming someone for the way they were born? it doesnt do anything that helps us deal with this problem.

like, i know a lot of white people, just like most poc. and they all embody whiteness to varying degrees, but are most of them *the problem*? no. the problem is white supremacy, which is directly related to whiteness. ideas can be changed, corrected, etc. phenotype cant.

and neither does it need to be.