"White" identity is not really based on anything except the exclusion & oppression of others. Europeans can & have been excluded from white identity due to their ethnicity or religion, so "whiteness" is not simply a matter of being of European descent

What is really at issue:
1) the ideology of white supremacy which informs...
2) ...institutional racism and
3) the concept of white Americanism, built upon the idea that [certain] ppl can shed their ethnicity & "assimilate" into white American identity

White identity serves no functional purpose outside of structural racism, the purpose for which this identity was developed. The rules governing who & who doesn't qualify as "white" fluctuate as necessary to preserve a privileged class

The development of racial theory & creation of "white" identity is well documented. (Court cases where central issue was determining who can & can't qualify as white, 4 ex.) Whiteness is a manufactured class identity connected to the expansion of colonialism & capitalism

That's why this whole notion that POC are the ones obsessed with "identity politics" is so false. Use of the term "POC" is itself a reaction to white identity politics, to describe the experience of "non-white" people living under white supremacist systems

Prior to European colonization & the institution of white supremacist systems, "people of color"-- the overwhelming majority of the world-- did not go around referring to each other as "people of color" because whiteness was not a thing

Whiteness is a *social construct*, not a biological reality. This is so key to understand when it comes to the work of anti-racism and what it means to dismantle white supremacy