This should be simple, right? White is a color we are all familiar with, but my prompt is on whiteness - that is a concept, a way of life, a perception, a certain united front with specific goals. Let's get into it!
Aah! Our glorious white people...
A social construct, white was just a skin color prior to the idea of the "white race". This idea was constructed to enforce a perception of a united front in context to racialized slavery and social status. It was one of the major catalysts for the success of white domination as it caused racial and colorist divides among the slaves of European colonies. And if you hit the lotto of being European and having particular "white" characteristics, honey... You are a social asset! I mean, it doesn't exclude you from being used in some way or form, but you could get away with some sh*t and maybe gain some power. You definitely won't be suffering in the ways of an unambiguous black person, which is a good thing.
That's why I have no hard feelings against light-skinned black people who stationed themselves closer to whiteness to have some kind of decent life.
It is painful and brings up resentment, even questions the idea of unity within the black race especially back then when, in hindsight, seems like they were more united than we are now. More to the point, questions the concept of Black unity, when we just put into words how whiteness is literally a social construct for the use of racialized slavery with the ability to cause divide. Doesn't it just mean that blackness is another social construct, and the idea of unifying upon that basis is just us playing into the cruel hands of our European oppressors, perpetuating and reinventing the idea of slavery?
Or is it the same as trying to "fix" ancestral events that supposedly led to the string of bad luck you have been experiencing, pointless and out of reach?
So much has happened. We can't fix everything and sometimes, it's not for us to fix. So it's decided, we are black, and Black Lives Matter.
So how do we know when someone is black?
Do we define them in how they perceive other black people and black culture?
Or is how they view white people the true tell?
I know that I always feel uneasy when white people root for a kafir or a nigga.
Do we define them how the whites define them?
Is the one-drop rule accurate? Or is the paper bag test more effective? Unless it's time to bring back the pencil test?
Damn, this is a lot to take in... but we must keep on keeping on, the integrity of my train of thought and this piece pretty much depend on us keeping on.
So what we have taken from the idea of whiteness is that it was created on the basis of oppression, that the whiteness of one's skin color was just an easy identifier European oppressors agreed upon and a colorist divide amongst the slaves. Before that, white was just a color. After that, white was the oppressor, and any drop of physical attributes of black, made you a black that got away with being black in a white social status.
White presenting people agreed to the legal and verbal rules of oppression, they got rewarded, and rapidly, whiteness was everywhere, even religious and natural. So natural, that doctors and scientists of that time could "prove" that we were inherently inferior, that we were monkeys and baboons, and in some spaces, less than monkeys and baboons.
Consequently, this is how you know you are white, no matter your skin color:
You believe that there are circumstances that warrant a person losing their inherent human rights
You believe that animals are somehow less worthy than humans, or that there is some kind of hierarchy between animals and humans (P.S. We are all just animals)
You see nothing wrong with the concept of a zoo, human or animal.
I want to do something about this whole concept of an animal zoo we all just accept and celebrate. I find it triggering and feel like I am no better than the spectators of a human zoo.
Where have we landed on race? Is racism still real?
But if it isn't, why are we still talking about it?
Seems you made it to the end.
Are you white?
Comment below.
Read the Vusi Thembekwayo post here to see which one of the kafir the South African whites root for.
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