Is Whiteness Solely About Having White Skin Or Is it Something More?

Writing about race, you learn pretty quickly a lot of people believe Whiteness is only skin deep. Skin color can’t be easily changed and so White folk who think like this tend to find quick offense anytime White is mentioned in a less than stellar light. They feel attacked and react to imagined fears of being persecuted due to the color of their skin.

Now, those of us who view Whiteness through a different lens struggle to understand why these people just don’t get it. We find it difficult to communicate with folks like this because we’re operating from completely different frameworks. If we can’t agree about what Whiteness is, we can’t every properly address racism as we’re not even looking in the same places.

So, today, I want to focus on Whiteness primarily from a White perspective. All are welcome and even encouraged to chime in, but I really am foremost interested in White people’s thoughts on a few things.

I am also challenging White people reading this to resist the urge to examine Whiteness in comparison to Blackness or to attempt to redirect the focus of this conversation solely to Blackness. For some, it may be necessary to mention Blackness in order to understand if or how Whiteness uses Blackness in building itself. But let’s refrain from centering Blackness in an effort to avoid examining Whiteness.

With that said, let’s have a little discussion, shall we?

A Closer Look at Whiteness

Tell us, what’s good about being White? Beyond having so-called white skin, what is good about being White? As a White person, what does Whiteness mean to you?

If you believe that being White is only about your skin’s color, can you explain why others with so-called white skin are not classified as White? For example, some Chinese have very pale skin… paler than some of you reading this. Are they then White? There are also some extremely light-skinned and even white-skinned Black people. Are they White? Biracial people with pale skin who have one White parent and one non-White parent, are they White? People of color who bleach all of the color from their skin, do they become White?

If your race is purely based on physical appearance which shade of ‘white’ is the cutoff to be considered racially White?

When I was a teenager, I remember visiting family in Detroit one summer. Across the street from one of my cousins lived a Black man married to a White woman. The couple had a set of the triplet daughters. Two of the little girls inherited their mom’s skin color, the other their dad’s. Were two of the girls White and one Black? I also have four grandsons and while their dad is Black, their mom is White. Now, my boys are all ridiculously handsome and each has a different aesthetic, including a set of twins with different skin tones. In a world where Whiteness is solely about skin color, how does it work where twins or siblings have the same parents, but are on opposite sides of the skin color spectrum?

Further, if Whiteness is all about skin color, why weren’t Italians, Sicilians, Irish immigrants, Arabs and Jewish people readily accepted as White? Particularly those of a light hue?

I ask these questions to those of you who repeatedly insist in every conversation about Whiteness that people are singling you out because of your so-called White skin.

Is Whiteness all about skin color? Or is there something more to it? And, if so, what?

Is Whiteness about being of European descent? Again, if this is so, please explain why all of Europe’s immigrants weren’t immediately accepted as White upon arrival in America? And if it’s just about being of European descent, how were Arabs able to successfully sue the United States federal government for the right to be legally classified as White?

One more question before you go, if DNA testing showed you to have one Nigerian great-grandparent, one Sicilian great-grandparent, one Spanish great-grandparent, two Jewish great-grandparents and three Anglo-Saxon grandparents would you still be White?

Thanks for reading this far and I look forward to you sharing your thoughts on what, exactly, you think White is in the comments.