White People, Attention: You have been and are being fooled!

A difficult fact, yet impossible to escape.

Every instance in which I discuss race as it exists in America, I have to always remind myself of one small, yet undeniable and important fact that is key to understanding the history of institutional racism in America: the “White race” was created first as the centerpiece of racial classifications and was used to be the privileged, benefitted norm upon which all else not under said heading were persecuted for generations. If one does not understand this fact and the context around it, one is missing out on a great deal of racial reality in past and contemporary society.

Whiteness was created as a classification to keep from being included as Black, Indian, “Oriental”, or any other non-White grouping. What is more interesting than this by itself is the history of how this reality came to be and how Whiteness seems to be the one racial category that has been allowed to adapt and shift definitions over generations.

From ethnic identity to a skin color.

When Europeans arrived on the scene in North America, there was no such identity or solidarity as “White people”. The European arrivals were Dutch, French, Spanish, English, Welsh, Scottish, German, the list goes on. Just as current day Vietnamese do no see themselves as “Yellow” with their neighboring Asians countries (despite Americans classifying them as such), Europeans did not see themselves as having some sort of bond due to having light skin and lighter features. In fact, many European indentured servants worked alongside African slaves in the early colonial days. Being White and Black was no distinction at this time – class and ethnicity were the point of focus to the elites, and indentured servant Europeans simply didn’t cut it for them.

When numerous rebellions took place on the east coast in the early to mid 17th century, institutional manners of grouping people began to change. African slaves and European servants were grouping together to rise up against the wealthy elites in the new land. In 17th century Virginia was where the first laws separating “Blacks” from “Whites” in terms of marriage laws and civil privileges were seen. The European servants, now classified as “Whites”, were given property rights; court testifying rights, and other privileges the African slaves were not given. In case this is getting too difficult to follow (or too hard to swallow, whichever the case may be): the term White was created to protect the collapse of an elite, Anglo power structure. That’s it – Whiteness was a trick played on poor European servants to give up their class interests and ethnically identify with a new skin based power structure.

But one cannot simply close the book there on the book of Whiteness. The definition of who was White and who was not would not be resolved in the 17th century. The power structure and society at large had differing ideas over time of who was to be White and who was not.
(To be continued)…