Whiteness is a racial construct. It’s time to take it apart
"In 2016, Ukrainians and Italians in Canada are pretty much white, but both were interned as enemy aliens in the past."
I'd like to add: "No Blacks, no Jews, no dogs, no Irish" was also a thing, yet you'll find some of the most vociferous racists inhabiting these ethnicities / nationalities.
"Toronto Mayor John Tory, at an election campaign event two years ago, demurred on whether white privilege existed, while Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson recently called those who accused him of white supremacy as being “vulgar and rude.” What’s actually vulgar is that being white increases access to power and privilege, and that by not engaging with that truth, politicians can help to maintain that inequality.
Dr. DiAngelo has a term for that avoidance, too. “White fragility,” she says, is the inability to cope with conversations about race that don’t protect individual white people’s sense of innocence. Western society maintains that racism is an act that individuals do, not a system that all of us exist in.
Thus, she says, it teaches us that “being a good person and being complicit with racism are mutually exclusive.” To hear an accusation of racism is to believe one’s basic morality is in question, which stirs up guilt and defensiveness, leading to anger and avoidance."
Great read from Denise Balkissoon on "Whiteness" and how we have to deal with it.