File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1998/postcolonial.9805, message 111


Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 09:39:08 -0700
From: jbrown-AT-elm.mq.edu.au (James Brown)
Subject: Re:  national conference on whiteness


Dear B.Mills/Zona Sur,

My understanding of the category 'whiteness' is informed by cultural work
produced in both Australia and the USA on the subject. Obviously you've
been reading Montag's "The Universalization of Whiteness: Racism and the
Englightenment" and may therefore be familiar with other contributions to
Mike Hall's _Whiteness: A Critical Reader_ (1997) as well as some of the
other recent work on Whiteness. I would draw your attention to the passage
beginning "The secret of Whiteness . . ." on pp. 291-292.

My own understanding of Whiteness's operations in Australia is informed
especially by the work of academician Aileen Moreton-Robinson, a
traditional owner from Quandamooka. Given the concern for Australian
culture implicit in your email, may I recommend two articles recently
published in _Bringing Australia Together: The Structure and Experience of
Racism in Australia_ published earlier this year by the Foundation for
Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA):

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen, "White Race Privilege: Nullifying Native Title,"
pp. 39-44; and

Tannoch-Bland, Jenny, "Identifying White Race Privilege," pp. 33-38.

The following comment from Moreton-Robinson's preamble to her discussion of
Native Title may also help: "For Indigenous people, whiteness is visible
and imbued with power; it confers domination and privilege. White race
privilege means white people have more lifestyle choices available to them
because they are the 'mainstream.' Belonging to the 'mainstream' means
white people can choose whether or not they wish to bother themselves with
the opinions or concerns of Indigenous people" (pp. 39-40).

I hope this information will suggest to you something of the basis for the
concern with Whiteness in Australia today.

Yours in the struggle,

James Brown (yes, it is my own name!)

>Dear J. Brown,
>
>I am replying to old saved mail.  I have to say, I think the construct of
>"whiteness" is dangerous.  Perhaps you also have the Aryan Race monsters down
>under as we do here--proliferating via the Net, I might add.  Whiteness is no
>more a race than blackness, nor an identity but a false one.  Giving it the
>dignity of a racial category seems bordering on the absurd--to claim it as an
>identity (not that you have) equally so,  Some fool is going to grab on to
>that concept and challenge you some day on the basis that it is, in fact, a
>real racial category.  As any reasonable anthropologist will tell you, race is
>a non-entity anyway.  We all seem to be squabbling over phenotype when, what
>was it?, we are all no less than 15th cousins.  Not that some real horrors
>haven't been perpetuated on the basis of phenotype and not that that hasn't
>given the impetus to some--as the old-time sociologists were wont to say
>"sub"cultures...  I include a preamble to a real document presented by the
>National Association for the Advancement of White People on the occaion of
>school de-segregation in the US as a prime example of delusion of whiteness as
>anything more than  how can I put it politely ?  BS?
>
>The only thing that has changed in 44 years is that the tactics of violence
>are now considered acceptable by these toads.
>
>                                                                "PETITION
>
>        We the undersigned citizens of the State of Maryland, being
>residents of
>voting age, do consider the     ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court on May
>17, 1954,
>against race segegation in public schools an    invasion and violation of our
>individual rights under a sovereign state.   We believe that the heritage
>of
>our race is the one gift we received from our ancestors which we may with
>surety transmit to our  children.We believe that this God given heritage
>should not be taken from us by any human law or         decision.
>
>        We believe that it is the duty  of judicial, legislative and executive
>agencies to protect this heritage,      not to move for it's destruction.  We
>believe that the abolition of segregation in our schools strikes
>though our
>children, at the survival of our race, because it deprives them of protection
>which they      need until they develop adult judgement
>
>        We, therefore, do petition the government of the State of Maryland
>to make
>provision for the       establishment of a system of private schools for
>any group
>or groups which may wish to protect the         continued existence of
>it's own race;
>and make provision that any citizen who subscribes to the       support of
>such a
>school shall be entitled to and, in fact, shall receive a rebatement of, or a
>freedom         from all taxes collected or to be collected from him
>henceforth for
>all purposes of public instruction.     Joined together in this common
>cause, one
>to another, we are in full belief that our Consititution        grants us
>the right
>to withdraw our children from the public schools at any time the
>        aforementioned privileges are denied    us by the State of Maryland.
>
>        By affixing our signatures we do witness that we have never, nor
>do we intend
>to become a member of   any organization advocating the overthrow of the
>government of the United States of America by force     or violence.
>
>        NAME (Signature in Ink)       ADDRESS (Town, Street & No.  or
>R.F.D.)"
>
>
>
>Not terrific--
>
>B.Mills

Dr. James Brown,
Critical and Cultural Studies,
School of English, Linguistics and Media,
Macquarie University, Sydney NSW 2109, AUSTRALIA.
Telephone: 61 2 9850 8760

"Never in any circumstances shall I be able to belong to a party that has a
majority on its side ... the minority is always right - that is to say the
minority that is leading the way towards some point at which the majority
has not yet arrived". Henrik Ibsen 1882
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