male presenting anglo canadian here, every interaction i have ever had is in some way tinged with white supremacy and male privilege. i've been treated better and assumed by default to be more competent than non-whites pretty much every day.
also like have you ever talked to another white person? if a white person or man talks to someone they assume shares their values they say the worst shit. i thought it was funny when libs were condemning trumps "locker room talk" defense like it's so unbelievable to them that men would discuss sexual assault like that in a male space. "i've never heard anything like that in a locker room." you are lying. most white men are thinking and saying the worst possible things at any given moment.
non-white people can tell by the way they are treated by white people and western society that white supremacy is the thread that binds the western world together. but if you look like them, they will just tell you straight up their terrible ideas assuming you will agree. if you cant figure it out when you actively benefit from it daily, if you cant notice that you're being held to a different standard by other white people daily, if you cant figure it out when they LOOK FOR EXCUSES TO TELL YOU, than i dunno how much self-crit is gonna help. at that point it seems like an empathy problem
if you identify as an anarchist or a communist and also identify with your whiteness, you missed something, probably a lot of things, along the way. try to be more perceptive geez.
love to my comrades of every skin colour and gender identity, death to the first world and any framework including race used to justify it
Having pale skin and "whiteness" are different. Whiteness is the belief in a distinct White identity, which is defined oppositionally as "not being black" classically or "not being Them" nowadays, where Them is everyone except whatever you think white people are. Are Irish people white? Italians? Scandinavians? All of those are distinct ethnic and cultural groups that have the same skin color but don't just call themselves "white". To be White you have to have people that aren't.
You can be white and not be White if that makes sense.
That absolutely makes sense — the definition of whiteness certainly has changed over the years. It’s weird to think that some of my Italian ancestors wouldn’t have been considered “White” but I suppose it’s the same with Hispanic people now.
yeah fox pretty much summed up what I meant by that. like i am white in the sense that I have pale skin and anglo ancestors. in the framework of white supremacy i am white. and i don't deny that.
but i don't hold my whiteness as a part of my identity, i understand that whiteness as a concept was invented in order to justify slavery and colonization of people who don't fit into that particular definition of white. i am white in many important senses but I don't think my whiteness is a part of who i am.
a little of topic but i haven't really articulated this before to anyone, but for me it's the same with being a man. i am (in the closet lol) agender, i do not feel like or identify as a man. but because gender also describes a framework that has real consequences, I don't mind being referred to as a man because it accurately describes my role in the patriarchy and how i fit into a patriarchal society. im white and a man because those things accurately position me in these frameworks. but not because i truely embody those things or identify with them.