We’re hearing a lot of complaints about white supremacy these days, to the extent that I’m becoming confused. As usual in reflecting on this subject, I’d like to start with a definition. What is meant by “white supremacy”?
The dictionary definition is:
a person who believes that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races
That itself is a bit loaded. Superior according to what metrics?
I certainly don’t want control over anyone else, whatever their race might be. Lord, let this cup pass from me.
I believe that races exist. Since you can test for race in a lab without ever seeing an individual it’s pretty hard to deny. I don’t believe that any race is categorically superior to another. I think the variances within the races are much more significant in determining “superiority” (whatever that means) than the variances between the races.
“Whiteness” is something entirely different. Many, many Hispanics (“white Hispanics”, oddly enough) think of themselves as white, other Americans think of them as white, and they will increasingly be considered white by everybody here. Maybe it’s just me but I consider Hispanics, Arabs, and East Indians to be white. I imagine that would have horrified my great-great-grandparents.
I would rather live in the United States than in Mexico or China or Italy or Ghana. I would resist efforts to render the United States more like Mexico or China or Italy or Ghana. I don’t think we need to exclude people from Mexico, China, Italy, or Ghana to keep the United States being the United States but I do think that we should be cautious about whom we accept to live here and I certainlty don’t think we have some sort of obligation to allow just anyone who wants to to live here. Does that make me a “white supremacist”?
I believe in linguistic relativity, AKA the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I don’t believe in linguistic determinism (the stronger form). Said another way I think that in order to participate in our culture on an equal basis you should speak English fluently. I don’t think it’s impossible to do so without speaking English fluently but I do think it’s extremely difficult. Does that make me a “white supremacist”?
I don’t think that English is a superior language, just the language of the dominant culture here. I actually think that many other languages are superior in some ways to English. However, there are some concepts to which being a native speaker of English predisposes one which a native speaker of, say, Russian or Chinese are less likely to embrace as easily. It’s not that they can’t comprehend them. It’s just that it takes a lot more effort for them to comprehend them. Words are like hooks on which you hang concepts.
The technical aspects of the definition aside, we all know it’s intended meaning and use. There are very, very few in the US. It’s a device used primarily for propaganda purposes.
Sounds like you’re coming around. Too many immigrants will make anyone Xenophobic. Being called names, ( White racist, hater, while at the same time watching your own culture slip away) would get anyone’s dander up. Doesn’t mean kill anyone. Just hole up more and more.
byt’ bezopasnym
I would also rather live in the US. As to English, current immigrants seem to be learning English as fast or faster than prior immigrants. I think there is this holdover idea that immigrants used to learn to speak it very fast. That is not what research has shown when studied.
https://news.wisc.edu/study-debunks-myth-that-early-immigrants-quickly-learned-english/
Steve
The study of which I’m aware, most generally cited to show that today’s immigrants are picking up English quickly, also found that Mexican immigrants switch over to English a whole generation later than other immigrant groups. According to the Census Bureau a higher percentage of Indian immigrants speak a language other than English at home than any other immigrant group. I can’t help but wonder if the age of the Internet and Skype actually creates impediments to the adoption of English that haven’t been felt among earlier cohorts.
A lot of things have changed since the days of the “early immigrants”. For example, I doubt that many of today’s immigrants come here to be subsistence farmers. Also communities were much more isolated a century or two ago than they are now. If we want one society, it should be an English-speaking one and impediments to that should be addressed rather than surrendered to.
By all accounts my own family’s immigrant experience was that they had adopted English as their primary method of communication within the first generation, the second generation only spoke a few words of their parents’ original language, and the third generation didn’t know it at all unless they learned it in school.
Language?
Very true. But aren’t you worried about Mexican cartels gaining power in the u s?
I’m a lot more worried about gangs of anglo yahoos beating the crap out of anyone who looks Mexican and dumping them across the border.
@steve, that study of “areas of heavy German settlement” in one of the most heavily German settled states in the country seems to miss the point entirely. If you move to America and live in communities where a majority of the people speak German, which was common in Wisconsin, you don’t need to speak English, particularly in simple 19th century agrarian based economies. Also, important if settlement was religiously based.
“If you move to America and live in communities where a majority of the people speak German, which was common in Wisconsin”
I think that was pretty much the norm. Immigrants moved to areas where they could join communities that spoke the same language. We certainly had that in Pennsylvania. The old folks in small towns in coal country can still show you the exact boundaries between the German and the Irish sections of their towns.
Dave- I see conflicting studies on the speed with which Hispanics learn English. Some studies claim that they learn as fast or faster than prior immigrants, but not quite as fast as other current immigrant groups. Others suggest they learn faster than most other groups. My assumption is that Hispanics living closer probably arrive with less English skills than other immigrants, but their English skills improve about as fast as other groups. There is some literature which also supports this.
Steve
“Many, many Hispanics (“white Hispanicsâ€, oddly enough) think of themselves as white…”
JHC! They think they are white, because they are white. They are Indo-Europeans, Celts actually, with some Moorish admixture. But the Moors, themselves, are white, but not Indo-Europeans.
For that matter, Jews and Arabs and North Africans and northern Egyptians (ancient mummies included) all group on the caucasian limb of 18s RNA trees.
The variances you cite come from Lewontin’s Fallacy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewontin%27s_Fallacy
Lewontin took the variances in individual proteins (There was no easy DNA sequencing then.) and compared them. But the variances of the proteins are correlated, and the differences between races is much larger than the differences within races.
this article is fantastic; perfectly said, thank you.
People are really loose with such terms and I have to wonder if they really understand what they’re saying half the time.
‘White supremacy’ has become a slur to use against anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with the ever-changing ‘Progressive’ narrative all the time. Right now all its users have to do is accuse you of it and presto! you and your entire family going back to the ice ages are/were evil POC-hating bigots. No proof required whatsoever, in fact any proof provided simply proves that you know you are a bigot because you’re trying to prove you’re not. And woe be members of ‘protected’ groups that disagree, they’re not just traitors, they’re (insert disgusting pejorative phrase of your choice) acolytes of Mr. H himself (funny how they never pick on Uncle Joe Stalin). And them some. Kinda hard to have a conversation with people like that. Hopefully this insanity will burn itself out. I just hope it doesn’t take the rest of us with it.