Self-Defined Majorities

When does "white" mean white? And who decides?

Following a Sunday brunch and a drive in the country, my daughter entered our apartment and asked, “When is “home” home?” I paused wondering if this was a trick question. It wasn’t a knock-knock joke. She was too young. Her father was already off to find his basketball game on the TV and paying no attention.

I had to ask, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you say ‘Now we are home’ when you park and turn off the car. When we get off an airplane you say we are home. When we come in the big building door, you say we are home. Now in our doorway, you say we are home. What is home?”

Explaining the imprecision of language to a two-year-old was exhausting but by that time I had at least learned how. I gave her the “it depends on how far way we have been” explanation, which she handled pretty well. I could see all the cogs clicking in her brain as she filed away all the possibilities, and dropped the subject.

This week while reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and this morning while reading the demographics on the results of a survey, I found myself asking the same kind of question. What is “white”? Every survey, every application, every questionnaire asks about something called race. Even scientists say it is a bogus concept, but then we assume that everyone knows what “White” is and whether they are it.

When is White White?

Diversity is a major aim of cohousing and many other kinds of communities and neighborhoods as well. Despite the reports in the news, it is more common for people to welcome than to exclude. It is a badge of honor for groups to be diverse in skin color as well as in socio-economic levels. Skin color is used as a visible stand-in for ethnocultural diversity and proof that this group is not another exclusionary enclave of boring White people with more than their share of money and too many college degrees.

There are color experts who claim that there are 150,000 shades of white. There are premium paint companies that will supply you with more than 150 right off the shelf. Ten hands held close together in the light will all be different colors, even if we choose to say that they are all white. The chart below is from Sherman Williams, one of the two premier paint companies and shows 512 shades of white.

When we see these colors the first reaction is that they are not white—we know what white is and these are not whites. But look carefully and consider all the people you know who are considered or consider themselves White. They would mark White on a survey. I can remember someone who is each of these colors. Even the sick-looking grayish whites. Pink whites. Yellow whites. Brown whites.

On the survey of cohousing residents that appeared in my email this morning, conducted by the Cohousing Research Network, fewer than 10% of cohousers identify themselves as anything other than White. If you flip through the pictures of cohousing residents on their community websites and on Facebook, ten percent is actually generous. Every person who could possibly identify as something other than White must have responded to the survey.

There were 756 White respondents and each of the other five categories contained 0-5. In a survey, if the sample is skewed this drastically, the design might be questioned.

Why ask about race at all? Hasn’t the group already self-defined as White?

What is not White?

The commonly defined races in the United States, in addition to White, are: Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. And of course the first over arching question has become “Hispanic or Latino” and “Not Hispanic or Latino.” This question assumes that it is important to know whether one is only “White” or “White and Hispanic or Latino.” Or “Black and Hispanic or Latino” and “Black but Not Hispanic or Latino.”

The categories of “American Indian” or “Alaska Native” have given way to “Native American” and “Indigenous Peoples” or “First Nations” groups that undoubtedly have historic and cultural ties and perhaps some DNA uniqueness.

Traditionally, Brazilians have identified as “White” but since the distinctiveness of racial groups changes with the tide, they are increasingly defining themselves as “Black.” It turns out, however, that they have often been reclassified behind the scenes by government agencies as Hispanic or Latino when they are neither. They speak Portuguese.

So who is White? “Caucasian” was used by immigration authorities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as synonymous with “White” to describe people whose ancestors came from Europe and a few other places. In the early 20th century, neither the Irish nor the Italians were considered White. Catholics were considered to be apart from the White Anglo Saxon Protestants in power—the WASPs—and not exactly White even when they were French or German.

So when we try to fit ourselves into categories, like knowing “When are we home?”, it depends on how far away we were. Like the little Black girl who was classified as White and allowed to fly on planes because she was so rich. Are you White if you have been an American for 400 years or if you have been an American for one generation? If you look White but are from Mexico, are you still White? Are you White in Mexico, but “Non-White” when you cross the northern border into the United States.

Are you White if you only speak Spanish?

White is only a self-defined majority

If we categorized everyone according to their actual skin color, their geographic origins, and their ethnocultural ancestry, White would cease to be a rationally defined category. It would be a group of people with as much diversity within it as all the other defined categories have between them. Thinking this way, changing the definition, is not a trick to create the illusion of diversity; it’s a fact.

It is the great sea of White that we have defined that is the illusion. Just as the great sea of Black people is an illusion. A chart of the shades of black could be assembled with as many shades as there are of white. Probably more.

What does it mean to categorize as Black both a person of African origin who came to America in the 16th or 17th century enslaved and a person who came from Nigeria last year. In terms of their ethnocultural diversity or lack there of, it makes no sense. It recognizes nothing of their unique heritages — possibly not even their DNA. How similar are their life experiences or their cultural values?

In my cohousing community, our group of close to 100 current and recent residents most of whom have defined themselves as White, includes the ancestries of Irish Catholic, Italian Catholic, Hispanic Catholic, British Canadian, Mayan, German Protestant, German Jewish, French, Swedish, Yugoslavian, Vietnamese, Chinese, East Indian, Scots-Irish, South African, New England Protestant, and Welsh Appalachian. All Americans. All defined as White.

How distinctly one can identify the unique influences of those ancestries depends on how long ago they left their country of origin. But even those who have been Americans for 400 years still bear distinct ethnocultural characteristics and social preferences of their countries of origin. We just don’t recognize it as a distinguishing feature. These are differences we ignore in order to define a White privileged majority, either to attach ourselves and ours to it or to blame it for all the world’s evils.

We ignore our own diversity when the illusion of a White majority suits our purposes.