I swear, the most insecure person in America is a white male (and this comment is coming from a white male).
In-group/out-group is a well established phenomenon in humans (I would saw flaw).
This is well displayed in professional sports, where hugely expensive stadiums are built so that people can experience and reaffirm it.
Political operatives who want power are masterful at taking advantage of this. Underfunding education helps politicians keep this advantage. The in-group/out-group gives people a sense of security and psychological certainty, which, of course, does not exist.
I am reminded of an insightful quote by Gilda Radner, one of the original Saturday Night cast, who died in her early forties from ovarian cancer:
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”
Agree the whole 'Group' thing is a fundamental part of human nature. It is part of our 'Survival hard wiring'. in the defining of a group, there is that which indicates you are part of the group, and that which indicates you are 'outside' the group. These can be defined and manipulated by 'bad' people in large part to give them control over their group. Trump does this a LOT.
I'm not sure of what your point is. Stadiums? Where a largely white audience watches largely Black athletes and teams compete?
Yes, we are herd animals. It's what's behind every city, town and village. We're hard wired to gravitate to one another. Solitary confinement is one of the cruelest forms of torture in prisons. Social behavior via evolution does not explain racism. That is learned, and passed down through generations. Trump was taught by his father.
Whiteness is a social construct. We say in our family everyone is somewhere on the brown scale. We refer to people who consider themselves white (like wall paint) as beige. My mother collected books by authors of the Harlem Renaissance, which I started reading as a child, and I was always struck by the many words they had for skin color, that just don't seem to exist today, or at least not among the people I am around. According to them, people who view themselves as "white" might be called "high yeller." In any case, we recognize that Trump is confounding color with race, because Indians have just joined Whites in most instances in status. Look at the Tech Bro world.
However, I am going to disagree that the Democratic party can make itself up of everyone who is getting rejected from Trump's whiteness label. Historian Jefferson Cowie talked about the lack of vision in the Democratic party for the 2/3 of Americans who do not have college degrees, and that the party has to include them. I attended a talk of his in which he was telling us that populists are going to win with this audience, so to win, a person has to have a sort of populist message be it from the left or right.
My Democrats Abroad bookclub was reading Cowie's Pulitzer Prize winning book "Freedom's Dominion," and we were bothered by not really understanding what he meant by populism in his talk, so we invited him to come speak to Democrats Abroad to better explain it. From that talk I understood that he was not advocating populism, but pointing out the elements that seem to resonate. He understands the working class, as a labor historian, but also personally as the son of. a janitor. He told us that populists have an us and them, and they also have a vision that includes the people and returning to a better past. His book is in many ways about the struggle for land rights of Native Americans and voting rights of Blacks and others, and that the only way that they are enforced is by the federal government, which has ultimately failed. In his talk he also pointed out that he could not believe that the Democrats were not doing more to fight for voting rights. I wrote another piece after this talk.
After hearing Cowie the second time, I had a better picture of the voters that voted for Trump. I imagined the better past that Trump was appealing to, and I saw it as post WW2, when there were lots of people buying houses on the GI bill, and one income could raise a family, with money to occasionally splurge, at least at holidays. In that world, the Archie Bunker world, people could complain about hippies, and Blacks, and Asians, and Latino/as with slur terms and it was tolerated. If we believe in this vision, as apparently many do, the women still benefit by being associated with these men who have the working class job.
With that vision of a better past, Trump telling people that his tariffs are going to bring back manufacturing jobs, that it is unlikely to bring back, because the pay those jobs provided would not be the same in todays inflation, is apparently not clear. What is clear, is that enough people don't feel hopeful about a better future for themselves or their children. Unfortunately they are not tying this lack of hope to the destruction of the planet, but to their loss of money and status in society.
Whatever the vision is for American future, it has to be one that includes the people for whom school is not the place where they excel, and college is not going to be in their future. Or we have to work on making schools more broad based, and make sure we are teaching critical thinking to people at younger ages, so that people who do not make it through school or go on to college still have some of the critical thinking skills to understand when someone is selling them a bill of goods that is unrealistic.
In a Journal of Democracy article on Misundertanding Democratic Backsliding, we are told that it is the perception of the voters on how they are doing, not objective reality that determines how they vote. I wrote about this article as well.
All of this is in a search to understand why people voted in someone like Trump when he is obviously not going to represent their best interests. Americans do not necessarily vote on who is the least racist candidate, but on who is the one who serves their agenda. There is not one reason, but many, because people are different. I still do not believe there is a big enough collection of Americans who feel that they are rejects from Trump, unless we include all of academia as well, that feels that they are on the outs enough to form a party of their own. I could be wrong, because it does seem to be a time in history, where America will be rethought, and that might be to create new parties, an that might be to create new countries.
Angela Dass shows with her art that we all just have skin colors on a pantone scale.
"Whatever the vision is for American future, it has to be one that includes the people for whom school is not the place where they excel, and college is not going to be in their future."
Excellent comment, and I agree with the above. Do you think this is where the Democrats fail? I see them as basically trying and failing, and then veering off into focusing on issues most of the American people can't relate to. Really, ask anyone how many trans people they've known in their lifetimes. Or gay people. Ask a white rural midwesterner how many Black neighbors they have. Or how many Muslim friends. My point is, unfamiliarity breeds contempt - when people can't relate to another group or issue because it's not part of the reality they live in, they'll turn away and gravitate to the party that advertises unity and sameness. This is a brand of prejudice, and may be impossible to dislodge, which is why the Republicans win elections. The way the Democrats will win is by recognizing this, and really by finding common ground - jobs, food prices, affordable housing, while keeping DEI without waving it around because it alienates as much as it includes.
Mary, while Jefferson Cowie does not say that the Dems should give up on the DEI or the global academic elites of the party, that the rest of the party is not who they are tailoring their plans to.
An example. When Kamala had the specific plan on $25,000 tax break on first time home buyer, when I read that in 28 states it costs 1mil plus for a starter home in at least one city, if not several. Where are new college graduates going to want to live to get a job? In these cities. This is not going to be doable for people with huge college debts. I am hearing Gen Zs from well off families feeling like they cannot get fulfilling work. They also don't want to kill themselves working. Who has a vision that will make people feel hopeful. Right now Populists get it because they can just lie and tell people what they want to hear.
Can Americans operate on an adult level and hear the truth? I think we should be asking people what they want? Cowie says people don't want politicians telling them what they need, but what they will do for them, having a vision that includes this 2/3 of the population that does not have a college degree. Trump had that vision, and the democrats did not. Now, people get to see that vision playing itself out and see if it works. That is concrete experiences for abstract ideas. So, people who were not able to abstract for themselves with his plans as he presented them, get to see for themselves how they work. Too bad for the rest of us, but what are Dems learning? It has to be listening to people, and offering them a hopeful future. A wise person would tie that to the environment clearly and concretely.
Why the lecture? I replied to a specific part of your original comment. Excess verbiage was not necessary. Really, if you indeed have your own Substack, please post your long winded comments there instead. I don't care about this Cowie person's opinions.
"Go back to where you came from" is perplexing. Based on my limited knowledge, my father's family arrived in 1830 from Bavaria. My husband's family arrived before the Revolutionary War from England. I have other ancestors who came from other places in the British isle. So where does an Indiana born person go back to?
I have often heard it said in the south that the only people the Klan hates more than black people is white people who side with them. I feel like there is an element of this with the current crop of maga racist if your white and not loyal to your "roots" than you don't deserve to be treated as white. Thank you for bringing up these cases of mistreatment I think that's the kind of thing that will push those that might be just outside of the cult to sèe what's really going on.
During the 2010 census, I was an enumerator. I filled out a survey from a non English speaking home of people from South East Asia in the Louisville sunburbs. They told me they were white. So I recorded their reply but put my observation in the comments.
Trump's biogtry against Browns and Blacks has qualified him for an International Criminal Court investigatin and potential arrest. He and his fellow conspirators: Musk, Vance, and Noem have all committed CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. They have imprisoned and deported individuals based on their skin tone, and have deliberately prevented food, meds, and medical care to reach thousands upon thousands of Blacks in Africa. A genocide has begun. Please write a letter to the ICC and request their arrest.
Thanks, Noah, for so clearly explaining the construct of race with so much historical perspective. The other issue here, I believe, is stochastic state terrorism, putin/stalin style. You never know who ICE, America's Gestapo will target, so you're always off balance, terrified, and -trump hopes-frantically trying not to stand out.
As this authoritarian regime continues to expand we must hold the line against it.
All people of our nation who are anti-authoritarianism have to find a way to unite and perhaps live in disguise. Perhaps we start by dressing like them. Covering our faces and wearing glasses and similar uniforms. Then we will see their next step, banning forms of dress and demand we wear certain clothing to differentiate “us from them.” It’s coming. Beware. They will be marking our front doors soon.
While not arguing with your major premise, perhaps:
ICE Policies were published and distributed to their agents. Because they were potentially public, they avoided any description of race as an issue. Not all ICE agents are white supremacists, so they follow the 'by the book' 'Zero tolerance' agenda and abuse this guy because that is the policy they have been taught to use on all these 'foreigners', which included this German. Once taken aside and abused, the system was committed to following through or the mere fact of giving overt 'privilege' to a white immigrant would weaken their inevitable court defense of their general abusive treatment which has the goal of encouraging people to 'self deport' and not come here in the first place. A 'born again' White Supremacist ICE agent would have passed right over this German immigrant, even if the crime had been somewhat larger, without any hesitation and it would never have been a 'thing'.
I think the approach to whiteness Trump exhibits now is coming from staff like Stephen Miller. I don't think Trump is capable of thinking deeply about race. He is barely in touch with reality. He repeats what he's told.
"...to redifine the narrow boundaries of whiteness..." to, it would seem, the narrow thicknes of large denomination bills from citizens of any origin that pay the proper bribe.
I doubt the hypothesis that Trump sees all foreign-born people as dark-skinned. I think he just wants to eliminate all immigration. He'd been perceived as an isolationist by Europeans during his first term in office.
Why would he allow white South Africans to emigrate here if he thought they're non-whites? He is personally involved in this, probably as a way to try to humiliate Ramaposa.
We are surrounded by social constructs that we think are real but work as reality only because we all agree that they are what society says they are. Those green slips of paper that might be in your wallet can create food or yachts only because society agrees they do so. Even more so crypto, and most clearly so meme coin, which doesn't even have the physicality of green paper or the work required to create crypto.
Marriage is a social construct, defined differently by different societies. Gender is a social construct: before the 60s it was a purely grammatical term to explain what pronoun forms (amongst others) certain languages use for certain nouns. Since the grammatical terms were "male" or "female", feminists used gender to describe the typical social identifications connected with sexual males or females. "Sex" is a genetic thing; "Gender" isn't, despite frantic scramblings of lawmakers.
And the most insidious construct is The Other, currently connected with that other construct, "race" and increasingly with "religion." At one time in one area, whether you were an Other depended on whether or not you professed allegiance to the Pope. We are moving to the point where Other is defined by what political party you adhere to, party being the flimsiest of constructs.
When you think about it, the Other is why one might define Homo Sapiens as "the manipulatable animal."
This is the manifestation of the Republican Party. It’s white identity politics and you must be Christian and conservative. But in reality they are hypocrite snakes. The Republican Party is the party of hate and division. They must be defeated at the ballot box. Keep clapping back on these facist cronies and fact check the bootlickers who get their info on misguided podcasts like right wing blowhard crony David sacks.
I swear, the most insecure person in America is a white male (and this comment is coming from a white male).
In-group/out-group is a well established phenomenon in humans (I would saw flaw).
This is well displayed in professional sports, where hugely expensive stadiums are built so that people can experience and reaffirm it.
Political operatives who want power are masterful at taking advantage of this. Underfunding education helps politicians keep this advantage. The in-group/out-group gives people a sense of security and psychological certainty, which, of course, does not exist.
I am reminded of an insightful quote by Gilda Radner, one of the original Saturday Night cast, who died in her early forties from ovarian cancer:
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”
Agree the whole 'Group' thing is a fundamental part of human nature. It is part of our 'Survival hard wiring'. in the defining of a group, there is that which indicates you are part of the group, and that which indicates you are 'outside' the group. These can be defined and manipulated by 'bad' people in large part to give them control over their group. Trump does this a LOT.
I'm not sure of what your point is. Stadiums? Where a largely white audience watches largely Black athletes and teams compete?
Yes, we are herd animals. It's what's behind every city, town and village. We're hard wired to gravitate to one another. Solitary confinement is one of the cruelest forms of torture in prisons. Social behavior via evolution does not explain racism. That is learned, and passed down through generations. Trump was taught by his father.
Whiteness is a social construct. We say in our family everyone is somewhere on the brown scale. We refer to people who consider themselves white (like wall paint) as beige. My mother collected books by authors of the Harlem Renaissance, which I started reading as a child, and I was always struck by the many words they had for skin color, that just don't seem to exist today, or at least not among the people I am around. According to them, people who view themselves as "white" might be called "high yeller." In any case, we recognize that Trump is confounding color with race, because Indians have just joined Whites in most instances in status. Look at the Tech Bro world.
However, I am going to disagree that the Democratic party can make itself up of everyone who is getting rejected from Trump's whiteness label. Historian Jefferson Cowie talked about the lack of vision in the Democratic party for the 2/3 of Americans who do not have college degrees, and that the party has to include them. I attended a talk of his in which he was telling us that populists are going to win with this audience, so to win, a person has to have a sort of populist message be it from the left or right.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/is-populism-the-way-to-go?r=f0qfn
My Democrats Abroad bookclub was reading Cowie's Pulitzer Prize winning book "Freedom's Dominion," and we were bothered by not really understanding what he meant by populism in his talk, so we invited him to come speak to Democrats Abroad to better explain it. From that talk I understood that he was not advocating populism, but pointing out the elements that seem to resonate. He understands the working class, as a labor historian, but also personally as the son of. a janitor. He told us that populists have an us and them, and they also have a vision that includes the people and returning to a better past. His book is in many ways about the struggle for land rights of Native Americans and voting rights of Blacks and others, and that the only way that they are enforced is by the federal government, which has ultimately failed. In his talk he also pointed out that he could not believe that the Democrats were not doing more to fight for voting rights. I wrote another piece after this talk.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/voting-rights-come-before-all-others?r=f0qfn
After hearing Cowie the second time, I had a better picture of the voters that voted for Trump. I imagined the better past that Trump was appealing to, and I saw it as post WW2, when there were lots of people buying houses on the GI bill, and one income could raise a family, with money to occasionally splurge, at least at holidays. In that world, the Archie Bunker world, people could complain about hippies, and Blacks, and Asians, and Latino/as with slur terms and it was tolerated. If we believe in this vision, as apparently many do, the women still benefit by being associated with these men who have the working class job.
With that vision of a better past, Trump telling people that his tariffs are going to bring back manufacturing jobs, that it is unlikely to bring back, because the pay those jobs provided would not be the same in todays inflation, is apparently not clear. What is clear, is that enough people don't feel hopeful about a better future for themselves or their children. Unfortunately they are not tying this lack of hope to the destruction of the planet, but to their loss of money and status in society.
Whatever the vision is for American future, it has to be one that includes the people for whom school is not the place where they excel, and college is not going to be in their future. Or we have to work on making schools more broad based, and make sure we are teaching critical thinking to people at younger ages, so that people who do not make it through school or go on to college still have some of the critical thinking skills to understand when someone is selling them a bill of goods that is unrealistic.
In a Journal of Democracy article on Misundertanding Democratic Backsliding, we are told that it is the perception of the voters on how they are doing, not objective reality that determines how they vote. I wrote about this article as well.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/backsliding-democracies-like-ours?r=f0qfn
All of this is in a search to understand why people voted in someone like Trump when he is obviously not going to represent their best interests. Americans do not necessarily vote on who is the least racist candidate, but on who is the one who serves their agenda. There is not one reason, but many, because people are different. I still do not believe there is a big enough collection of Americans who feel that they are rejects from Trump, unless we include all of academia as well, that feels that they are on the outs enough to form a party of their own. I could be wrong, because it does seem to be a time in history, where America will be rethought, and that might be to create new parties, an that might be to create new countries.
Angela Dass shows with her art that we all just have skin colors on a pantone scale.
https://onartandaesthetics.com/2018/12/05/changing-the-conversation-on-race-angelica-dass-reveals-our-pantone-shades-in-humanae/
"Whatever the vision is for American future, it has to be one that includes the people for whom school is not the place where they excel, and college is not going to be in their future."
Excellent comment, and I agree with the above. Do you think this is where the Democrats fail? I see them as basically trying and failing, and then veering off into focusing on issues most of the American people can't relate to. Really, ask anyone how many trans people they've known in their lifetimes. Or gay people. Ask a white rural midwesterner how many Black neighbors they have. Or how many Muslim friends. My point is, unfamiliarity breeds contempt - when people can't relate to another group or issue because it's not part of the reality they live in, they'll turn away and gravitate to the party that advertises unity and sameness. This is a brand of prejudice, and may be impossible to dislodge, which is why the Republicans win elections. The way the Democrats will win is by recognizing this, and really by finding common ground - jobs, food prices, affordable housing, while keeping DEI without waving it around because it alienates as much as it includes.
Mary, while Jefferson Cowie does not say that the Dems should give up on the DEI or the global academic elites of the party, that the rest of the party is not who they are tailoring their plans to.
An example. When Kamala had the specific plan on $25,000 tax break on first time home buyer, when I read that in 28 states it costs 1mil plus for a starter home in at least one city, if not several. Where are new college graduates going to want to live to get a job? In these cities. This is not going to be doable for people with huge college debts. I am hearing Gen Zs from well off families feeling like they cannot get fulfilling work. They also don't want to kill themselves working. Who has a vision that will make people feel hopeful. Right now Populists get it because they can just lie and tell people what they want to hear.
Can Americans operate on an adult level and hear the truth? I think we should be asking people what they want? Cowie says people don't want politicians telling them what they need, but what they will do for them, having a vision that includes this 2/3 of the population that does not have a college degree. Trump had that vision, and the democrats did not. Now, people get to see that vision playing itself out and see if it works. That is concrete experiences for abstract ideas. So, people who were not able to abstract for themselves with his plans as he presented them, get to see for themselves how they work. Too bad for the rest of us, but what are Dems learning? It has to be listening to people, and offering them a hopeful future. A wise person would tie that to the environment clearly and concretely.
Why the lecture? I replied to a specific part of your original comment. Excess verbiage was not necessary. Really, if you indeed have your own Substack, please post your long winded comments there instead. I don't care about this Cowie person's opinions.
"Go back to where you came from" is perplexing. Based on my limited knowledge, my father's family arrived in 1830 from Bavaria. My husband's family arrived before the Revolutionary War from England. I have other ancestors who came from other places in the British isle. So where does an Indiana born person go back to?
I have often heard it said in the south that the only people the Klan hates more than black people is white people who side with them. I feel like there is an element of this with the current crop of maga racist if your white and not loyal to your "roots" than you don't deserve to be treated as white. Thank you for bringing up these cases of mistreatment I think that's the kind of thing that will push those that might be just outside of the cult to sèe what's really going on.
During the 2010 census, I was an enumerator. I filled out a survey from a non English speaking home of people from South East Asia in the Louisville sunburbs. They told me they were white. So I recorded their reply but put my observation in the comments.
Trump's biogtry against Browns and Blacks has qualified him for an International Criminal Court investigatin and potential arrest. He and his fellow conspirators: Musk, Vance, and Noem have all committed CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. They have imprisoned and deported individuals based on their skin tone, and have deliberately prevented food, meds, and medical care to reach thousands upon thousands of Blacks in Africa. A genocide has begun. Please write a letter to the ICC and request their arrest.
Not only is Trump bringing Americans back to the Whites Only 1950s, it seems he is fashioning ICE into his Personal Guard—the Trump Standing Army.
Thanks, Noah, for so clearly explaining the construct of race with so much historical perspective. The other issue here, I believe, is stochastic state terrorism, putin/stalin style. You never know who ICE, America's Gestapo will target, so you're always off balance, terrified, and -trump hopes-frantically trying not to stand out.
As this authoritarian regime continues to expand we must hold the line against it.
All people of our nation who are anti-authoritarianism have to find a way to unite and perhaps live in disguise. Perhaps we start by dressing like them. Covering our faces and wearing glasses and similar uniforms. Then we will see their next step, banning forms of dress and demand we wear certain clothing to differentiate “us from them.” It’s coming. Beware. They will be marking our front doors soon.
While not arguing with your major premise, perhaps:
ICE Policies were published and distributed to their agents. Because they were potentially public, they avoided any description of race as an issue. Not all ICE agents are white supremacists, so they follow the 'by the book' 'Zero tolerance' agenda and abuse this guy because that is the policy they have been taught to use on all these 'foreigners', which included this German. Once taken aside and abused, the system was committed to following through or the mere fact of giving overt 'privilege' to a white immigrant would weaken their inevitable court defense of their general abusive treatment which has the goal of encouraging people to 'self deport' and not come here in the first place. A 'born again' White Supremacist ICE agent would have passed right over this German immigrant, even if the crime had been somewhat larger, without any hesitation and it would never have been a 'thing'.
I think the approach to whiteness Trump exhibits now is coming from staff like Stephen Miller. I don't think Trump is capable of thinking deeply about race. He is barely in touch with reality. He repeats what he's told.
"...to redifine the narrow boundaries of whiteness..." to, it would seem, the narrow thicknes of large denomination bills from citizens of any origin that pay the proper bribe.
Then what of Melania? She’s not a WASP. She wasn’t even born here. He wants “laws with special carve-outs.”
I doubt the hypothesis that Trump sees all foreign-born people as dark-skinned. I think he just wants to eliminate all immigration. He'd been perceived as an isolationist by Europeans during his first term in office.
Why would he allow white South Africans to emigrate here if he thought they're non-whites? He is personally involved in this, probably as a way to try to humiliate Ramaposa.
We are surrounded by social constructs that we think are real but work as reality only because we all agree that they are what society says they are. Those green slips of paper that might be in your wallet can create food or yachts only because society agrees they do so. Even more so crypto, and most clearly so meme coin, which doesn't even have the physicality of green paper or the work required to create crypto.
Marriage is a social construct, defined differently by different societies. Gender is a social construct: before the 60s it was a purely grammatical term to explain what pronoun forms (amongst others) certain languages use for certain nouns. Since the grammatical terms were "male" or "female", feminists used gender to describe the typical social identifications connected with sexual males or females. "Sex" is a genetic thing; "Gender" isn't, despite frantic scramblings of lawmakers.
And the most insidious construct is The Other, currently connected with that other construct, "race" and increasingly with "religion." At one time in one area, whether you were an Other depended on whether or not you professed allegiance to the Pope. We are moving to the point where Other is defined by what political party you adhere to, party being the flimsiest of constructs.
When you think about it, the Other is why one might define Homo Sapiens as "the manipulatable animal."
This is the manifestation of the Republican Party. It’s white identity politics and you must be Christian and conservative. But in reality they are hypocrite snakes. The Republican Party is the party of hate and division. They must be defeated at the ballot box. Keep clapping back on these facist cronies and fact check the bootlickers who get their info on misguided podcasts like right wing blowhard crony David sacks.