On being half white

Dear H,

What does it mean to be white? Being half Hispanic has led me to think lots on this subject, and I've found that to answer in the positive is impossible.  Almost, anyway.  Like all the racial categories, it only comes into focus when you compare it with the other races.  The Native Americans were culturally as different as the Chinese and the Italians until we showed up and made them feel similar; and France and England hated each other until Islam arrived and made the Catholics shake hands -- occasionally.  To be a race isn't so much to be a race as to not be the other races.  It's an act of identity that only happens when someone else is even stranger.


So far as I can tell, regarding looks there's little difference between the southern Italians and the Syrians; and what Englishman wants to be a Russian?  What Spaniard wants to be mistaken for a Romanian?  Which Canadian, when vacationing in Cabo, wants to be mistaken for an American?  The list is endless -- we're as diverse as the world itself, encompassing a vast array of manners, looks, fashions, languages, literatures, foods, philosophies, architectures, musics, and styles of government.  To say there's no diversity in whiteness is to throw away the concept of diversity.   We are as vibrant, clashing, inexhaustible, and all-around incompatible as the Asians and the Arabs placed together -- perhaps, as a people, only less diverse than India, with its fifteen different languages, its three or four major religions, and a volatile mix of classes, breeds, histories, and blood-feuds.  The idea of a Europe baffles the mind.  We are less unified by language and religion than the Arab states or South and Central America.  We have killed more Europeans and Russians and Americans than any other race, and yet we call ourselves racists for killing far less of the other races.  Yes, we nuked Japan -- but was it worse than our firebombing Dresden, or the rape of Poland?  Have we ever had a Hundred Year War with any non-white country?

This being said whiteness is its own thing, and can't be mistaken for the others.  Here in Seattle it means socks and sandals, lattes and hikers, techies and fishermen -- a militance of white ideas (let's bend genders and encourage diversity!) but a disrespect for white people.  Either an inability to breed or a hatred of it.  Weak wrists and bad beards.  The nadir of folk-indie known as Bon Iver.  A lust for both cycling and recycling.  No cars on the well-manicured lawns, or cat-calling.  

What "white" means in the South or New York is another story, and one which I'm not qualified to delve into; but I know that white people who come from New York are horrified of the Left Coast work ethic and we're horrified of their bluntness.  Our inability to say things as they are and their inability to fake leads one of us to suspicion and the other one to revulsion.  We're told there's a "Seattle freeze" and that the outward display of manners here disguises a cold and ambivalent attitude toward community, or even the duties of friendship.  The weather, it seems, has changed us; and the Oakies who moved to California became Californians, who are loathed by the Seattleites for ruining Seattle, who are loathed by the people of Idaho for ruining Boise.  We have yet to see what Boise will ruin.  We say we're for immigration -- unless the immigrants are Americans.

I have already mentioned the most difficult thing about being white, and that thing is the treachery.  The outright disrespect white people show for their ethnicities, and their constant unwillingness to support or praise them over brown ones, is a constant nuisance, and at the bottom of the matter a danger.   Jokes are constantly made at white expense; and we openly complain about an influx of Amazon employees while inviting the underclasses of the third world -- to not only move here, but to commit crimes without fear of deportation, and to live off our welfare.  We can call people "white trash" but banned the words for black trash.  We laugh at lederhosen but celebrate hijabis.  The southerners are a joke -- but refuse to take the Cherokee reverently, and see where it gets you.  We love the strangest strangers and prefer them to our likenesses.

A half-breed is rarely considered a half-breed
This all bothers me greatly because a half-breed is rarely taken for a half-breed.  Barack Obama was just as white as he was black and we called him black; and I'm just as white as I am Hispanic but I'm never mistaken for a Hispanic.  My mom may have come right off the streets of Tegucigalpa, and 90% of my family may be brown and speak Spanish (which means I'm more likely to see Hispanics as family than whites); but I pass as white, and this means I inherited the disrespect.  If I speak up for Hispanics, saying we don't like being called Latinx (we don't) I'm shouted down as a fraud.  I can wake up tomorrow and say I'm a woman and people will force others to swallow it; but if a brown woman gave birth to me and raised me to remember my Hispanicness* I can't claim to be part brown.  I have the mark of whiteness upon me -- and that means I've inherited the insults.  I'm both white and brown, but white people think I'm less important than brown people; and if I speak up about the border I get branded a racist.

As such the white race means as much to me as this country.  If the ship goes down I'll get taken down with it; a realization that has forced me, not only out of a love of reason and order, but out of sheer necessity and fear, to take my side with the right-wing.  Never once in the history of mankind has any people had so bad a case of self-loathing; and when a people loathe themselves they actually loathe each other.  

I'm tired of being stabbed in the back.  It has led me to launch a long and lonely crusade against the unfair ideas and practices of leftists; not only because their ideas and practices are backward, but because I believe they are personally directed at me and my family.  Truth be told I hate the bickering over racial issues.  I want to keep getting along with the neighbors, and if the radicals would shut up most of us would be fine.   But what's a half-breed to do in this case?  I was saddled with the burdens of a white man.  I was bred with the self-respect of a Hispanic.

Yours,
-J

*Despite my mom's insistence on my being Hispanic she's a much better American than most honkies.  She knows a good deal when she sees it.  She saw commies ruining Honduras and she hates them, and she heard about John Locke and she loves him.  She fell in love with the spiritual greatness of America, and believed that its spiritual greatness of necessity gave way to its physical greatness.  I've never seen anyone be so prejudiced in favor of America as my mom.  She is, to this date, the only American I've ever met who openly took a "my country right or wrong" stance.  Whether this is helpful or backward is up for debate; but I prefer it to the illegal immigrants who prefer Mexico, the whites who hate whiteness, and the rich Americans who hate capitalism.  These people can all go to hell.

A while back I saw a kid go to bat for the Venezuelan little league team.  His first name was Jefferson, a definite statement in a socialist country  -- comparable to naming your kid Peter in Iran, or Cromwell in Ireland.  I wanted immediately to meet his parents.  I don't know where Hispanics like this come from or what makes them the way they are, but I know they exist and I want all of them here.  It's a shame they live anywhere else.  Humility is the key to being an American, even if in the end it makes you more British.  You recognize George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Edmund Burke and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Johnson and Ben Franklin were better people than you and had better ideas than you so you want to be less like you and more like them.  Beyond this there isn't too much else to bring.  We have already reached the full height of civilization -- two-hundred plus years ago.  We have only to restore and maintain it.   I don't want any immigrant who doesn't want to.  A work ethic is a great thing, but I don't want to hear that anyone comes here because they're looking for a job.

PS:  The first responses to this essay have all been negative.  They're calling me a racist, but I have news for them.  This country is racist.  No amount of "melting pot" talk will hide the fact that an open hatred of white people is socially and legally promoted here, and every year it gets worse.  It's so pervasive that standing up for yourself, if you're a white man, is considered the height of immorality.  You're expected to beat your chest and curse your ancestors and if any third-worlder wants to replace you and take your national birthright you let him.  But I'm not going to do this.

The point of this essay is, if the world is going to slap a label on me then I'm going to defend the label.  I'm going to spit-shine it and enshrine it and put a chain-link fence around it even if the label is white.  I don't buy that everyone can love himself unless he's me and my category.  I have a lust for life and that means a will to fight.  I have no taste just yet for suicide.  I believe injustices against me are the worst injustices of all.  I'm in favor of peace when other men are willing to be peaceful.  I hate slavery for all men but especially for myself and my children.  If this is wrong then I choose to be a villain.  If an open border makes me a good man I say build the wall and call me the devil.  
  
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Comments

  1. If you are a racist then so am I. I applaud this straight forward thinking. Keep it up. Resident Texas deplorable - an old white man.

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  2. That Greedy Older Evil White Male

    Over the last few years I have watched numerous cartoons and movies aimed at our youth. Last night I set up a movie for some of our sleep over grand kids and they wanted to watch Nut Job 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj0CuOMx4S8
    I noted that it was about a group of squirrels looking for a new home and were to be denied by a corpulent, bald, older white man that sips champagne in glee. He also destroys the environment. It jarred my memory of so many similar stories aimed at our youth. It is always a white dude. The only cool somewhat white figures are Poppa and Grandpa pig in Peppa Pig series. Of course, the father is portrayed as somewhat of a bungler.
    I wonder why we never see a Native American talking about building a new casino to rip off the non-Natives. We see Hispanic men portrayed as suave and debonair but never as cartel kingpins or human traffickers. I never see a Black male in a child movie series portrayed as an evil rich mogul out to kill Santa’s reindeer. Or a Muslim in Indonesia burning down forests for logging – that really hurts the squirrel population.

    No wonder certain politicians use the words of deplorables etc. to shape their voter base. Hollywood creates the image and the subservient politicians use it.

    Just thinking.

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  3. Net Value of a Citizen

    Do nations look at the net value of a citizen? Posing this question might bring up the question – “what value does a nation place on a citizen and what determines the value?”
    For purposes of assessing value lets look at following parameters: fertility rate, literacy, country GDP, GDP per capita, % below poverty.
    Now let’s look at the 3 countries in the northern triangle of Central America. They all have fertility rates in the 2-3 range. GDP’s are in the 2-3% range. GDP/Capita is in $6,000-$8,000 range, people below poverty in the 30%-60% range. The US GDP/Capita is about $60,000. The average day laborer in Dallas makes about $120-$175/day – cash. Working about 180 days a worker can earn $25,000-$30,000. Living a lot better and sending say $5,000 home a year.
    So, it is fairly obvious the citizens of these three countries are a net liability until they get to the US. When they send money home two things happen. 1 – They take a lot of social pressure off the home governments. 2 – They free up more money from foreign aid and other sources to be corruptly siphoned off into a few pockets.
    For Mexico at some level if they just pass through these travelers, they are a net asset as money is siphoned off them just like a tourist. If the migration gets clogged then they become a big negative asset. A bunch of low skilled people with large numbers of kids lingering in an already poor country creates a huge political problem. Move them along or keep them out.
    Now let’s look at the US worker counterpart to the above economic travelers. To US business they are a negative asset. Each US worker asks for higher wages, better working conditions, and carries a huge liability in the discrimination arena. The illegal worker frees US business of all that so they are a net asset to business. So, the solution has been to shunt the US worker aside and put them into the welfare state. Business is more profitable and the hassle of a US employee is avoided.
    Is this any way to run a country. Absolutely not.
    That is what the President is trying to accomplish. Control the flow of immigration, take people off welfare so they regain their work ethic and dignity. Eliminate the virtual plantation. It seems so un-American to increase the net worth of outsiders at the expense of “family”.
    To solve this problem and many in the opposition don’t want to recognize the net value of our citizens – you have to define the problem. Very simple. Ascertain the dilution factor. You do that by counting people and put them in simple categories – like – citizen, legal resident, illegal (border crosser, visa overstay, ordered deported but stayed). The dilution factor then tells the government how much our legal workers are valued. Pew Research is constantly quoted as we have 11,000,000 illegals here. With 160,000,000 workers that is a 7% dilution factor. At 30,000,000 it becomes 19%. The Black population is 13% so it would be obvious to them who is now a net asset. Surely not them.
    The President wants to know these numbers. Reason for the current census/citizenship controversy. The truth might be dangerous for the Democrats.
    We life in a large rooming house – aka big tent. I don’t think it is unreasonable to know who is in the house and whether they are lease holders. Of course, the open borders and no one is illegal anywhere or any time crowd would call me racist for even considering asking any resident – who are you?



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  4. Such a relief to hear a man defend whites on a logical, rational, non-hateful basis.
    Most whites I know, including family, seem to think it's Evil & Racist for white people to defend whites. They act like its their moral obligation to defend & protect everyone except their own race -- as if the white race were so vastly superior it needs no defending... Like an NFL team playing against a rural 1A high school football team. Either that, or they are cowards.
    You can get away with it because you have a brown mamma... and a heart. Thank you.

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