White, Black, and Brown Races?

 If we are stuck trying to find solutions on issues of “race”, it’s because we are thinking within a fictional reality, set up by those in power.

There is no such thing as “race”, but there is rac- ism. The root isn’t “race”, the root is power.

A New Orleans based group, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, has moved the language about racism toward power dynamics within communities (versus thinking about racism as explicit hate from one person toward someone of a different “race”) and fueled a precipitous movement to “Undo Racism” — to undo the fictional frame of “race” and race construction in society.

But, what have a handful of editors in the media done? They have doubled down on race construction:

“ On race and how it’s capitalized — The Press Enterprise (April 24, 2021)

For about nine months now, our newsroom policy has been to capitalize all colors when referring to race — whether it be Black, White or Brown…

The Post wrote in a column explaining its decision that “White also represents a distinct cultural identity in the United States. In American history, many White Europeans who entered the country during times of mass migration were the targets of racial and ethnic discrimination. These diverse ethnicities were eventually assimilated into the collective group that has had its own cultural and historical impact on the nation.”

The National Association of Black Journalists also put out a recommendation in June 2020 recommending capitalizing all colors when referring to race.

At the Press Enterprise, we’re not a global organization, so there shouldn’t be confusion over who “White” refers to. And we agree with the Post that “White” represents a distinct cultural identity. We’re going to rely on our editorials to show we have no tolerance for the concept of ‘White supremacy.’”

What happened to the goal of “undoing” race construction? Instead, we’re creating new “races”! According to the news 'elites', there is now a Brown “race”. Should we stand by to resurrect "red" and "yellow" races, too?

It can’t be missed that this re-doubling on “race” and “color” is:

1. being created by 'elites'
2. race construction

This behavior is the definition of “Whiteness”: race construction & demanding conformity to a racial hierarchy, to benefit the 'elites'.

The Post's reasoning for creating a 'White' "race"? “White also represents a distinct cultural identity in the United States.”

The illustrative word is “also”. If Black is a race, then White is also a race. This is a diametric color framework we often get stuck in — black vs white. It only makes sense in the fictional reality set up by the ‘elites’ of the Atlantic Slave Trade and Jim Crow.

The Post goes on, “In American history, many White Europeans who entered the country during times of mass migration were the targets of racial and ethnic discrimination.”

In American history? This is The American Experience, no matter your ‘color’ or “race”. Striving together in our collective mission for personal freedom and a more perfect union is what binds us together. Instead of recognizing this node of common experiences and values, which our country so desperately needs, editors around the nation have anointed themselves with the power define a 'white' race (within America, at least...or within the Press Enterprise's circulation area where "there should be no confusion about what White is"). 

The people of the US have more in common fighting for our rights, and human dignity and less in common with monolithic 'color' groups, than 'elites' would like to allow.

The next justification from media 'elites' on creating a 'White Race? “These diverse ethnicities [white Europeans] were eventually assimilated into the collective group that has had its own cultural and historical impact on the nation.”

This is a lapse in reasoning and historical awareness. If one grows up in Texas vs California vs Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, or Arkansas etc., no matter a person’s 'color', they will have wildly different cultural experiences. In fact, most ‘white’ Americans do not self-identify as 'white', but rather Humanist, or American. Seemingly, though, in retaliation for some Black people wanting to identify as an ethnicity, media ‘elites’ moved to create a distinct "race" for 'White' people...also.

Equating the early American experience with a homogeneous 'white race' erases American's inherent multiracial history. European immigrants did not coalesce into one culture; nor did those European immigrants fight the American fight alone. The American fight has always been a multi-ethnic fight. 

The effort to re-establish race by color is creating racism and fallacious racial narratives, betraying the goal of undoing race and racism. 

‘Elites’ doing this constructing (media, academia, religion, politicians) are doubling down on the behavior of 'Whiteness', and few people seem to notice. 

But, that is the game, isn’t it? To create racial tension. To confuse and distract people so that they don't blame or disturb the ruling class, but instead direct their grievances toward each other. The People are collateral damage, as ‘elites’ hoard opportunities and resources for themselves and their networks. 

The 'black' vs 'white' diametric was created by 'elites' through religion, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and Jim Crow laws. It's not real. It is a set-up.

Listen to James Baldwin talk about the "plague of color": 

"Their moral lives have been destroyed by the plague called "color". The American sense of reality has been corrupted by it....I know, when I look at a girl or boy from Tennessee, where they came from in Tennessee, and what that means...no Englishman knows that, no Frenchman! No one in the world knows that except another black man who comes from the same place. One watches these lonely people denying the only kin they have...What we are not facing is what we have done....

Until that moment comes when we, the Americans, we the American people, are able to accept the fact that our ancestors are both 'white' and 'black' - that on that continent we are trying to forge a new identity for which we need each other...Until this moment, there is scarcely hope for the American Dream."

In 1965 he was pleading with us to see "what we have done" by conforming to racial segregation and racial hierarchies set up by the 'elites'. He is talking about the social destruction by political division of "race" and 'color'. Today, progressive activists & 'elite' institutions are fomenting the Color Plague anew.

Our modern US version of the race game is leaning into racial hierarchy, though flipping the narrative on its head — instead of 'blacks' being the “bad race”, now it is 'whites'. 

The game doesn’t care which “race” is on top or bottom — the goal is to destabilize society with racial conflict, to create opportunities for ‘elites’ to capitalize on a nation's trauma.  This game is common throughout world history. It has a name — racial wedging. It’s as old a politics, and we know how it plays out — violently.

There is no such thing as race. There is no ‘white’, ‘brown’, or ‘black’ race.

Will the people conform to today's race-by-color frameworks set up by 'elites'? Will we play out this destructive, deadly game of race construction and racial hierarchy, again?

“…uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting bloc...threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South. To meet this threat, the southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. I want you to follow me through here because this is very important to see the roots of racism… Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the Populist Movement. They then directed the placement on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the Populist Movement of the nineteenth century.” -MLK, 1965