Request from the Finnophile

[mrissa]

I'm trying to keep this polite, but:

Yes, most dominant cultures on the planet currently and for the last several centuries have been European.

BUT NO, that does NOT mean that all European cultures are dominant cultures. Using "European" and/or "white" as a shorthand for "widely known, assumed, and dominant" is easy, and also wrong.

Ask the Saami. If you don't know who that is, ask the Lapps. Same group, and most people only know them by ethnic slur, not by actual name.

Mighty dominant culture, that.

There are more oppressed minorities in Europe than most people have ever heard of. Some of them have done their share of oppressing in recorded history. Some haven't. Just like non-European, non-white cultures elsewhere on the planet. (Pop quiz: the Chinese, oppressors or oppressed? As usual, the answer is both and neither and which "Chinese"? and when? and with regard to whom?)

"Whiteness" is relevant to some cultural situations -- I'm not saying that it isn't. But I am saying that it is not the only possible categorization of fair-skinned people that can be relevant, especially not to discussions of cultural dominance, subjugation, appropriation, etc. And that using "European" as shorthand for "dominant" is not really very accurate, so if you could please refrain from doing it, I would appreciate that very much.

ETA: Since this has been quoted elsewhere, to people who don't necessarily know me, let me add: I am not claiming not to be part of a locally dominant cultural/ethnic group myself. ScanAm woman in Minnesota! And as much as I have my Haugean disputes, I am officially a member of an ELCA church as well. So -- locally dominant ethnic group? Um, yah. You could say so. This does not make the Saami rights movement irrelevant or nonexistent or even, sadly, totally unique.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Agreed, lots.

For example, Irish != white, and anybody who fails to get this is cordially invited to look for lodgings in the less upmarket parts of London giving a recognisably Irish surname.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I actually muttered this at the computer when someone was making reference to dominant cultures and then to various Irish stories in close proximity -- I muttered, "Oh, yes, the Irish, no one's ever oppressed them."

Irish-American, on the other hand, is clearly a white ethnicity in the US -- but hasn't been for very long, and the process of it getting there fascinates me and prompts me to speculate about which Asian-American ethnicities will be "white" to my grandkids.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this in terms of my post-Colonial theory (Ireland, the model and hope for Africa...) -- people don't consider Welsh, Scottish, and Irish literature as post-Colonial, even though they were just as colonised, and for longer, and there are ways you can quite sensibly compare them.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

The thing is -- the way my ethnicity affects my interaction with the surrounding culture is not globally consistent, either.

Based on what you and papersky have said, I can see how the experience of Irishness varies between the U.S. and U.K. (presumably in finer detail it varies between England and Scotland and Wales).

I see some failure to delineate "in the U.S." in the discussion, which I suppose is a sort of USan-privilege that's pervasive in net.discussions . Having noted it in myself, I'll be trying to remember that for the future.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

And to further muddy the waters, just what do you mean by "European"? It's a completely arbitrary set of lines on a map loosely based on the writings of Herodotus. There's no reason at all why Egyptians and Israelis are 'from' different continents while Irish and Serbs are 'from' the same one.

And what do you mean "white"? I'm not a mime.

And why is "century" an important time period... but I'm getting in too deep...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have often claimed to be the only white Caucasian I know. And it's not even true for me. Mostly. Sort of.

Close, though.

"European" and "white"

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Yes, on a certain level, they're just arbitrary.

On another level, it's as valid as "black" or "red".

It is *MADDENING* to me that in the focus on the differences between European cultures, there's no recognition that indeed, there's a certain set of similarities that contrasts strongly with some other meta-cultural groups. Arab cultures have a certain similarity (with differences between them); East Asian cultures...etc.

I think "countries that have a strong Roman Empire heritage/influence" is one sort of useful rough equivalence for "European". Others are "countries that shared royalty", "regions with Indo-European language roots and Christianity forming the basis of culture".

(re-posted to my own journal)

[cadithial.livejournal.com]

Hmm, so Lapplander is actually a slur of Saami? At least, I though Lapp was short for Lapplander

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, a Lapplander is often of Saami ancestry, but can also be an ethnic Norwegian (Swede, Finn/Kven -- hell, Turk, whatever) who lives in a region named Lappland. It's called Lappland because that's where the "Lapps" are. The ethnic slur is so ingrained that it is incorporated into the name of their region. If you want to use a non-offensive term for that region (other than "northern Scandinavia"), some variant of "Saamemaa" is the term most Saami groups prefer.

[badger2305.livejournal.com]

Interesting you should make this point. I say pretty much the same thing when I teach race and ethnicity each semester. I also point out that "whiteness" as a concept is constructed from a position of dominance, however. Your questions to help clarify the issue are quite good.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Whiteness" is constructed from a position of dominance -- I agree with what I think you mean by that, but can you clarify anyway?

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

The conflation of "white" with "dominant" is weird to me from another direction. Every so often I'll come across something claiming that Jews aren't white. Then I look in the mirror and get very confused.

One of those was the TV show Northern Exposure.A A recent and more serious one was on weirdjews where someone claimed, in all seriousness, that 30 years ago Jews weren't considered white in the US. I pointed out that 30 years ago was the 1970s, not a time of great antisemitism (compared to, say, the 1930s in even the US or England, that I was there, and that none of the people I knew then would have considered that "white" and "Jewish" were orthogonal. (My Dad actually does get dark enough to be taken for black when he has a deep tan, but not me.)

I think it's basically a way of disassociating ourselves from anyone who's opporessed people, but it still flies in the face of basic observation - I guess for me, "white" just means pale-skinned and lacking in certain features that indicate recent African or Asian ancestry.

[redbird]

Yes. We were bouncing this around a little late at night at a Wiscon party, and I got a surprised look when I observed that when my mother was born, she wasn't considered "white." (Photo userpic inserted as relevant.)

The other person asked when, and continued to look confused, until I added the where.

Here and now--in New York City, in the early 21st century--I'm visibly and obviously white, whatever that complicated term means. My mother was born in Germany in 1931, where she might have been white to the casual eye, but not to the official one.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I got a longform census this year, and one of the questions was about your ethnicity. So there was fifteen different kinds of Asian to choose from, fifteen different kinds of Middle Eastern or black or brown to choose from, and "white".

I think it's trying to inform the populace who we're allowed to look at funny on the subway.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I once saw some white separatists face off with some African-Americans on a talk show. (I think I was home sick that day and this was back when afternoon TV meant a choice between talk shows and soaps, unti lthe cartoons came on.) The separatists claimed that they weren't racist, but "only wanted to have the races separated" and suggested anyone of African ancestry be returned to that continent. At that point, one of the black guests on the show said, "Well, if you don't like the ways things are here, why don't *you* go back to where you came from?" and the white women said, "Well, my ancestors were German and Dutch and English ... what am I supposed to do, cut myself into pieces?"

There was wide support for that idea from the other guests and the audience on that show, of course ;-) But I did think it telling that she apparently never considered that any African-American who's been here more than a few generations is as or more likely to have ancestors from a wide distribution across Africa (probably Europe as well, come to think of it). But yeah, most of the skin-color-based categories are wide enough that they may not say that much about the people in the category, ethnically.

[scribbling-elf.livejournal.com]

The whole concept of race and whiteness in this culture, and the categorizing there of, has become a peeve of mine lately. It started some years back when I was applying to colleges for my transfer and filling out scholarships, etc., and the arbitrary and inane nature of it. One form had White/Caucasian as a category, which they then clarified as "European, Middle Eastern, and North African." Another had simply "Anglo-Saxon" as the choice for race, while another had White, Caucasian, and Anglo-Saxon as three different categories.

This reminds me how I greatly dislike the term Anglo-Saxon as a catch-all for all Europeans. Being the majority culture, it may not pack quite the same punch as calling all Asians "Chinese" or all Latino(a)s "Mexican" or "Hispanic," it still makes me rather indignant....and I think a few of my French, Irish, Scottish, and Dutch Jewish ancestors would have been either angry or wickedly amused. :p

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"Anglo-Saxon" as a term for "all fair-skinned people" is just plain annoying and wrong. If they meant "Caucasian" as "person from the Caucasus region," okay, but "Anglo-Saxon"? No. (I have a selection of friends whose faces I'd like to see when someone informed them that they were Anglo-Saxon.)

We had an acquaintance in college who occasionally got referred to as Not-Mexican-Dan, because we had multiple Dans around, and this one was El Salvadoran, so not being labelled Mexican was a much bigger deal to him than it was to the Dans who were ScanAm or generi-white or etc. And since I went to college in rural Minnesota, my Japanese* prof had eye-rolling stories about local shopkeepers: "You're from Japan? I'll bet you know Mr. Wu! He's from China!" And he would explain wearily that Asia is actually a fairly big place....

*To clarify: he was a person of Japanese ethnicity and Japanese nationality who taught the Japanese language. There are all sorts of ways for "my Japanese prof" to come out, so I thought I'd better say.

[veryshortlist.livejournal.com]

and I think a few of my French, Irish, Scottish, and Dutch Jewish ancestors would have been either angry or wickedly amused.

I think that if you are applying to colleges, and live a fairly priveledged life in the States, your ancestors would be proud. That's why they immigrated in the first place.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

How many European ethnic groups are there this week?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

How does one categorize Brazilians, by the way? Somehow "hispanic" seems just so wrong.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Technically, Brazilians are not Hispanic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map-Hispanic_countries.png).

B

[littlebutfierce]

All this is true, & as a Finnish person I appreciate your mention of the Saami situation. But I also think that, when this sort of point is brought up in a discussion of cultural appropriation, people often use it to turn the discussion back to whiteness over & over (as had happened in a lot of the current threads), & to play the "I'm just as oppressed as you" game. I'm not saying that this is what you're doing here, just that your point is often unfortunately used as a jumping-off place by others for that sort of thing, & I've been seeing it in the various recent discussions generated by the WisCon panel.

I like what poptastic says here:

But for god's sake, starting the conversation by telling people whose cultures have been and continue to be subject to appropriation on a level which skyrockets above any parallel impact on my own all about how I can share their fears is...tacky. For starters.

Also here:

There are certainly contemporary challenges faced by (to cadge the problematic but necessary description which is going around) people who look like members of the dominant culture (whatever it is) but do not identify as such. But my thing is that those challenges really do not seem equivalent to the contemporary challenges faced by people who do not look like members of the dominant culture.

[littlebutfierce]

Yerrgh. That should be popfantastic.