Why concept of ‘multiracial whiteness’ is condescending
Per custom, Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first African American Supreme Court justice, met with his African American successor to the high bench, Clarence Thomas. During that 1990 meeting, Marshall reportedly said, “I had to do in my time what I had to do, and you have to do in your time what you have to do.”
Thomas believed, he said, that Blacks had to “deign to think for themselves.”
I became even more convinced that deigning — that is, seeing fit — to think for yourself is a very good thing after reading that Cristina Beltran, an associate professor at New York University, had conceptualized the term “multiracial whiteness” in a recent Washington Post op-ed.
Apparently, multiracial white- ness is a promise “rooted in America’s ugly history of white supremacy” that allows nonwhite folks to “lay claim to the politics of aggression, exclusion and domination.”
In a stroke of deconstructionist wonder,
Beltran figuratively whitens nonwhite American experiences because of their political alignment (or disillusionment, as the case may be).
Deconstructionism is a postmodern theory that became widely accepted in the 1960s through the writings of Jacques Derrida. He got the idea largely from Martin Heidegger’s “Being and Time” (1927), where the term “destruktion” was used. This term refers not to the English term “destruction” but the German term “abbau,” to take apart or deconstruct words and look behind their denoted meanings to see a deeper one.
Example: the term “urban” in place of nonwhite. This is sometimes the case; but rooting your modus operandi in assumptions of intent can be dangerous. Thinking that those who stormed the Capitol were somehow “acting white,” as the term multicultural whiteness infers, is an example of that danger.
Most concur that the breach of Jan. 6 was criminal. But let’s deign to think for ourselves here.
Should the thousands of people of various races peaceably protesting — even praying — outside the perimeter of the Capitol be lumped together with ruffians deserving of arrest? That is as absurd as saying all Black Lives Matter protesters are looters.
If storming the Capitol had been an act of racial
animus, as Beltran supposes, how is it that the brown and Black folks involved walked away unscathed? Though racists were clearly present, spewing their toxic commentary and worse, this event transcended race.
So, kneading race into this cookie dough is a recipe for some unnecessarily icky-tasting baked goods. Malevolent acts like those of Jan. 6 aren’t always rooted in white racism.
But Beltran pooh-poohs “colorblind individualism,” the belief that one’s race should not be given more protection than another; supporters of a fully equal playing field. Again, non-whites who deign to think for themselves are forced into a box
in which they clearly don’t fit.
Calling a nonwhite person multiracially (or otherwise) white presents a few problems. It:
Robs these people of their respective blackness. As I suggested in my piece about George Floyd in these pages some months ago, focusing so much on race often ignores the person’s flaws and virtues, objectifying and dehumanizing him or her.
Adds an extra layer of misunderstanding between the ivory tower and the folks we all want to prevent believing conspiracy theories.
Also, if multiracial whiteness is valid, then what happens to the cornucopia of scholarship opportunities for nonwhite students? Would there have to be a political progress litmus test? Would failing that test lead to the sort of public shaming we now equate with cancel culture?
Why? Biological race would no longer matter. In the deconstructed parallel universe, political alignment would.
Put another way, multiracial whiteness is little more than academic speak for when now-President Biden foolishly said, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” Maybe the president can let me know what it was like for him watching when well-intentioned “woke” racists decided lowering academic scholarship standards was helping Black students.
Perhaps Mr. Biden is multiracially Black, a term that applies to those who identify as mixed and, at the same time, African American. Here, the choice of self-identifying remains for whites and not for non-whites.
Biden could identify as the second Black president or, maybe, the third Black president. After all, we forgot about Bill Clinton being identified by a few African Americans as the first Black president. In the spirit of deconstructing the meaning of words once more, couldn’t one be left thinking Clinton was considered Black because he played into the negative stereotype some whites have of Blacks displaying an insatiable sexual appetite?
Snark aside, well-intentioned, lower-melanin Americans telling me how much of a victim darker-skinned Americans are was bad enough. The patrimony and condescension of multiracial whiteness is even worse.
Multiracial blackness besmirches those of African ancestry, a thing of beauty and challenges. No deconstructionist gymnastics can rob us of that.
In his 1998 book, “A Dream Deferred,” Shelby Steele recalls a talk he gave that held a position on race atypical of most African Americans. In the subsequent affirmative action debate, one professor on his campus stood up and exclaimed, “And if the Black students do well, they’ll end up like Asians. They’ll lose their preference.”
While you ponder that for a moment, think, too, about how multiracial whiteness presents an even more egregious position.