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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32895 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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My race is definitely not how I primarily define myself. As a redheaded white person, my hair color ranks higher than race- I've been told that not caring about my race is a white privilege, which may be the case, but it's a privilege I think others deserve. Both hair color and race fall far below my sex in terms of identity.

All of those physical characteristics are orders of magnitude less significant to my identity than my personality characteristics. I primarily define myself in a way that doesn't involve my body at all- I am the thing that lives in my brain, hosted by my body. I identify with characters that make the decisions I would. As a caveat, I expect that also carries cultural values as a piece of group identity baggage.

I'm rambling a bit, so I'll get back to the point. Maybe identifying primarily as a race is a bad thing that we should not actively pursue. From personal experience, I don't think you have to think that way. Race is something that divides us; humanity unites us.

It's 2022 and you don't see how people who are not white might identify with their skin color even though you don't? When you meet black people you genuinely don't think their race is part of their identity?

I've been told that not caring about my race is a white privilege, which may be the case, but it's a privilege I think others deserve.

It's 2022 (not relevant but accurate) and I think it's time we stop treating race as a primary identity trait. This is a prescriptive position, not a descriptive one. It's not like I don't see race, but when I meet a black person I think of them primarily as a person and I would love for them to be able to do the same. I can't read minds, but I've definitely met black people whose entertainment is exclusively manga/anime so I imagine they either don't care about representation or don't identify themselves by race in a substantial way.

Worth noting also that plenty of white people do identify with their skin color, as evidenced by the regular expression of concerns of white extinction in this community or some of the replies upthread. I think those people should think of themselves differently as well, and I expect I have your agreement there.

Again, my apologies if I'm rambling. I am doing my best to go from thoughts to words here and having a rough time with it.

I've been told that not caring about my race is a white privilege,

I suspect that a more accurate statement would be "not caring about your [characteristic] is easy/a privilege when people with [characteristic] are a large local majority." If you've got something that stands out from most of the people around you, whether it's skin color, hair color, height, etc., that tends to be noticed and flagged as significant. People might refer to Jose as "the Mexican guy" in Vermont, but nobody's going to call him that in Mexico City.

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