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Jul. 15th, 2010 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsOne relatively unimportant thing about Nell Irvin Painter that I nonetheless appreciate: she is an amazing footnoter. My favorite was probably when, in the middle of a discussion of the bizarre history of the term 'Caucasian' (i.e. people of the Caucasus region; Circassians, Georgians, etc.) to indicate The Most Beautiful And Also White-Skinned People, she paused to remark: "In the 20th century, the most famous of the people from the Georgia of Russian fame was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin, whose relentless use of power largely overshadowed considerations of his looks." I am not ashamed to admit that I lol'd.
In fact, I found myself giggling (author-approved lulz, not against-the-text lulz) possibly more than expected while reading Painter's The History of White People, an overview of the hundreds of years of twists and turns that have gone into creating the current definition of 'white.' Painter is relatively famous as a academic expert in black history; I don't know what her normal writing style is like (though I will probably be hunting down more of her books to find out!) but she is not afraid to show exactly how ridiculous she finds most of the reasoning behind race-classification theory to be - which, of course, it is. The Germans are awesome . . . because they are descended from blonde Greeks! Vikings are awesome, except actual Scandinavia is kind of lame, but that's clearly because all the awesome Vikings moved to England, so actually the English are the real awesome racially-superior Scandinavian descendents! I knew some of the information, but definitely not all; for example, I had no idea that until around World War II many academic theorists believed in three different kinds of white races, largely determined by head-shape. (Long-headed blonde people: SUPERIOR. Round-headed people: INFERIOR. Long-headed brunette people: POSSIBLY THE MOST INFERIOR OF ALL?) I mean, it is not really all that funny, given the long, long history of horrible things that race theory has excused. But all the same, you kind of have to laugh.
From an academic standpoint, the book is not perfect. Although Painter does an amazing job covering the global history up until the nineteenth century or so, she starts focusing on the U.S. to the exclusion of most of the rest of the world in the mid-nineteenth century, and within the context of the US to focus more on the black/white divide with only a couple of references to definitions that did not fall within that divide - I especially wanted some discussion of the weird and recent creation of the Hispanic/Latina/o category, and was disappointed not to get it. On the other hand, it's not like there isn't more than enough to cover even within that tighter focus, and as a U.S.ian it is extra relevant to me anyways, so. I would absolutely recommend!
(Also, speaking of things that are lolarious: when linking for this book review, I ended up at the Amazon page, where half the reviews talk about how the book is awesome, and the other half complain about how unfair and racist it is to have a black woman writing a historical/ethnographic book on white people. IRONY: LET ME SHOW YOU IT.)
In fact, I found myself giggling (author-approved lulz, not against-the-text lulz) possibly more than expected while reading Painter's The History of White People, an overview of the hundreds of years of twists and turns that have gone into creating the current definition of 'white.' Painter is relatively famous as a academic expert in black history; I don't know what her normal writing style is like (though I will probably be hunting down more of her books to find out!) but she is not afraid to show exactly how ridiculous she finds most of the reasoning behind race-classification theory to be - which, of course, it is. The Germans are awesome . . . because they are descended from blonde Greeks! Vikings are awesome, except actual Scandinavia is kind of lame, but that's clearly because all the awesome Vikings moved to England, so actually the English are the real awesome racially-superior Scandinavian descendents! I knew some of the information, but definitely not all; for example, I had no idea that until around World War II many academic theorists believed in three different kinds of white races, largely determined by head-shape. (Long-headed blonde people: SUPERIOR. Round-headed people: INFERIOR. Long-headed brunette people: POSSIBLY THE MOST INFERIOR OF ALL?) I mean, it is not really all that funny, given the long, long history of horrible things that race theory has excused. But all the same, you kind of have to laugh.
From an academic standpoint, the book is not perfect. Although Painter does an amazing job covering the global history up until the nineteenth century or so, she starts focusing on the U.S. to the exclusion of most of the rest of the world in the mid-nineteenth century, and within the context of the US to focus more on the black/white divide with only a couple of references to definitions that did not fall within that divide - I especially wanted some discussion of the weird and recent creation of the Hispanic/Latina/o category, and was disappointed not to get it. On the other hand, it's not like there isn't more than enough to cover even within that tighter focus, and as a U.S.ian it is extra relevant to me anyways, so. I would absolutely recommend!
(Also, speaking of things that are lolarious: when linking for this book review, I ended up at the Amazon page, where half the reviews talk about how the book is awesome, and the other half complain about how unfair and racist it is to have a black woman writing a historical/ethnographic book on white people. IRONY: LET ME SHOW YOU IT.)
