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[skygiants]

One 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.)

Comments

[smartycat.livejournal.com]

This book sounds like it might have been helpful to my research when I was assigned a report on Sir Francis Galton years ago for a history of psychology class. It was amazingly hard to find modern books that even mentioned him, presumably because eugenics is now considered a pretty unsavory subject. But the ones that did mention him? Oh boy. From a journal entry of the time:
The book that almost made me say "Fuck it, I'll take an F"? Published in 1984. Written by a professor at Dartmouth and edited by a guy that works for NASA. Among other joy inducing bits, it likes to refer to non-Caucasians as "savages." (Oh, yes, and if you're a Caucasian Australian, I'm afraid you're also a "savage" because we all know Australia used to be a penal colony and "blood will tell" after all.) >_<;; I have four books written by reasonable human beings lacking a racist agenda. My sanity is saved by a thread, but the jury is still out on my faith in humanity.

This stuff is definitely still recent. I live and attended university in a majority black city in the southern US, and that particular class was very ethnically and culturally diverse, and it was the most awkward presentation I've ever given just to relate the facts of his life and stated beliefs--not at all endorsing them--while standing there basically looking like his poster child. I have pale skin and blonde hair and largely Anglo-Germanic ancestry, with some Spaniard that is not acknowledged by the family but is there in the immigration records and a surname no one pronounces correctly. My extended family does not at all embody tolerance for others. Think of the racist, white redneck stereotype and that's pretty much my family.

Yeah... "My white pain, let me show you it?" Really though, at least where I'm from, youth are not taught how to or encouraged to discuss race classification history and the social injustices perpetuated based on that profiling. It's a really big elephant lurking in the room, but too many people are too afraid and uncomfortable to talk about it.

[skygiants]

Oh, man. That . . . sounds like a depressing project. :/ But it does sound as if the book would have been helpful to you! (And possibly at least a little helpful for your faith in humanity? Or at least your sanity. Sometimes you honestly just have to either laugh or cry at this stuff.)

Yeah, in a lot of ways race is a very taboo subject in schools, which is part of the problem. Have you read Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? It's kind of 101 on this stuff, but good 101, and it does a really good job with the points that kids of color become aware of this kind of thing very early on - because they have to, and are living it - whereas a lot of white kids never really learn how to talk about it. Hence a lot of the avoidance and the 'la la la' hands-over-ears pretending it doesn't exist.