Have you ever wondered what it means to be white? You get a form and it asks you for your race. You check white. You move on. Not another thought about it.
In the US, we have generally understood white to mean people from European descent, however, this term has included and excluded different people over the course of our history. For instance, Italian and Irish immigrants weren’t originally considered white but now they are, and currently, the Census Bureau defines the term white as: “A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.”1 The Middle East and North Africa? I was just as surprised as you were.
When I was a kid, I remember learning about the major races of mankind:
Negroid (Black) race.
Australoid (Australian Aborigine and Papuan) race.
Capoid (Bushmen/Hottentots) race.
Mongoloid (Oriental/Amerindian) race.
Caucasoid (White) race.
Growing up in the late 70’s and 80’s, my main take away about race was that it existed, it was somehow biological, and that we were not supposed to see it. To be a good person was to be colorblind.
I never, ever remember thinking about myself as a racialized being. I never had to think about being white, and because I lived in a segregated society, I didn’t really have to think about others being black, asian, indigenous or any other racial category.
There were moments in my 20’s that I noticed difference, but it wasn’t until my 30’s and 40’s that I really began to ask the question, “What does it mean to be white in America? What does it mean to be white in the world”
A few things I began to notice:
Many of the places in the cities I lived were segregated, and communities of color often coincided with impoverished communities. The wealthier communities were largely white.
When I went to another country, especially a country in Africa, our group of white people were treated like royalty. We could easily gain access to those that had power and privilege just because of who we were.
I had a positive perception of law enforcement and other civil servants, and communities of color did not.
Fast forward… I learned that race was not a biological- not inherently found in our DNA and a natural course of nature. I learned that it was a social construction that was birthed out of modern day slavery2 and that every discipline sought to legitimize it: science, medicine, art and literature. I learned that there was a hierarchy of races and that white was always at the top.
The term white is not only a racial classification but also a culture. While there are many different cultural characteristics of being white that are dependent on what part of the country you live in, there are common distinctions as well: sense of time, work ethic, manners, hospitality, and more.
In 2020, I lead several groups through a course from Be the Bridge, where we dove into what it meant to be white, and every single one of us found it difficult to answer the question, “What is white culture?” We could describe cultural characteristics of other ethnic groups around us, but we couldn’t put our finger on the answer to that question.
It got me thinking… did I realize that I am a cultural being just like my black sister in law and latino neighbor? Did I see my culture and how it intersected with other cultures around me? Did I understand how my culture operated in the mosaic of cultures in this nation and the world?
It was like a lightbulb went off… I am a cultural being. Shaped and formed by my culture: the things both said and unsaid, seen and unseen, and valued and not valued in the world around me.
So… how would you answer these questions: What does it mean to be white? Do you agree that white is a culture, and if so, what are it’s characteristics? This worksheet might be helpful.
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html
https://www.racepowerofanillusion.org/articles/origin-idea-race
No, I do not believe "white" is a culture. As you pointed out, you and your friends were unable to define white culture. As you said, white looks different in different parts of the country (USA). That can be said of different parts of the world as well.
I was raised in Southwestern Pennsylvania by my parents who both have largely Scottish and German ancestry. Initially my parents were unbelievers as they both came from (dead) church-going, unregenerate families, but I remember going to church as early as about 6 years old. Church culture is a definite, definable thing. Mine was Protestant Christian, but the same could be said of Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Catholic, etc.
With German and Scottish heritage, I grew up going to the Highland Games, eating German potato salad, and making Scottish shortbread. Being from Pittsburgh, we also ate pierogies, loved Gus & Yiayia's, and always had a New Year's pretzel. I don't remember a wedding reception without a cookie table, but my cousin married a woman from Portland, Oregon who never heard of such a thing.
My first real exposure to another culture (worldwide) was when my family hosted an exchange student from Austria. She had a different accent, could speak 4 languages (plus knew Latin), and played the violin in the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony. She grew up in a high rise in the city and had never heard cicadas before. I learned that "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" is quite literal as Austrian girls all wear the same dress to Prom. She couldn't believe when two girls got into a fight over having purchased the same Prom dress here!
I then was exposed further to a different culture when I lived in Belgium as an exchange student the next year. We greeted each other with cheek kisses. (How uncomfortable!) We spoke French, but one friend was from the Dutch-speaking part of the country. We took public transportation to school. My school was so old, it used to have a moat around it! Only the classrooms were heated, so everyone put their coats on when changing classes. We ate such fresh food! Bread with no preservatives was bought each morning straight from the Bakery, then leftovers fed to the neighbors' sheep in the backyard.
With my father being a conductor for Amtrak, I grew up riding trains. But I learned that European trains are always on time, and they sometimes split in half to go to two different cities (so you'd better be on the correct half)!
I saw maracas dancers in Spain, ate haggis in Scotland, hiked in the Alps, had my first Nutella, experienced "fizzy" water, learned how blind people figure out paper money when making change, heard my English teacher talk about how clean New York City was (ha!) and slept under a duvet cover for the first time in my life.
Now that I married a Kentuckian and have lived down here for over a decade, I could point out the difference between yinz guys and ya'll. Throw the fact that I'm a Southern Baptist in the Reformed tradition, and that brings its own traditions and culture.
In the end, culture is a beautiful, God-ordained part of creation, which began with His command to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. " After mankind refused and wanted all the glory, God confused their language at the tower of Babel. That's when humans finally spread out and cultures were established based on geography, language, etc.