A shared set of experiences. I'm Latino, and when I visit the United States I get along well with other Latino folk because we share a set of experiences we can relate to.
We probably grew up in different places but there's a background we have in common, like our language.
Latinos can be white, black, native, or anything else. You share a culture with them regardless of skin color.
People in the US forget that most Latinos are white. There are several South American countries that are more white than the US.
I have a friend with a European name that appears European but emigrated with his parents from Argentina at a young age. He told me he doesn't identify as Latino in the US despite being Latino because he suspects that he's being judged as an imposter.
> People in the US forget that most Latinos are indeed white
No, people forget that “race” is a social construct, not a biological fact, and that as socially constructed in the US, Latinos are generally nonwhite, despite the fact that (in an attempt to protect the illusion of race as a genuine biological trait) the US government explicitly created the notionally orthogonal “ethnicity” axis with only two values (“Hispanic/Latino” and “Not Hispanic/Latino”) for government reporting.
“White” is a fluid concept that is socially constructed differently in different societies, even—especially—by pro-White racists in each society.
Funny, I don’t get along with many other Latinos despite being one. I think it’s this attitude that I’m supposed to speak the language and act a certain way as part of the “culture.”
Well, everyone's different. I find it much easier to relate to others that come from a similar culture to mine. We don't need to speak the language, but talking about stuff like our upbringing or whatever helps bond.
I personally wouldn't care if you acted a certain way, my definition of a Latino isn't that stereotypical.
By focusing on shared experience of cultural context or upbringing, you're ignoring the shared experience of how people are treated by others. People do have things in common based on skin color. For example, my sister is Filipina. She lives in a white dominated area which has a lot of xenophobia about Mexican immigrants. She has experienced several events where she gets mistaken as Mexican, simply by her skin color and is threatened and/or told to go back to Mexico, sometimes quite angrily. These experiences are quite traumatic. The typical person doesn't make a close study of other cultures, so if they're actively racist/xenophobic/what-have-you, they don't look to the nuances of their target's background before they lash out. Being ANY minority, especially a visually identifiable minority, creates a shared experience regardless of peoples' actual backgrounds. This causes communities and identities to form as people group around shared experiences.
Yes, most ways of categorizing people and identities are arbitrary and diffuse, but in the end its people bonding over shared context and experiences, real or illusory, and I'd be hard pressed to call it silly, any more than other human behaviors that don't follow, I dunno, strict logic.
My only issue is the level at which that single one-word descriptor is used above all others. So much focus is placed on "black" "white" etc... that it devalues the nuance of other descriptors. Like "immigrant", "rich", "poor", "college-educated" etc.
Two people walk into a random corner store. One is a poor, immigrant person who happens to be white. The other is a rich, college-educated citizen who happens to be black.
Guess which one most shop owners are gonna be keeping an eye on.
I am a white father of black children. My hometown has a notorious speed trap that every person in the community knows snares black motorists. If my children were white, I wouldn't even have to mention it except in passing. But they aren't, and if they ever drive around in that town when they are older, I will have to specifically point out to them where the speed trap is to keep them safe from the people who are supposed to be there to protect them.
The one-word descriptor IS the most important one for dealing with strangers and law enforcement in the US whether anyone likes it or not. It's unfortunate and unfair, but unfairness and misfortune never stopped the world from turning.
The focus is there because race has been the descriptor of choice for generations to quickly, lazily and cruelly discriminate against minority groups, and the lasting effects haven't even been fully understood yet, let alone remedied to the point where we can just ignore what has and is still happening because of someone's skin color.
I believe fundamentally people are ill equipped to deal with this kind of complexity. When labeling people, rather than using a small set of discrete terms, it's closer to a probabilistic clustering problem where each individual is represented by a high dimensional vector where the clusters are generated on the fly and per-use, parameterized by time and space and the observer's viewpoint.
This complex representation is what the area of academia that studies identity has come to call intersectionality. I.e. being black and gay is a particular experience that is also modified by the person's other demographics.
But imagine translating that level of complexity to national discourse (i.e. a CNN article). Doing so leads to two simplifying approaches: one is to attempt to simplify by using broad categorizing terms ('black', 'white', etc); the other is to attempt to reject those terms by not using them. You're describing problems with the first approach. The problems with the second approach are that it can sweep actual experiences under the rug. For example, while 'black' is an incredibly broad term, that is in fact how a large portion of the population labels another large portion of the population, irrespective of their background, which does create a shared black experience that can and should be talked about, but then always at the risk of ignoring other labels that also make sense in context, such as wealth, education, etc.
I don't know a rhetorical way out of this situation. This is why academic texts (by that I mean authors who are attempting to tackle the subject without any undue attempts to simplify) dealing with the subject can become so twisted and hard to read, because actually describing the context of an individual person can lead to a per-person book-level explication of their experiences that also includes a not-insubstantial explication of the author's experiences.
This is a problem with language. Every time I'm personally in a situation that ends up getting written about in the media, a situation where I'm sufficiently involved to understand the nuances of what happened, the article feels like a comic book simplification and reflection of what happened. But then did I experience that event in the same way that other participants did? No. That's the subject matter tackled, for example, in Roshomon. An 'event' in history is a generalization and narrativization of something that will be probably be interpreted very differently by the actual participants involved.
The problem with exercises like what I just wrote is to use the lack of conclusive and easy categorization to justify inaction or disengagement, i.e. "There is no black identity, let's just treat everyone as though they're the same race." That flies in the face of a great deal of lived experience. Especially because a white person in America can afford to act that way, but a black person cannot.
They may share the experience of being called "black" by people around them. Maybe not in their respective countries, as racial categories tend to change a lot based on society, however maybe if they were to meet in the same place. For example, many of my East African friends didn't realize they were "black" until they came to the US. Similarly, I felt more "white" when I was living in Tanzania as there were very few people who shared my skin tone, hair style, eye color, etc. So while I may not have had the same language as a Danish person in Tanzania, we shared a lot more physically than I did with some of the local Tanzanians and were often categorized the same by them anyways.
What's silly is your characterization of these barber shops.
We're talking about black American males who are local to their barbers and they use the time to talk about the issues that affect them.
There are literally movies (Coming to America, the Barbershop) and TV shows (The Shop: Uninterrupted) which directly feature these concepts. So if they're as unimportant and silly as you suggest, then why are they so prominent?
Could it possibly be because these people find the experience important in a way that you've missed?
> They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship
Do they, though? I think African Americans and African immigrants face very different problems in America. My next door neighbors on one side are from Ghana, my next door neighbors on the other side are African Americans. They have very different issues that they deal with and their lifestyles couldn't be more different.
My Ghana neighbors:
- Struggle with things like renewing work visas, applying for citizenship, immigration-related issues
- Buy/cook all their food from raw ingredients from African grocery stores
- 2 parent household
- Pay their own rent
My African American neighbors:
- struggle with substance abuse, truancy, obesity, unemployment
- Eat McDonalds/junk food/drink astronomical quantities of soda pop daily
- Single parent household
- Rely on the state for rent (HOC)
These are not isolated incidents - out of my neighborhood block here in Montgomery County, MD, there are multiple points of data that point to this segregation of lifestyles between African and African American. I see the police all the time at my African American neighbors' house (at least 3-4 times per year), whether it be because one of the teens was caught shoplifting, or they were making tons of noise in the middle of the night, or because of a domestic confrontation turning violent, etc. I've never seen the police once at my Ghana neighbors' house.
There are selection biases when it comes to immigration to the first world that select for things like emphasis on high educational attainment/striver mentality, plus common cultural differences we see with immigrants from all over with respect to the relative strictness of parenting. Recent immigrants from Africa are also not coping with the multigenerational trauma of slavery, Jim Crow, &c., in the way that black Americans generally are.
None of that means that recent Ghanaian-American immigrant families aren't also subject to anti-black racism in the United States in a way that is important, potentially unifiying, formative for their children who grow up experiencing it, etc.
Contemporary African immigrants significantly outperform those descended from slaves. Moreover, they have higher educational attainment, household incomes, and professional success than American white populations. Nigerian immigrants even outperform Chinese and Indian immigrants.
White British immigrants to Canada today, outperform white Canadians of British descent whose ancestors freely moved there in the 19th century, as do their children.
I suspect for the same reason that causes what you've noted. People who emigrate as skilled immigrants internationally are not average people. In both cases we're seeing the cream of the crop (intentionally selected for by the immigration system), educated and driven, often with some wealth established already. And then comparing them to a large population of locals who have varied circumstances determined by local history, not the current immigration criteria.
I can think of at least two possibilities: a privileged/sheltered upbringing or an intentional mis-framing of the issue to make something reasonable seem unreasonable.
So a person from Sierra Leone who's never stepped foot in the United States would thus never have experienced this "discrimination" and thus are not part of the "black" group?
That would be verifiable by looking at the economic and educational outcomes of African and Caribbean immigrants in comparison to ADOS. If discrimination is all there is to it then their outcomes should be the same. Spoiler alert: It's not the same.
Ghanian and Nigerian Americans make above the median white household income. Barbadian, Trinidadian, Jamaican, and Haitian Americans all make above the median African American household income. Mexican Americans score below African Americans, but above Puerto Ricans. Dominicans are dead last. Would you conclude, based on the data, that Hispanics face WORSE discrimination than blacks, even when they're born citizens like Puerto Ricans? Could this be a reason that the left is bleeding hispanic voters, when they're constantly being fed a racial narrative that's incongruent with their day-to-day experience and needs? When a Mexican American who may have a black boss hears on TV that blacks have it worse than anybody else do you think they might start losing a bit of trust in the experts?
Sadly necessary disclaimer: I'm not black or white I'm just calling it as I see it.
Selection bias: immigrating to the US from a far away country is easier if you’re educated and rich. Doesn’t mean you’re treated any better once you get here.
How do you explain the people that arrived in the United States through asylum? I wouldn't say that the Chinese immigrants who immigrated to the US during the Cultural Revolution in '70s or the swell in Indian and African diaspora in the '90s were rich. Most left everything they had behind including family members and had to start from the bottom rung. And yet, in one or two generations, they're sons and daughters are the ones populating Stanford and Silicon Valley.
So your prediction would be that African immigrants would underperform other immigrant groups originating from far away countries, owing to racism once they land here?
No, my prediction is that regardless of what country someone came from, many people in the US will only see them as Black and theyll treat them differently for it.
But, immigrants from Thailand are no less well-off than immigrants from Nigeria. If Nigerian immigrants face discrimination because many people will only see them as black, does that mean Thai immigrants will outperform them? Or do Thai people face an equal amount of racism targeting them?
> Why does the media make us segregate ego formation based off of these shallow descriptors? Black white etc.
the basic scenario is that we’ve had a years-long moral panic in which elite white tastemakers adopted the political posture of radical Black academics out of purely competitive social impulses, trying on a ready-made political eschatology that blames the worlds ills on whiteness and men and yet somehow leaves space for an army of good white people and good men to cluck their tongue about it all.
Because membership of a group, especially for marginalised and oppressed peoples, is a way to have shared strength and be able to relate to others' experiences and protect each other. Which is an incredibly powerful and necessary until the world is significantly fairer.
Also in the case of barbers, it is plainly obvious: Experience working with hair of a certain type.
I don't think the media is the only thing that determines whether we form racial or any other social identity categories.
I think racial categories are identities imposed by us and by others. By us because sometimes, especially when we're in groups of people who don't look like us, we may tend to stick closer to people who do. By others, when they see someone who looks different, they often label us with a term separating us from their group.
I agree we're all a meld and deeply human, with a lot in common, and I also think we tend to form social groups that focus on how we are different from others and how others are different from us.
It is like the ship of Theseus. Aggregates exist because that's how we abstract, even though calling it identity would be wrong. I don't know what a good solution is.
Ideally we could unmoor it from the arbitrary 100 year old census categories. Yeah, you have to draw arbitrary lines somewhere but our current set is really dumb.
While it is true that there is much diversity within each minority group, it is also true that the society often imposes discrimination solely based on one's skin color, and we can't just ignore society. I also think that this article is really mainly talking about the descendants of the enslaved people, which form the majority of US's black population, and is commonly referred to as the Black community.
Well, in terms of this article, we're talking about black barbers. This isn't a racism thing. There is a culture associated with black barbers. I was a white kid, I grew up in the hood. I would hang out with my friends while they got their haircut. Racism didn't keep me from getting my haircut there, the literal texture and makeup of my hair did. They specialized. And in black culture, the barber shop is one of the main socialization spots. It's a place demanding similar levels of respect as going to church, minus the dress code. It's a place, outside of so many other places in this white dominated world, where they can be themselves. It's a place "for them and by them". They can be themselves, the subconscious relaxes, they don't have to worry about someone being a bigot towards them.
Like it or not, black culture is a thing. Just like white culture is a thing. No one has to feel bad about it. Color is beautiful. The whole "I don't see color" concept is disingenuous to the human experience.
What does a "white" working class Italian who's parents came over in the 50's have in common with a "white" old money millionaire guy who's German ancestors came over in the mid 1800's?
What does a "black" kid who went to a private school, then Ivy League, and now works at a Private Equity fund in NYC (this is my actual friend) have in common with a "black" kid growing up in Detroit?
The "white" and "black" descriptors of all of these people have little correlation with their daily lives... and yet it's the single adjective that media/Instagram etc speak the loudest about and make it into this huge thing.
Really the biggest separator in our society is socioeconomic wealth. And that should be the main descriptor.
You don't get to opt out of the primary ethnic conflict of your society. If you get read as white and treated as white then you are white. No one is going to ask you to pronounce parsley when the time comes.
Nothing! You’re literally describing intersectionality. Other than you don’t like the terms black and white for some reason as things that are part of people’s lives we’re saying the exact same thing.
A black kid who grows up rich and goes to an Ivy League school still will still have the conversation with their parents about being black to explain why the other kids treat them differently or why they get stares in convenience stores.
Class has more of an effect on your day-to-day life than race. Sure. Fine. But your race is still a part of who you are and affects how you’re treated at all incomes which is the point. Like Jesus, Obama is rich AF and was the most powerful man on earth and his blackness was front and center his whole political career. There is no way a white political figure would have to deal with his haters posting bad photoshops of him in tribal garb where the whole thing is that he’s a scary foreign African. They might have to deal with other bullshit but not that which is the point.
Black hair isn't white hair and black shared experiences in America are not white shared experiences in America. Sometimes you need to talk and vent without a bunch of resistance from outsiders to that experience.
In reality, all humans are a continuous spectrum based off of groups of people that evolved in certain conditions over thousands of years.
What does a "white" person from Ireland have in common with a "white" person from the Caucuses?
What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with a "black" person from the deserts in the northeast of Africa?
Why does the media make us segregate ego formation based off of these shallow descriptors? Black white etc.