The history of White people
by Nell Irvin Painter · first published 2010
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Traces how the meaning of white has shifted over centuries, including how German Americans and Jews were once excluded and later absorbed; recommended for readers interested in race as a social and historical category.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Historian Painter centers her momentous study of racial classification on the slave trade and the nation-building efforts which dominated the United States in the 18th century, when thinkers led by Ralph Waldo Emerson strove to explain the rapid progress of America within the context of white superiority. Her research is filled with frequent, startling realizations about how tenuous and temporary our racial classifications really are.
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Anyone interested in this topic should read "The History of White People" by Nell Irvin Painter, who shows how in America the very definition of "white" has changed to include a widening circle of people. For example, in the 18th century, German Americans weren't considered…
on “How the Asians Became White” ↗…don't think so. But it does matter, in the same way the OP article on caste matters, in hundreds to thousands of small interactions over the course of every day life. I highly recommend Dr. Painter's The History of White People. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_White_People
on “Trapped in Silicon Valley’s hidden caste system” ↗Add Jews to the list other commenters have provided here. “The History of White People” by Nell Irvin Painter covers this idea in depth.
on “Startup is selling tech to make call center workers sound like white Americans” ↗…lineage group matters most in making distinct human individuals more or less alike for the social purpose of grouping them by some commonality. One refreshingly interesting fact I learned from the book The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter http://www.amazon.com/History-White-People-Irvin-Painter/dp/... is that the ancient Greek authors were overwhelmingly of the opinion that what made different people groups different…
on “Your DNA may carry a ‘memory’ of your living conditions in childhood” ↗Another great text on the historical cultivation of "whiteness" and European racial taxonomies is Neil Irvin Painter's "The History of White People". Michel Foucault's late 70s lectures on the history of race war in European discourse from the Norman Conquest onward are also available in printed form in English though I can't recall the name right…
There was a segment on NPR this morning where a woman who wrote "The History of White People" explained that white people are uncomfortable talking about race because it has never been a problem for them. Her argument was that now that being white is a "bad" thing, white people want to ignore…
on “I’m a Latino in Tech, and I Think the ‘Diversity’ Discussion Is Utterly Broken” ↗…was having none of it, he went up to the mic and completely denigrated them. Then it dawned on me, that these white people where literally ruining his cause by trying to take it over. And there's long history of white people doing this, where they subvert and neuter a movement and insert themselves as leaders, but only temper the cause. The end result is a kind of moderation, where no effective change happens because of it.…
on “Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs” ↗