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quindraco ,

This is horrible and I don’t want to detract from that, but did the author of this piece forget we were being given a picture?

Earls, the only Black woman on North Carolina’s high court, spoke out about racial bias in her courtroom.

Image in the same article.

Photo from her Facebook.

From Ballotpedia.

Now, of course, white people are 100% fully capable of calling out racial bias. Anita is wholly in the right here and the commission is in the wrong. It’s just brutally stupid showing us she’s white and then claiming she’s black.

soratoyuki ,

Anita Earls is mixed, and that was incredibly easy to find out on Google.

celeste ,
@celeste@kbin.social avatar

She's mixed race, according to this.

Itty53 , (edited )
@Itty53@kbin.social avatar

Good moment to point out that "white" is an ever-changing target that constantly moves as needed by the white people in power. Remember "one drop" was their rule. There's no such thing as "white".

Fun fact that demonstrates the point: depending on your locale you may already be seeing this happen, but Latinos are about twenty years away from being considered defacto "white people". And it's not accidental. It's a coordinated effort to get hold of a rising voting bloc that's historically very conservative.

If you live in California you might already recognize the difference between Norteno and Sureno (speaking colloquially, not referring to the gangs using those words as their names). If you've been paying attention to folks like Enrique Tarrio, Raphael Ted Cruz, and George "This is My Name This Month" Santos, you'd see it happening elsewhere too.

Latinos who don't embrace their Latino culture while they're here in America are being indoctrinated the same way they did the Irish and Italians before them. Remember neither of those groups were "white" when they first arrived in America either. The inner circle already accepted them as White People, they're just working on their adherents now. Ask yourself why so many second generation Mexican-American immigrants are hesitant to call themselves Mexican. Nope, they'll use Latino though. They've internalized that word as what the white people mean by it, it's a dirty word in that context.

And this is the effect of culturally ingrained racism. We saw it with Irish, Italians, we see it with Black Americans, and we see it with Mexican Americans too. The patterns are right there and obvious.

Izzgo ,

A long time ago I had a friend with about the same coloring as Earls. She was "black" by genetics: born of darker skinned parents (one quite dark, one lighter), and all her siblings were quite a bit darker then her. Among the white group of friends I was part of, she totally passed as white and generally didn't mention it, but as I got to know her better she showed me her family pictures.

This just showcases the complexity of what it means to be black, or white. But I think in this case, Earls is correctly speaking as a black woman.

Itty53 , (edited )
@Itty53@kbin.social avatar

I'm gonna point out that it is only complex to not be white. It is not complex to be white. That's a simple determination white society makes, that's all the complexity there is. That determination.

Irish people weren't white, then they were.

Italian people weren't white, then they were.

Latino people weren't white, then they were. They're getting there. See my other comment.

Jews still aren't "white". They're "Jews". Secular Jews get to be white though. "The good ones", they'll say. Hrm.

There's no group mastering over white people making them play by some ever-changing set of made up rules. That's what it is to be not white in America. Literacy tests, citizenship tests, background tests, sundown towns, don't look a white woman in the eye, mind your manners, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc. Those are all things done to minorities that have never been done to white people.

"White" is not a complex thing. Full disclosure, I'm a white guy. First generation Italian American, my dad came off a boat at Ellis Island and his family had to cross America all the way to California to find people who treated them as equals. Italians, they're as complex as Germans and the Dutch. But white? White isn't complex.

Izzgo ,

I chose the term "complex" in order to gently correct the person I was responding to without stirring the pot any more than necessary. As I reflect on your words correcting me, I still think the term is proper for white people, for the concept of whiteness. If anything, maybe more so. Being Black, or Chinese, or Jewish....all of these are a clear identity which doesn't change over time. Being white, that's not much of a clear identity at all. As your examples demonstrate, whether or not one is white in America varies over time as our racial values change. White people (as defined in our society) certainly take more than their share of all the good stuff our world offers, but that doesn't mean being white isn't complex. The very fact that your "race" can be white one generation but not in another, that's complex rather than simple.

And yes, people have been and are being horribly abused for not fitting the current definition of white. I would say it's more difficult to be considered not white (whatever your actual skin color), but not more complex.

WHYAREWEALLCAPS ,

Letting that systemic racism shine right through there, huh?

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