“After 9/11 my father had to cut his beard to avoid Islam-phobic attacks.”
This phrase has been uttered by many Muslims living in America. But it is not unique to Muslim Americans or even to people of Middle Eastern descent. In fact, I most recently heard this phrase from a middle-aged Greek man.
This man was the son of a Greek Orthodox priest living in America. It has been a long tradition in the Greek Orthodox Church, backed by Church doctrine that clergy wear beards, and until recently most wore long “Santa Claus” beards. However, after 9/11 those “Santa Claus” beards started to look a lot like “terrorist” beards on the olive-skinned and dark-haired Greek clergymen, so they had to go.
Hearing this man talk about his father reminded me of a conversation I had a few years ago with another Greek man. He told me that after 9/11, when he was a scrawny preteen, he was beaten up several times a week on his way home from school. All because he had dark skin and a "Muslim-sounding" last name.
There is a lot of talk about white-passing people of color, as there should be, but what about the other way around? What about the people of European descent who are perceived by others as people of color? Should they be considered “white?"
Many people from Europe, especially eastern and southern Europe, have dark skin and other features that are perceived as “ethnic” or non-white. For example, Italians tend to have olive-colored skin, large noses, and thick, dark hair. This often causes them to be perceived as Middle Eastern or Latinx. Now, people who harbor racial bias, consciously or unconsciously, generally don’t wait for people to confirm their racial identity before discriminating against them. For example, if Donald Trump sees someone who he thinks is Mexican, he’s not going to wait to find out if they are actually, in fact, Mexican, before he labels them as a criminal drug-dealing rapist. This person whom Donald Trump perceived as Mexican could very likely be Portuguese or Spanish or Bulgarian, but that didn’t stop Donald Trump from stereotyping and likely discriminating against them. Therefore, the simple fact of being from Europe doesn’t automatically grant all aspects of white privilege to Europeans, and certainly not to those who appear to be of color.
So this begs the question: what is whiteness? Does an ancestral history stemming from the continent of Europe constitute whiteness? Is there some sort of scale of degrees of whiteness based on skin tone? Is whiteness based on some calculation of the ratio of skin lightness, to thickness of hair, to size of facial features, etc.?
Like with so many other things, when it comes to race, perception is reality. People don't discriminate against people because they are of color, per se; they discriminate against people because theyperceivethem to be of color, whether that perception is based on physical appearance, dress, names, language, etc.
The term whiteness implies systemic power that is only afforded to some people in our society. The people with this power are largely of European descent, but not all Europeans have this power. European Americans with dark skin do not have the same privileges that light-skinned Europeans do, and they do not even have all of the same privileges that white-passing people of color do. (Of course, they may also have some power that white-passing people of color do not have, i.e.: having a last name that doesn’t repel potential employers, patrons, etc.) Defining whiteness as synonymous with European heritage is problematic because it erases the everyday discrimination and oppression experienced by some European Americans who are perceived as non-white.
This is why I advocate for a more complex view of race. Social justice activists often try to split people up by who is oppressed by certain power structures and who benefits from them. While this type of analysis of the effects of hegemony on different social groups is necessary, we often get caught up in a binary of who holds what type of privilege. The reality is, many people hold different types of privilege in different forms at different times. The social status of not-quite-white-looking individuals is often subject to the whims of the people around them at any given time. It would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that our system of white supremacy affords a wide range of privileges to certain people, no privilege to many and an arbitrary, unstable, constantly-changing assortment of privileges to others.
