Thread by @magi_jay

I’ve seen discussion of the CO shooter’s race, much stemming from whether or not his lighter skin conferred differential treatment. While we should have the general convo about differential treatment, we should not let this lead to statements like, “Middle Easterners are white”

Whatever people determine about this specific case will not change the overall fact that POC, especially Black men, suffer disproportionate violence in police interactions, whether they committed a crime or not. Nothing about one case erases the overall trend.

Conservatives act like there must be a 100% correlation, such that every x=y. For ex,
any time a white person is treated poorly by police, they claim this disproves the trend that Black people are disproportionately harmed. They also do this if a POC is treated relatively well

Conservatives do this w/ perpetrators too. If a Black officer shoots an unarmed Black person, conservatives claim white officers may not be specifically influenced by racial bias. In other cases, they act as if a Black officer shooting a white person contradicts all other trends

Nothing about *one* case disproves the strong correlations we see. We can certainly talk about individual cases, but we also don’t need to feel the pressure—created by conservatives—to strong arm every correlation into 100%, such that *every* case fits the trend.

Now, onto the “Middle Easterners are white” discourse. The “ME” is a region, often grouped w/ North Africa (MENA). “ME” is not a race. Areas are racially, ethnically, & religiously heterogenous.

Racial/ethnic identities are complex & are navigated differently in specific ME communities than in the U.S. & other Western countries. Discrimination is also complex. For example, in Lebanon, there is an issue of racialized bigotry towards people of Syrian or Palestinian descent

In France, in contrast, there is generalized racism against people from the ME, such that white ppl in France might lump Syrians, Palestinians, & Lebanese people together as one group. Treatment of individuals may be differentially influenced by proximity to whiteness.

This is, of course, true in the U.S. too. racial/ethnic identities are complex. Proximity to whiteness is complex and has different within-group effects than out-group effects. Perceptions of relative whiteness also differ between groups.

These perceptions and gradations are all a consequence of white supremacy. “Proximity to whiteness” is a thing precisely b/c white people, have made it one. We shouldn’t let these effects of white supremacy be the primary determiners of race/ethnic identity.

I’ve seen some refer to Census designations, such that many from the ME check “white,” incl. those of Arab descent. This is misguided. The Census doesn’t determine someone’s racial/ethnic identity. White people who commit hate crimes are not consulting the census when they do so

The rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes post-9/11 & 2015 was also racially motivated. Not all muslims are POC, but Muslims who are POC are more likely to be targeted in hate crime. Others who are not Muslim, but have brown skin, are also victims of racialized anti-Muslim violence

Additionally, people specifically of Arab descent have fought for years for proper representation in the Census. Checking the “white” box doesn’t determine their identities, but it does have consequences for data collection, community funding, and federal civil rights protection.

When you say “Middle Easterners are white,” please consider the implications this claim has for other discourse. Do you really want to claim, for example, that when the US invaded Iraq, we were invading a majority-white country? Bombed majority white civilians? Is that accurate?

Do you want to claim that Trump’s travel ban was completely race-blind and was exclusively motivated by religious animus? Do you want to claim that differential treatment of terrorists who cite “Islam” as motivation is entirely determined by religion and not motivated by racism?

I've also seen a lot of “Syrians are white.” Many countries’ actions in response to Syria—including quality of refugee camps & broader societal acceptance—has been influenced by racism. Just asserting “Syrians are white” erases a lot of that, as well as Syria-internal identities.

None of this is to say that racism in the U.S. is equally applied to different groups. The nature of white-led stereotypes are different & differentially impact POC in domains from education to policing. The racism is different, but it's still racism created by white society.

At the end of the day, we should discuss how whiteness or proximity to whiteness may lead to differential treatment. This may or may not have been the case w/ the CO shooter. But, regardless of what is determined in that case, no data point disproves a broader trend.

If we have this debate, we should not led it bleed into blanket statements like “Middle Easterners/Syrians are white.” When we do this, we're misconstruing multi-ethnic/racial heritage. We also risk ignoring contours of racism in American society and erasing people’s identities.

And we play into conservatives’ framing. They want us to prove 100% correlations about racism. They want to “disprove” racism and they want to "disprove" that white men overwhelmingly perpetrate mass shootings. We don’t need to play their games. We know the trends.