Bryan Kilmeade ranted yesterday that antiracists are trying to "take down white culture." Please, what is that, exactly? What is white culture, historically? Be specific. Not European culture -- pay attention to what I asked -- but white culture. I'd really like to know...
Bc if you know the history of the concept of the white race you know it was ONLY created for one reason. Not bc it had real historical meaning. But bc whiteness became the banner to unite ALL Europeans, no matter how poor, against enslaved Blacks and indigenous peoples...(2)
Which means "taking down whiteness" is an eminently reasonable thing to do. Whiteness has no inherently valuable meaning. European culture does (as with all cultures), but we weren't white in Europe. To preserve whiteness is to preserve a system of inequity and nothing else...(3)
So in some ways, Kilmeade is right: We're trying to take down whiteness as a category. But not to hurt people called white; to LIBERATE all people, including 'whites' from the stultifying meaning of the concept. We were something before we were white. We'll be something after (4)
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