Is calling something “White” an insult?

BeingLatinopng-300x67By Daniel Cubias, Being Latino

I was at a wedding reception when I saw her — a blonde woman trying in vain to get down with Kool & the Gang’s Jungle Boogie. A man seated near me gestured to the woman and pronounced her, “the whitest person I’ve ever seen.”

We all knew what he meant, of course. She couldn’t dance. She was awkward. She was way uncool. And he summed up all that negativity with the single word “white.”

Think of the term “white bread,” which implies blandness or something lame. Then there is the phrase “white people problems,” which is often “tossed around smugly and reductively, as a way of summarizing the essence of a situation or a piece of art.”

The question, therefore, is whether calling something “white” is an insult. And if it is, when did this develop?

After all, for most of American history, white people called all the shots, and white culture was perceived as synonymous with American culture. But in today’s society, white people are no longer the unquestioned leaders of America. In 2013, they are just as likely to be the disparaged geeks.

Perhaps this is a consequence of our multicultural world, a recognition that white individuals are not the sole arbitrators of cultural relevancy. But because white people still have the most power (making up about three-quarters of the population), it is perceived as safe to mock them.

Naturally, some people take exception to this. And it is not just the usual conclave of right-wing commentators who subtly (or not subtly) insult anyone who doesn’t have European roots. No, there are those who believe it is unethical to use racial terms as shorthand for what is hip and what is not.

But even if one dismisses such concerns, and goes on putting down “white music” or “white movies,” it is worth noting that “the use of ‘white’ as a tag of shame has the inadvertent but real effect of reducing ‘non-white’ elements to mere ornamentation.” This means that anything not white (for example, Latino) becomes an empty signifier of coolness.

In such cases, Latinos, along with other ethnic minorities, become the exotic other. This is what people do when they go slumming in the barrio. They are avoiding “white” (i.e., safe and respectable) neighborhoods. Clearly, there are few acts more condescending than that.

And needless to say, it is hypocritical to disparage anyone’s race while demanding that one’s own heritage be respected.

This article was originally published in Being Latino.

Daniel Cubias is a writer based in Los Angeles. In addition to Being Latino, his work can be found in such publications as the Huffington Post, Change.org, Aqui magazine, and his website, the Hispanic Fanatic. In addition, he has been published in many literary journals and won the occasional writing contest. He is a Wisconsin native who still roots for his hometown Milwaukee Brewers. He is way too much into horror movies, and he is inexplicably still unable to tune his guitar properly.

[Image courtesy of gomestic.com]

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