the white lens | Abagond

http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/the-white-lens/

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the white lens

Fri 13 Nov 2009 by abagond (http://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/mira.jpg)The white lens is that through which white Americans see the world. It is like a pair of glasses nearly all of them wear. It keeps them from seeing the world as it is, allowing them to feel comfortable with their privileged position in it. It is something that Nezua the Unapologetic Mexican writes about at length. Nezua says American society is like a train passing through a land full of dead bodies. When white people, or anyone with a white lens, looks out the window they do not see the bodies just beautiful countryside. Those without a white lens see the dead bodies. You do not have to be white to wear a white lens: it comes as part of the brainwashing you get from school and television in America no matter what your colour. It makes you to look at the world in a way that suits white rule, not you: 1. It makes you see white as right and people of colour as no good. 2. It makes you seek personal success within a racist society as it stands. 3. It makes you give up parts of yourself, like your culture and history, without looking back. If you have ever looked at your face and thought your nose was too wide, your lips too big, your skin too dark or your hair no good, you were most likely looking at yourself through a white lens. Very few white people even notice the white lens they think they are seeing the world as it is and not in some twisted form. Most people of colour, on the other hand, notice that something is not quite right, though it may take them years to notice it and years more to undo its damaging effects. Some never notice the lens, like Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas and Michelle Malkin. The white lens accounts for:

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Why whites can be racist without even knowing it. Why whites do not see their own race, just that of others. Why whites think people of colour are oversensitive. Why Don Imus called the women basketball players at Rutgers nappy-headed hoes because that is how they look through the white lens. Why passing for white does not work for people of colour in the long run because they are not seeing or being their true selves, even if they seem successful. Nezua says he has nothing against whites just the white lens. That allows him to see whites as brainwashed innocents. I like how the white lens ties together much of what I have been writing about lately: the delusional whiteness of Barbara Bush, the poor reading skills of Roissy, the single story, the just world doctrine, how whites are not neutral like they think, etc. But I do not completely agree with Nezua: I think whites do see the dead bodies out of the corner of their eye. Because their benevolent cluelessness often seems to be an act. See also: The Unapologetic Mexican: The White Lens (http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2006/09 /the_white_lens.html) La Lente Blanca Entries (http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/la_lente_blanca/) his series on the white lens, some of it excellent, particularly his post about growing up half-Mexican in white suburbia (http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org/elgrito/2007/03 /the_white_lens_iv_the_white_idea.html) and Don Imus (http://www.theunapologeticmexican.org /elgrito/2007/04/your_standard_sucks_the_white_lens_vi.html). Because this idea strikes at one of the main themes of this blog, it is a portal into a good share of it: white gaze (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/white-gaze/) same idea but in a form that is too weak Some examples of the white lens in action: affecting white people: The Roissy Syndrome (../2009/11/11/the-roissy-syndrome/) White is not neutral (../2009/11/07/white-is-not-neutral/) the single story (../2009/10/30/the-single-story/) The Barbara Bush Award for Deluded Whiteness (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10 /28/the-barbara-bush-award-for-deluded-whiteness/) just world doctrine (../2009/10/28/2009/10/27/just-world-doctrine/) black people as monkeys (../2009/02/25/black-people-as-monkeys/) How to tell if a commenter is white (../2009/10/05/2009/03/25/how-to-tell-if-a-commenteris-white/) How to argue like a white racist (../2009/10/05/how-to-argue-like-a-white-racist/) affecting people of colour (internalized racism (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/allblacks-are-racist/)): colourism (../2008/08/23/colourism/) skin lightening (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/skin-lightening/) good hair (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/good-hair/) the doll experiment (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-clark-doll-experiment/)
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the white lens | Abagond

http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/the-white-lens/

acting white (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/acting-white/) What the white lens does not seem to account for: What this blog has taught me about white people (../2009/09/26/what-this-blog-has-taughtme-about-white-people/) Most white people are not benevolently clueless (../2009/10/17/are-most-white-peoplebenevolently-clueless/) white guilt (../2009/08/14/white-guilt/) growing up white (../2009/08/12/growing-up-white/) covering (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/covering/) white people (../2008/07/05/white-people/) general topics: white privilege (../2009/08/14/2008/06/05/2008/07/11/white-privilege/) Apple-pie America (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/apple-pie-america/) How white people think (http://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/how-white-people-think/) Posted in 2000s, America, racism, white people | 23 Comments

23 Responses
Gen on Sat 14 Nov 2009 at 21:55:03 Good post. They dont care to see the dead bodies because they dont have to.yet.

Truth B. Told on Sat 14 Nov 2009 at 22:49:21 Why passing for white or just acting white does not work for people of colour in the long run because they are not seeing or being their true selves, even if they seem successful. Sorry if I missed the post, but is there one where you describe the way people of color are supposed to act so we can be considered our true selves?

abagond on Sun 15 Nov 2009 at 00:18:44 Not sure if that comment was sarcastic, rhetorical or what, so I will simply take it at face value: No one can tell you how to act to be yourself. That is something only you can know. To take a simple example: people often judge us by the kind of music we listen to. If you listen to a particular kind of music not because you truly love it but just to fit in, to avoid being asked certain questions, then you are not being yourself.

Jamdown As usual, an excellent post.

on Sun 15 Nov 2009 at 01:37:42

One example of the White lens is claiming that Blacks are racist for voting for Obama, while completely ignoring that many Whites voted against Obama because he is Black (or half-Black)!! See this often when right wingers post letters on webzines.

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Wildflower on Sun 15 Nov 2009 at 01:59:17 As far as how people of color are supposed to act, Id say with self-acceptance. Many in my family see the world through the white lens and it translates to a view of self-hatred at worst, self-denial at best. How can you be healthy in mind and heart when you reject how the world sees and defines you, when you reject what you are? My cousin told me that she wouldnt see a black doctor because she feels they are inferior to white ones. I looked at her brown skin, the same color as my own and felt her statement was simply sad. She was saying she feels that she is inferior too.

abagond Good examples. Thanks.

on Sun 15 Nov 2009 at 03:30:49

Kat Excellent post, Aba

on Sun 15 Nov 2009 at 06:16:53

BLACKkittenROAR on Sun 15 Nov 2009 at 22:42:27 Great post, but Im too (like other commenters seem to be) am stuck on this whole notion of acting white. I would agree that trying to pass for white (which I do not believe you have to be a specific shade to attempt) is definitely dangerous, and a sign that one isnt truly comfortable in their skin, but acting white? Can one really act a certain ethnicity or a race? I mean saying someone is acting white, say for speaking a certain way or getting themselves educated (which usually seems to be the requirements for a Black person to be branded as such) is fairly ignorant in my opinion. No one race has a certain way of behaving pigeonholed. Just because I am Black doesnt mean I have to speak Ebonics, listen to hip-hop and act in stereotypically black behaviour modes. On the other hand I shouldnt do things just to simply appease whitey either. Ive seen far too many Black people act black that still in the end hate themselves. I worked with a girl who acted black by all accounts, yet she was still stuck on the fact she had to relax what she referred to as her nigger hair to get it to behave. I also went to a Black hair stylist who worked out of her house who proclaimed to hate white people. When I went to use her bathroom I was shocked to see a large bottle of skin lightening body wash on the ledge of her bathtub. As I looked around her apartment I realized that in every photo she had around her home of herself she was a different shade. Sure she was all f*** whitey but I believe that deep down this surface facade was just an act to hide the fact that she was resentful of not having been born white. IDK, maybe Im completely off but I really hate this worldview that dictates races act a specific way. I dont think it actually is possible to do. Now POC trying to pass is another story. Acting and passing are not one and the same IMO.

abagond on Mon 16 Nov 2009 at 00:06:30 Good point. I pulled acting white from the post because it does have that unfortunate sense of
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getting good grades, etc. That is harmful to no one. Americans, both black and white, try to put us into boxes based on how we look. If we try to fit ourselves into those boxes, we are betraying ourselves, we are limiting our humanity to the smallminded ideas of small-minded people. And, on top of that, we are setting a bad example for others our friends, our children, even strangers. We are feeding into a narrow, racist idea of what it means to be human. And that is just plain, dead wrong. You only live once and you should use that once to be yourself, the person God made you to be. God did not make us to live out racist stereotypes of any sort. But if you are a person of colour and view yourself through a white lens then you will think that if you look or act more like a white person life will be easier and better for you, like being able to get and hold a better-paying job. Those skin lightening ads that have been posted on this blog of late play nakedly on just that idea. But the thing is, that only works in the short run. Because it is based on self-hatred.

fromthetropics on Mon 16 Nov 2009 at 12:11:54 Ohhh. Is that what its called? The white lens? Is this a common term? Because I made up my own term about something similar. I call it, at least for now, split vision. Its what I call my ability (and Im guessing other POCs too) of being able to slip in and out of the white/POC lens. For example, Id be eating with a bunch of Asian friends in a restaurant in a Western country. One minute Id be sitting there and enjoying the company and the jokes were cracking. Im there. Im with the others. Basically, Im looking at things from an Asian lens. But the next minute I can slip out of it (I suppose sort of like an intellectual out of body experience), and look at our group from a white lens. When I do that, the fun is gone because I see Weird looking, loud, weird acting, rude Asians. And then Ill think, Oh, screw this, why should I care what they think? And slip out of the white lens and slip back into my Asian lens and start enjoying the moment again. Does anyone know what Im talking about? Sometimes I wish I dont know how to switch to the white lens because it spoils the fun. And sometimes I get embarrassed by my migrant parents who cant switch to the white lens, and act all Asian. Or maybe its not that they cant switch, maybe they just dont care what white ppl might think since they dont have internalized racism like I do since they didnt grow up in a white environment.

Arianna on Mon 16 Nov 2009 at 16:18:18 Of course they dont care it doesnt affect them. Due to white privileged they dont have to worry about or think about the things that colored folk do. Do not even try to question them about it or challenge them! They will argue you to the death as if you are wrong.

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abagond fromthetropics:

on Mon 16 Nov 2009 at 19:54:16

I got the term white lens from Nezua the Unapologetic Mexican. While he does make up his own words, a Google search shows that it is used even by scholars.

Mayhue on Mon 16 Nov 2009 at 20:51:37 Does anyone know what Im talking about? Sometimes I wish I dont know how to switch to the white lens because it spoils the fun. And sometimes I get embarrassed by my migrant parents who cant switch to the white lens, and act all Asian. Or maybe its not that they cant switch, maybe they just dont care what white ppl might think since they dont have internalized racism like I do since they didnt grow up in a white environment. There is another term that may somewhat explain what you are dealing with called Double Consciousness that was coined by WE Dubois, a Black scholar over 120 years ago, in the Soul of Black Folk. In this term, loosely it means of acknowledging with ones own self concept, ones own identity within the Black community and putting on a mask or switching to a White consciousness and being able to live and see within the White community. .the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at ones self through the eyes of others, of measuring ones soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. http://www.bartleby.com/114/1.html

BLACKkittenROAR on Mon 16 Nov 2009 at 21:16:41 To add to what Mayhue was getting at, double consciousness is a function that allows Black people to view themselves as humans, but also through a white lens as a separate entity known as Black. To white folks, other white people are just people (think of the terms used to refer to races of people living in the USCaucasians are referred to as Americans, while Blacks are usually referred to as African Americans, Asians as Asian Americans, why arent they all just Americans? Because the white lens is at work). Most of the time I dont think of myself as Black. Im just me, and that is defined by however I wish for it to be defined. When I enter into a setting with whites however, I become simply black. Its amusing though how sometimes when white people get to know me, this second entity vanishes, and I get to be an actual individual human being (thats another function of the white lensit allows whites to be individuals and POC to be grouped). I actually had a white co-worker refer to me as one of us, and not like them simply because I was adopted by white people. Often, amazingly enough when white people kind of drop the white lens (not completely) and see me as human if I refer to myself as dark skinned (something I am not ashamed of) they will counter with youre really not that dark. This I find to be the most amusing and telling. To them, Im not that dark because they are viewing me as a human, and not simply as a
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Black. I remember reading a comment on another blog about Phillip Craig Garrido (the guy who kidnapped a girl at age 11 and was found 18 years later) proclaiming that people like the kidnapper who do horrible acts should be painted brown as a warning to the population. And that is the perfect example of the white lens in action.

Aiyo @BLACKkittenRoar

on Tue 17 Nov 2009 at 10:18:05

I get the Youre not all THAT dark. from white people and very few black people I even got Why are you cussing yourself for? Like being called dark is a insult. Its not it is the truth I am a dark skinned black girl. And as for painted brown as a warning that is eight kinds of stupid. Someone of a darker hue is evil by default its just in their nature.

fromthetropics on Tue 17 Nov 2009 at 10:48:57 That reminds me (and here goes my rant) of when I was talking about racism with a white friend (the convo didnt go down well at all). My friend seemed to end up thinking I was insecure about my skin color (the rationale was that since I thought racism was widespread, it must be because Im totally insecure right?not!). The friend said, But you have beautiful skin. Look at my skin, its white and ugly. I had never been as infuriated as I was when they said that. It felt was so very horrendously patronizing. I said (almost shouting, but not quite), I KNOW that I have nice skin (color), I dont need YOU to tell me!! I felt infantilized, as though I needed their approval for the way my skin looks (and I wasnt even talking about skin). Like, I dont. End of rant. Thanks for the Dubois tip and the comments about double consciousness guys. Ive heard of him, but havent read him. I will now.

Aiyo @ fromthetropics

on Tue 17 Nov 2009 at 14:41:25

Wow that reminds me of the Abagonds Roissy Sydrome post of home some white people read want they want to read and I guess your friend heard what they wanted to hear Your friend was patronizing you and treating you like you are a child by making you feel better by making that comment(for some reason I hear the words are you happy now coming after that) OH and of course thinking that its just you since they do not experience what you are experiencing then it does not exist. You know I have never understood that way of thinking with some people I hae never experienced what its like to get bit by a shark but I assume it hurts.

alwaysright101 on Wed 25 Nov 2009 at 22:26:09 the white lens makes me think about how on cartoons they get white people to voice black characters sometimes (like in a couple of hanna-barbera cartoons and a couple of family guy related
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stuff) it just rubs me the wrong way that they couldnt find a black person out of millions of black people to play the voice of someone who is black! its like saying only whites can do itand because its animation one may never know it so its easy to get away with it.

Locanto on Tue 8 Dec 2009 at 10:50:12 omg! it is really sooo sad to realize that lots of people are just going through life with their white lenses on. It is all about a brainwash process Incredible, how the media also contributes on it! awesome post, Ill twitter it !

abagond on Wed 17 Mar 2010 at 00:14:54 212, 313, jojo, Ahab, Emerson, Thoreau, etc all seem to be sock puppets of BklynBryan.

Herneith Why am I not surprised?

on Wed 17 Mar 2010 at 00:24:01

Natasha W So Thoreau was the original person?

on Wed 17 Mar 2010 at 00:30:55

Avenue Q-ing It: Ms. Queenlys Response to I am racist (via on Fri 20 Aug 2010 at 18:56:54 Abagond) Ms. Queenlys Blog [...] the white lens, Abagond argues that there exists a dominant white world view that suits white rule [...]

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