Tonto's Razor

MAD magazine, a childhood favorite of mine. (B still has a subscription). The setup: The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by a huge tribe of attacking Indians. The Rangers says, "I think we're in trouble." Tonto's comeback, "Whadda ya mean 'we', White man?"

Race is genetic, to be sure. And has much to do with skin color and facial structure. But that's not all it is. It's also historical and political, cultural, contextual. Just ask the Lone Ranger. As I wondered in my previous post, even if it is socially constructed --which it partially is--, what part of human life and experience is not socially constructed?

So: Who's White?

Whereas it was once the vogue to try to be included in that exclusive apex group, now that Whites have turned into The Most Foolish People On The Planet, the excluding is nowadays often a self-exclusion.

I'll spare you the trouble of thinking this through and explain to you that Whites are Caucasian humans who can't deny that they are White. Now that Whiteness has become a stigma, I count you as White if no one would believe you if you denied it. You can call my approach Tonto's Razor.

Genetically, if you're a SubSaharan African or a Melanesian or an Australian aboriginal or a Dravidian, you're definitely not White. Ask Obama. You might get yelled at by your peers for acting White if you speak standard English or get good grades in school, but the accusation only proves the point that you're Negroid/ish. If you're of the Mongoloid folks of Asia and the Pacific Islands, again, not White. No question. No one would accuse you of it. Same thing for the Northeast Asian diaspora known as the aboriginals of the New World. Sioux or Aztec, you're not White.

So that leaves the Caucasoids, the non Negroid and the non Mongoloid peoples. I think it's pretty clear here, if you combine genetics and cultural history and politics. The only people who cannot deny their heinous Whiteness are the peoples of European Christendom.

If your haplogroup derives from Europe, west of the Urals to the Atlantic, north of the Mediterranean, then your ancestors were very likely at one time Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. European + Christian = White. I would include Georgians and Armenians here, for genetic and cultural/historical reasons, even if their countries lie, according to some, in Asia. In some places the Europe/Asia geographical boundary is fuzzy.

Christian Caucasians from Europe = Whites

The other Caucasian peoples, the non-European ones --whom I call the Bronzes, even if they're pale Chechens-- stem from western Asia, Siberia or north Africa (eg, Berbers). They are definitely not Negroid and not Mongoloid. But these Caucasians can all credibly deny being White because they were not part of EuroChristendom and are mostly Muslim or Hindu: Arabs, the Turkic peoples of Turkey and the Stans, the Persians and Afghans, the Aryan Indians and Pakistanis, etc. (And Gypsies. Even though they've lived in Europe for over 1000 years, genetics has shown the "Roma" to be Indian untouchables.)

Only one group, to my knowledge, is sorta on the fence about this. The iffy group, for me, is Ashkenazi Jewish (and perhaps/probably the Sephardi). As I said once before, in a race riot, Harry Birnbaum would be in just as much trouble as Ex Cathedra. We look no more different --being both Caucasian-- than I do from a southern Italian. But in addition to the Jewish haplogroup and homeland being in western Asia, Jews have always seen themselves as both special (banning intermarriage with goyim) and as outsiders in Europe. And often very much treated as such. Yet if Israel isn't a Western country, what is it? And since their emancipation, Jewish participation in Euro culture has been massive. So here it's not so clear. Jews: White, or Bronze? Maybe a rabbi could figure it out.

2015 Update. I have since decided that while Ashkenazi Jews function as Whites, (and can try to distance themselves from that when its suits their interests) their homeland is outside Europe, in West Asia, and so they belong to the AfroAsian Caucasian group, the Bronzes. When, in the current state of things in Europe, with Muslim violence against them rising, they ask, "Is it time to go home?", they give the thing away. Europe is not home. As their own Passover prayer says: Next year, in Jerusalem!

White was once the club to belong to. Those who could, passed. Now, as Tonto reminded us, it's the Pack of Evil Bad Guys. The whole world continues to imitate us even as they resent us. Beyonce may dye her hair blond, (even lighten her skin) but you better not call dat sistah White.