Quotes About Whiteness

Once in the United States, buttressed by the nation's legacy from the days of slavery, many of these questionably white groups became whiter with time. In effect, the black-white dynamic in the United States enabled former European "races" to become white. Some did so by drawing a sharp distinction between themselves and African Americans.24

a torn-paper whiteness behind the sun that speaks of frost to come.

The first snow sifted down silently during the night. Ayla exclaimed with delight when she stepped out of her cave in the morning. A pristine whiteness softened the contours of the familiar landscape creating a magical dreamland of fantastic shapes and mythical plants. Bushes had top hats of soft snow, conifers were dressed in new gowns of white finery, and bare exposed limbs were clothed in shining coats that outlined each twig against the deep blue sky.

For now, I had to be hard and white. In the frosty days, in the winter, the ground is white, then the sun rises,, and the frosts melt...

There is a kind of white that is more than white, and this was that kind of white. There is a kind of white that repels everything that is inferior to it, and that is almost everything. This was that kind of white. There is a kind of white that is not created by bleach but that itself is bleach. This was that kind of white. This white was aggressively white.

There is a kind of white that is more than white, and this was that kind of white. There is a kind of white that repels everything that is inferior to it, and that is almost everything. This was that kind of white. There is a kind of white that is not created by bleach but that itself is bleach. This was that kind of white. This white was aggressively white. It did its work on everything around it, and nothing escaped.

It's not an accident they're all so white and clean, for they're clearly meant to represent the Calvinist triumph of capital and industry over the primal decay-action of the sea.

I have marked A thousand blushing apparitions To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat away those blushes; And in her eye there hath appeared a fire, To burn the errors that these Princes hold Against her Maiden truth.

A great palaver of events, unending factoids such as the croaking of frogs in the pond, mosquitoes swarming, a swarming of stars, a cloud enclosing me, obliterating me, drifting with me, the ceiling with the archipelago and the peninsulas, with dots and damp patches all the way to the boring whiteness of the window shade . .

La cama blanquecina nadando en la oscuridad. El cansancio arrastrándose por su cuerpo

Later that same day I ask a white friend about white people speaking among themselves about their racism. It doesn't happen, she tells me. Nonetheless, she believes, that's how whites would learn to build stamina regarding their collusion with structural racism.

If white people don't see their whiteness, how can they speak to it? Was the student white? Who wrote the scenario? Does diversity not include any training to see ourselves or is it simply about addressing black grievance?

As Rachel Gorman claims about current-day mad pride organizing, it is hard to decenter whiteness in mad organizing if people of color can't afford to take up the mad identity, because of a variety of reasons, including already living under surveillance by medico-judicial apparatuses, not having access to mental health care, and the seeming irrelevance of mad movements to the lived experience of racialized and colonized people.

We white folks cling to such an abiding sense of entitlement that when things go amiss, we cannot let go of this tortuously sunny, idiotically cheerful doppelganger of a world that we deserve in which life is swell.

We white folks cling to such an abiding sense of entitlement that when things go amiss, we cannot let go of this torturously sunny, idiotically cheerful doppelgänger of a world that we deserve in which life is swell.

I took one step onto the field and stopped. What was I doing? The pure whiteness, dazzling in the sun, was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Who was I to spoil it? Snow falls. Earth says: Here—a gift for you. And what do we do? We shovel it. Blow it. Scrape it. Plow it. Get it out of our way. We push it to our fringes. Is there anything uglier or sadder than a ten-day-old snow dump? It's not even snow anymore. It's slush.

When he actually comes, he brings her a book containing white paper, as if it were a sign of her salvation, and she reads a dedication--something about people who have lost hope but start to swim in the whiteness of these leaves and perhaps find a new beginning with their first pen stroke.

Whiteness is not only false and oppressive, it is nothing but false and oppressive.

Tenía, bajo el cabello muy oscuro, un rostro de suprema blancura, de ese blanco mate y raso que es patrimonio exclusivo de los cutis muy finos. Ojos azules, largos, perdiéndose hacia las sienes en el cerco de sus negras pestañas. Acaso un poco separados, lo que da, bajo una frente tersa, aire de mucha nobleza o de gran terquedad. Pero sus ojos, así, llenaban aquel semblante en flor con la luz de su belleza.

The seduction of whiteness and privilege is powerful. Whites can always return to a life of privilege.

Above all, he said, white is a feeling.

He rose and walked to the windows. The moon reflected the pristine whiteness blowing into shadowy silvery mounds beneath the stars. It spread out before him, all pure and flowing and sterling. There'd always been a gentle peace and welcome solitude on a wintry night in this house. A place of memories and innocent times; a place for new plans.

The moon. There's no other moon like one on a clear New Mexico night. It rises over the Sandias and soothes the miles and miles of barren desert with all the quiet whiteness of a first snow.

His stillness was commanding. I felt myself getting whiter by the second. What does it mean to become white? How does it feel to see Death in the flesh, come to gather you in? I was scared to the marrow. I was cold and hot, dry and wet, myself and someone else. The fist clenched in my chest. I went to the staircase and sat on the top step, looking into my hands. So much remained. Every word and thing a beadwork of bright creation.