Saturday, June 18, 2011

White supremacy and violence

Micah sent me this (I cite with his permission):  "I just wanted to note my agreement with Nir Rosen's point on the how the Greeks are currently being described in Europe.  I live in Germany and since the onset of the crisis in Greece the coverage in the media has employed a number of racist tropes,  both with regards to their (the Greeks') violence and their fiscal imprudence (as it is seen) -- violent, unruly, lazy, southern etc.  When white supremacy is at play in Europe (and also to an extent in America), it is not just those of the southern continents who are treated as others, but quite often those from eastern and southern Europe as well.  It should be noted that when they started introducing racial classification at Ellis Island, Italians, Irish, Slavs and many other groups were not classified as 'white.'  This old northern-protestant dimension to the construction of 'Whiteness' is more often encountered than one might think.  I have a friend who is Serbian, and who, in a discussion with the father of his wife (a German) about the wars in the Balkans was told, 'yes, but you guys (ie Balkans) are always quick to reach for the knives.'"