Identity is, as you have so clearly pointed out, a complex and irreducible thing.
For sure - and I've said this before - it's one thing to be white(looking) and another to be black(looking), and the whiter you look, the less likely you are to experience the same kind of institutionalised problems that a black looking person will. But you've experienced hard-out prejudice and worse, *assumption* about your race with a term that incorporates a lot of privilege which, in reality, is not about who you are at all.
FWIW, I hate being called "anglo" anything too. My ancestors are almost all Irish and Scots, though there is probably an English person in there somewhere. I'm not Anglo Saxon and nor is my culture. (I will accept "Anglo-Celtic" to describe the roots of NZ Pakeha culture.)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-07-20 06:37 am (UTC)For sure - and I've said this before - it's one thing to be white(looking) and another to be black(looking), and the whiter you look, the less likely you are to experience the same kind of institutionalised problems that a black looking person will. But you've experienced hard-out prejudice and worse, *assumption* about your race with a term that incorporates a lot of privilege which, in reality, is not about who you are at all.
FWIW, I hate being called "anglo" anything too. My ancestors are almost all Irish and Scots, though there is probably an English person in there somewhere. I'm not Anglo Saxon and nor is my culture. (I will accept "Anglo-Celtic" to describe the roots of NZ Pakeha culture.)