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Book Review: Haoles in Hawaii

If you’re interested in Hawai’i or just interested in critical race studies, you ought not miss Haoles in Hawai’i. I found it to be a fast, accessible read, mercifully short and to the point, unapologetic without being polemical and one-sided, and highly educational.

Literally translated “haoles” are foreigners, but in contemporary Hawai’i, “haoles” include all white people, including those born in the islands. Living as they do in a state of racial limbo, at once the power elite by race in the U.S. (and Hawai’i is most definitely even if reluctantly part of the U.S.) and as both a racial … Read more “Book Review: Haoles in Hawaii”

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Some Of My Best Friends Are…

FYI, that’s not a picture of my family. It’s a picture that I cut and pasted off the site Stuff White People Like that seemed appropriate given the following bit of news.

A recent Reuter‘s report indicates that about 40% of whites and 25% of non-whites don’t have friends of other races. That’s a lot of people, but it also means that 60% of whites and 75% of non-whites do have friends of other races. I would have guessed that more than 40% of whites lived totally segregated lives so I actually thought this story was a mixture of … Read more “Some Of My Best Friends Are…”

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Why Whites Should Fear Demographic Change

Yesterday a New York Times article ran under the headline Census Benchmark for White Americans: More Deaths Than Births. I’m guessing that story read something like Tornado Strikes Minutemen Border Patrol Headquarters: Millions in Guns and Ammunition Lost among America’s growing ranks of white nationalists.

But, before further panic ensues, the article also made it clear that demographic change is not exactly right around the corner, saying,

The disparity [between white births and deaths] was tiny — only about 12,000 — and was more than made up by a gain of 188,000 as a result of immigration from abroad. … Read more “Why Whites Should Fear Demographic Change”

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Afraid of the Dark

Reports of rapid demographic change in favor of people of color in the U.S. seem to have caused a reaction among many whites bordering on panic. Explosive increases in participation in white nationalist groups, the proliferation of vigilante border patrols, and the return of overt racism in mainstream politics all smell like fear to me. This reaction got me to thinking, why? Why are they so afraid of the possibility of becoming a minority?

Here’s my take. But first, a reality check. White fears are of becoming a minority are over-blown. As I’ve written elsewhere in this blog, whiteness has … Read more “Afraid of the Dark”