Whiteness Was Created In a Lab
05/14/21 • 14m
“Study, study, study! And when you have studied well and would ask me what to study next, I would reply; study yourselves!”
—Noble Drew Ali
In 2000 I was twenty two years old, and was eager (like super eager) to level-up my rudimentary interpretations of both leftism and spirituality. Friends of mine who were involved in antiracism work would debrief me on their experiences and what they were learning. I started reading more radical texts (Race Traitor: Journal of the New Abolitionism; Pacifism as Pathology; Guerrilla Warfare); lots of Situationist writings and polemics from groups like Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker and Black Mask. I began volunteering at an anarchist bookstore, and explored the works of black revolutionaries and analyses of contemporary social justice movements. I also started attending protests, at the time against the falsified US-led war on the Iraqi people. Things felt busy, despite me trying to live off a meager savings, and enrolling in a medical experiment to supplement what didn’t add up financially.
All the while I maintained a heavy interest in black liberationist spirituality, and it was around this time that I started seriously exploring movements like Moorish Science, the Five Percent Nation / Nation of Gods and Earths, MOVE, the Nation of Islam, Rastafarianism (Nyabinghi, Bobo Ashanti, 12 Tribes, et al), the Black Hebrews (who I could chat with—more so listen to—but was not a fan of), and the various groups who traced their roots to Marcus Garvey. Not all of these groups were spiritual in nature (NGE is often considered more social than spiritual), but to the extent that they had a spiritual element, they wove that spirituality through their social analysis with supreme fluidity. This wasn’t “social justice spirituality,” coating yoga workshops in leftist buzzwords. These movements didn’t bring the world up to God. They brought God down to the world.
The movements and organizations that maintained an explicitly spiritual stance took the intersection of spirituality and black emancipation to places I hadn’t seen before. Each had a unique, comprehensive outlook and program for advancement, which was woven throughout their religion. On the whole, these black-centric movements were overt affronts to white supremacy, and I soaked up as much as I could from whoever would let me hang around. I always tried to do so with respect, keeping to the sidelines unless invited across the threshold, which often occurred, and in those cherished encounters learned what I could about their organizations and teachings. In doing so, I was forced to reconcile my own place in the world, my relationship to power, and my whiteness. But, most of all I came to understand something about myself as both a human and white person.
White Antiracism
Around this time (late 90s early 00s) antiracism “work” was starting to show up on my radar. Those who were into AR presented it as a level-up from that half in / half out place of being simply “against racism.” It was about going from ally to accomplice; a sort of “walk the talk” take on white supremacy and anti-imperialism. On paper antiracism work should have been 100% my bag, especially at that time in my life. But, for a number of reasons I just couldn’t vibe with that scene. My experiences on the periphery of and talking with people involved in black-centric socio-spiritual groups made the mostly white antiracism scene feel small, unnecessarily petty, and unrelatable. White antiracism lacked the elements (earth, water, etc). It felt disconnected from black human beings, and seemed to be concerned more with refining their methods of policing one another, than with growth. From my limited vantage point, the scene seemed acidic, and, as a result, super lame.
My biggest gripe with white antiracism then (and to some degree now) had to do with what seemed to be a general lack of self awareness. Sure, advocates would discuss whiteness and its dismantling at length, but they had nothing to offer in place of the vacuum. It was an analysis and praxis that couldn’t answer the obvious next question, “After white, what?” Neither the zines I read, nor the handful of people I spoke to at shows seemed to want to speak about who a white person was after whiteness was abolished. Compared to the black movements I was learning about, white antiracism felt incomplete, afraid to engage the self. I attributed the very visible interpersonal beefs within the scene to be a symptom of this incompleteness.
We still see some of this acidity today. And, again, I attribute part of it to a lack of self knowledge. We want to abolish whiteness (yup, 100%), but because so many white antiracists think of themselves (and, shockingly, others as well) only in terms of their relationship to white supremacy, only in terms of whiteness, their abolition ends up being an abolishment of themselves. White antiracism has yet to examine how white supremacy has affected the minds of so-called white people, separated them from themselves. This gap has left its advocates wandering around waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s not hard to see why so many white antiracists are miserable to be around or engage with online. Because, well, duh. They have no sense of self beyond their whiteness. They have no endgame. White antiracists often don’t know who they are, and defensive at the suggestion that they even could!
For me, back in the early 00s, white antiracism was just another form of a “forever moving goal posts” (Becka’s term). Nihilism politics. Personally, I found antiracism to be way more interesting (and relevant) when I learned about it from black folk who didn’t even use the term. Learning about the intersection of white supremacy, “food deserts,” and property taxes from Rastas talking about which stores stocked breadfruit, avocado, and mango had power. Earth power. It was as radical as the ital diet they were committed to maintaining. When it came to “decolonization,” I found nothing of use in listening to the performative anger of white kids, when I could walk to any number of corners and listen to a crew of Black Hebrews, who were moooooore than happy to talk about the roots of white oppression from the perspective of the biblical figures Esau and Jacob. Hell, I learned more about taxes, and about the illegality of taxing black people in America on the Broad Street subway line in Philly from a red-robed, fez-wearing, staff toting Moor sitting next to me, than I ever did from some dumpster diving freegan with AA batteries for plugs. You think after learning from an Moorish elder on the subway about the history of US treatise I’m gonna go sit around and get berated by some white kid going on about how it’s racist to be vegan? Fuckouttahere.
Unlike the antiracism scene, the black groups I was learning from and reading about had an endgame, and the endgame for a white person like me was knowledge. But, not just any knowledge. Knowledge of self—the exact knowledge I was looking for. And, I had no idea at the time that unpacking whiteness was going to be so integral to process of becoming self-aware.
Becoming Aware
![Image: © Big Head Scientist]()
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
―Marcus Garvey
Many white social justice scenes correctly see whiteness as a social construct that must be demolished or, to use the jargon of the day, dismantled. But, because they have no philosophy, theology, or analysis regarding what remains for a light-skinned person post-demolition, forgetting that people are much more willing to jump off a bridge if they have a sense of how deep the water is below, their approach to antiracism is forever fraught with defensiveness, anxiety, and one-upmanship. This isn’t surprising. The persistence of an ever-present existential crisis would make anyone behave in ways less than pleasant.
Back in the early 2000s one of the many things I appreciated about black empowerment movements was their proactive approach to existential crises achieved, in part, through both the acquisition of knowledge and the sharing of said knowledge to one another, as well as through a discovery of self-knowledge. For example, when I witnessed Rastas reasoning on the Bible, it wasn’t solely for theological concerns. It was a method of achieving self-knowledge. The Bible was a way toward answering the question, “Who am I?” And, the answer manifested in group discussion and debate.
In contrast, white activists seemed to be self-knowledge-phobic, forever cutting each other down (the concept of “infinite critique” was, and remains, an actual thing). To claim in a leftist circle that you possessed knowledge, let alone self-knowledge, was considered arrogance, or, in a manipulative turn of logic, “colonialist.” It was sad, self-defeatist, and weird.
Unfortunately, the vacuum left by the absence of self-knowledge is quickly filled by self-hatred, and it was this self-hatred that I felt was often on display. While I’m not one to strongly profess that you have to work on yourself before you can work with others, I will say that the old dictum which states, “you have to love yourself before you can love others” does hold true. And, it’s virtually impossible (at least for non-mystics) to love what you don’t know. In the absence of self-knowledge white activists had become filled with so much self-hate that they came to distrust anyone who wasn’t filled with the same. If you didn’t hate yourself, then obviously you were doing it wrong.
Interestingly, I never encountered this morbidity in black spaces. Not even when engaging in or listening to talks about whiteness. In fact, showing even the slightest bit of self-deprecation was met with side glances and chastisements. I remember being in the park with a Haitian Rasta I used to try and visit once a week every summer, and being corrected by him for speaking about myself in negative terms. I must’ve said something about how lame it was being white, to which he responded, “Oh, is that what you are?!” (paraphrasing from memory). It was embarrassing. Truth be told, in hangouts like these I never encountered black people who wanted me to hate myself. Instead, I was to change myself. I heard that a lot. Change my way of thinking. Change my relationship to God. Change my relationship to myself. If I had internalized the toxicity of white activist circles, which thankfully I hadn’t, that would mean engaging with something I hated. But, how could I change what I was revolted by? How would I even get near it? So, my quest quickly became about acquiring knowledge. Knowledge of self. I wanted to change, but first I had to figure out from what to what.
The Whiteness Graft
Whiteness is a relationship to power, a membership card giving certain groups of people access to a litany of social privileges. Whiteness is a gold-star status governing an arbitrary, but very much intentional, social hierarchy, that has been grafted onto an ever-diversifying, but never totally inclusive.
I call whiteness an “ever-diversifying” status, because, when threatened, white supremacy opens its doors to people who previously were locked out (think: Italians, Irish, Jews, some South American cultures, et al). Modern white supremacy isn’t as classically “white,” blonde, blue-eyed, and WASP-y as people (even antiracists) think. White supremacy embraced multiculturalism a long time ago.
I say that whiteness is “grafted,” because there is nothing ethnic, “in the blood,” “natural,” biological, or inherent about whiteness. There are no “white genes.” It’s entirely made up.
In fact, no one is born white. Whiteness is developed through socialization. People are born, given a racial demarcation at birth (in the US usually through the mother’s listed racial identity), and are then socialized by families, schooling, and communities to identify with this racial demarcation. If a person is marked as white, then it becomes an identity that must be nurtured if it’s to be integrated into one’s self. A proclaimed white person must perform allegiance to whiteness throughout their early years, if they intend to merge with the concept of whiteness to the point where it becomes a seamless, uncontested identity. In other words, early on the graft of whiteness takes hold through consistent effort. And, as products of white supremacist culture—fish in a fishbowl, as it were—young people participate in these efforts without even realizing it.
The most crucial time during which whiteness is grafted takes place during childhood. After observing other white people, young people replicate their behaviors and demeanor, to the point where their minds transform from open, beginner’s minds,[1] into entitled “white” minds. Once the transformation to white mind has been accomplished, the neurological connections that make up the fabric of white mind are reinforced day after day, year after year through subtle and overt semiotics and cultural narratives. Positive reinforcement (often unnoticeable to the untrained eye) keeps the youth on the right track. At the same time, nonchalant put-downs of non-whites by elders (“Oh, you don’t wanna end up like them”) instill just enough fear to keep the young person from straying too far. Once this grafting has taken hold, very little is needed to reinforce the bond—a dash goes a long way—with news, film, social media, and television doing most of the heavy lifting.
At this point the grafting of whiteness onto the psyche of the person works as if on autopilot. Whiteness informs the worldview of the person, who at the same time reinforces their whiteness through behaviors, speech, and choices that conform to white coding.
Yakub, and the Invention of the White Race
The idea that whiteness is a graft is not a new concept. My first encounter with this idea came through reading about and talking with members of the Nation of Islam whom I would meet on the street selling copies of their newspaper, The Final Call. The concept of grafting came to me through an NOI creation myth, which tells the story of how the white race was born. In the story, a mad scientist named “Yakub” is said to have invented the white race six thousand years ago by “bleaching” or “grafting” the original black people through selective breeding. This new race would then, through attraction, tricks, and lies “rule the original black man.” [2] Pretty straight forward.
Nevertheless, in stating that white people were created in a laboratory, this creation myth is often shocking, if not entirely off-putting to white people when they encounter it. It was a story that I vehemently rejected when I first heard it, even as I was coming into awareness of my own whiteness. Instead, I chose to align ideologically with black empowerment movements whose understanding of white people felt more “nuanced,” or at least lacked a white origin story that involved an effing mad scientist. Over the years, whenever the story of Yakub would come up, I’d dismiss it as more “bad theology,” more psychologically abusive religion. Thinking of myself as the product of a mad scientist’s evil experiments was simply not an option. What possible good could come from viewing my origins as inherently trickstery? For years it was a non-starter, until a lightbulb turned on, and I found myself asking a seemingly simple question: “Who was this ‘me’ that was so insulted by this story?”
The self is the curated representation of who we think we are and who we want others to think we are projected into the world. Because self is so closely related to identity, and because the world of US identity is wrapped up in complex relationships to white power, knowledge of self for a white person hinges on understanding one’s relationship to whiteness. For years, without realizing it, my “self,” my projected identity, was largely that of an unexamined white person. I may have projected a myriad of other identities (male, spiritual, clever, progressive, leftist, yogi [though I don’t use this term for myself], etc), but without any knowledge of self, all of these identities were tethered to whiteness. Even though I wasn’t born white, I had been taught to be white, socialized to be white, reinforced at every turn to be and think white. Even my Italianness (along with my Irish and Germanness) became an expression, not of cultural diversity, but of my allegiance to whiteness, as those cultures had long ago been recouped by white supremacy.
So, what could the Nation of Islam, a predominantly black-centric organization teach me, a white kid, through a handful of encounters? For starters, it turns out the story of Yakub is a pretty brilliant retelling of the origin of whiteness: We now know (or have always known, and simply [willfully?] forgot) that the concept of the white race was indeed an invention created by would-be oppressors who wished to rule over people of color. Whoever came up with that idea was certainly trickstery. Regardless of whether or not you believe the story of Yakub in a literal sense, it’s clear that whiteness is a fabrication, which, in order to survive, needs to be continually grafted onto young people, and reinforced as they get older. Mad scientist or no mad scientist, whiteness is madness. 🌴
Bob is the author of Sitting with Spirits: Exploring the Unseen World In the Margins of Christianity; The House of I Am Mirrors: And Other Poems; Acupressure For Beginners; and The Power of Stretching. You can stay up to date on his doings and goings by signing up for his weekly email “The High Pony: Really Good Insights for Living an Inspired Life.” bobdoto.computer for everything else.