FWIW, the Moby Dick example is less stupid than you paint it, given the recurrence of whiteness as an attribute of things special or good in western culture—an idea that pre-dates the invention of race. I think a case could be made out that (1) the causality runs from whiteness as a special or magical attribute, to its selection as a pertinent physical feature when racism was being invented (considering that there were a number of parallel candidates, like phrenology, that didn’t do so well memetically), and (2) in a world that now has racism, the ongoing presence of valuing white things as special has been both consciously used to reinforce it (cf the KKK’s name and its connotations) and unconsciously reinforces it by association,
FWIW, the Moby Dick example is less stupid than you paint it, given the recurrence of whiteness as an attribute of things special or good in western culture—an idea that pre-dates the invention of race.
I can’t resist. I think you should read Moby Dick. Whiteness in that novel is not used as any kind of symbol for good:
This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.
If you want to talk about racism and Moby Dick, talk about Queequeg!
Not that white animals aren’t often associated with good things, but this is not unique in western culture:
So in spring, when appears the constellation Visakha, the Bodhisatwa, under the appearance of a young white elephant of six defenses, with a head the color of cochineal, with tusks shining like gold, perfect in his organs and limbs, entered the right side of his mother, and she, by means of a dream, was conscious of the fact.
FWIW, the Moby Dick example is less stupid than you paint it, given the recurrence of whiteness as an attribute of things special or good in western culture—an idea that pre-dates the invention of race. I think a case could be made out that (1) the causality runs from whiteness as a special or magical attribute, to its selection as a pertinent physical feature when racism was being invented (considering that there were a number of parallel candidates, like phrenology, that didn’t do so well memetically), and (2) in a world that now has racism, the ongoing presence of valuing white things as special has been both consciously used to reinforce it (cf the KKK’s name and its connotations) and unconsciously reinforces it by association,
I can’t resist. I think you should read Moby Dick. Whiteness in that novel is not used as any kind of symbol for good:
If you want to talk about racism and Moby Dick, talk about Queequeg!
Not that white animals aren’t often associated with good things, but this is not unique in western culture: