THE INDEPENDENT: What does it mean to be white? An explosive new book by an American academic argues that whiteness isn't biological at all – in fact, it can be learned. Precious Williams* disagrees
It is tempting to tell ourselves that we're on the verge of an inclusive, multicultural new age.
An era where colour doesn't matter all that much, where race doesn't define us. After all, society is changing. Radically. The Conservative Party's first-ever black female MP, Helen Grant, has just been elected. And across the pond, there is a black man in the White House. Or is there?
A controversial new book, The History of White People, claims that Barack Obama is, to all intents and purposes, white. Not because he had a white mother but because of his educational background, his income, his power, his status. The book's author, the eminent black American historian Nell Irvin Painter, has written a fascinating, sprawling history of the concept of race, looking specifically at the idea of a white race and at why and how whites have dominated other, darker-skinned races throughout recent centuries. The conclusion of Painter's book – which has taken more than a decade to research and write – is explosive. Race, she argues, is a fluid social construct, entirely unsupported by scientific fact. Like beauty, it is merely skin-deep.
Technically, she has a point. The $3bn Human Genome Project revealed in 2003 that every human being has a unique DNA sequence which differs from that of any fellow human being by just 0.1 per cent, regardless of ethnic origin. Thus, all humans beings are 99.9 per cent the same and, from a scientific viewpoint, there is no such thing as racial difference. >>> | Monday, May 17, 2010
*Precious Williams's memoir, 'Precious', is published by Bloomsbury on 2 August. 'The History of White People' by Nell Irvin Painter is published in hardback by Norton (£19.99). To order a copy for the special price of £17.99 (free P&P), call Independent Books Direct on 08430 600 030, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk
