If People Like Mr. Dalton Did Not Embrace Whiteness Anonymous College

James Baldwin’s “On Being ‘White’ and Other Lies” provides a radical interpretation of the term “white” as a completely voluntary identity, formed solely because of the need to suppress Blackness when our nation first gained its footing. Written in 1984, the essay backtracks through history to the beginning of the segregation and degradation of Black people. Baldwin theorizes that whiteness was a role that every White-identifying person had to sacrifice themselves to some degree to assume. The existence of race only came about to subjugate Black people and band together white people, who, in reality, all came from separate groups themselves. But with the move to America, which many Europeans made because they faced discrimination in their own home countries, came an opportunity to be the dominant force in society.

Earning whiteness entailed disrespecting the Earth, enslaving people, stealing land from Native Americans, and, most relevant to our studies, suppressing and denying the humanity of people they labeled as “black.” Undeniably, white identity has come with privilege and protection from pain, but here’s the kicker: in the end, they only gave up their own power and control in adopting whiteness. According to Baldwin, the...