Whitewashed

America's Invisible Middle Eastern Minority

John Tehranian

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780814783276
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Discrimination Law
• Index: Law

Middle Easterners: Sometimes White, Sometimes Not - an article by John Tehranian

The Middle Eastern question lies at the heart of the most pressing issues of our time: the war in Iraq and on terrorism, the growing tension between preservation of our national security and protection of our civil rights, and the debate over immigration, assimilation, and our national identity. Yet paradoxically, little attention is focused on our domestic Middle Eastern population and its place in American society. Unlike many other racial minorities in our country, Middle Eastern Americans have faced rising, rather than diminishing, degrees of discrimination over time; a fact highlighted by recent targeted immigration policies, racial profiling, a war on terrorism with a decided racialist bent, and growing rates of job discrimination and hate crime. Oddly enough, however, Middle Eastern Americans are not even considered a minority in official government data. Instead, they are deemed white by law.

In Whitewashed, John Tehranian combines his own personal experiences as an Iranian American with an expert's analysis of current events, legal trends, and critical theory to analyze this bizarre Catch-22 of Middle Eastern racial classification. He explains how American constructions of Middle Eastern racial identity have changed over the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the shift in perceptions of the Middle Easterner from friendly foreigner to enemy alien, a trend accelerated by the tragic events of 9/11. Focusing on the contemporary immigration debate, the war on terrorism, media portrayals of Middle Easterners, and the processes of creating racial stereotypes, Tehranian argues that, despite its many successes, the modern civil rights movement has not done enough to protect the liberties of Middle Eastern Americans.

By following how concepts of whiteness have transformed over time, Whitewashed forces readers to rethink and question some of their most deeply held assumptions about race in American society.

1

Constructing Caucasians

A Brief History of Whiteness

Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal pre-eminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephant” above all their other magniloquent descriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian heir to the overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolisings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things—the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire-worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the mid-winter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tithings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick¹

The Wages of Whiteness: Why Whiteness Matters

The antinomy of whiteness has haunted our nation since its founding. For much of American history, the concept of whiteness has embodied an ostensibly august and pure tradition while simultaneously enforcing a regime of fear and oppression. Herman Melville’s 459-word sentence from Moby-Dick unmasks the color white in all its contradictory honor and terror. Captain Ahab’s mad search for the great white whale matches the American Republic’s fruitless search for a concept of race around which it could organize itself.² Even today, the concept and boundaries of race remain vital to understanding our society. To almost all Americans, the word white has transcended its chromatic meaning, instead weaving itself into the fabric of social, political, and economic life through connotations of race. Yet despite the importance of racial definitions to individual identities and social structures, whiteness has remained an elusive, abstract, and even absurd concept with immense power.

Throughout American history, racial classifications have wielded exceptional influence. Until 1952, federal law provided naturalization rights only to individuals who were white or black, but nothing “in-between.” The American legal system was forced to confront the task of defining what or who constituted the white race for the purposes of naturalization when, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a wave of new immigration from non-Anglo-Saxon countries arrived on our shores. Litigation over the concept of whiteness resulted, yielding life-altering consequences. While the trials often grew senseless, with judges delving into the depths of antiquity, reconstructing history, and spouting rigid ideologies in order to justify their rulings, the reification of whiteness had a profound impact on shaping the immigrant experience in the United States.

Specifically, the naturalization trials transformed whiteness into a material concept imbued with rights and privileges. Citizenship, of course, meant the franchise; whiteness therefore had important ramifications for the exercise of fundamental political rights. Only at the turn of the century did the inextricable nexus between citizenship and voting rights come into being. Although most of us conflate the term citizen with voter, the two concepts are not necessarily synonymous.³ The Constitution itself does not prevent the enfranchisement of noncitizens in any election, be it federal, state, or local. Contrary to the dominant practice today, during the nation’s infancy many states routinely granted noncitizens the right to vote. As late as the nineteenth century, twenty-two states and territories extended the franchise to noncitizens.⁴ With the outpouring of xenophobic fervor at the turn of the century and jingoistic sentiments during World War I, however, alien voting rights quickly disappeared.

The changing composition of the immigration pool, from northern and western Europeans to southern and eastern Europeans, precipitated a crisis of whiteness that challenged our national identity. Responding to increased anti-immigrant sentiments, Congress instituted a series of racially grounded quotas meant to curtail the flow into the Republic of these groups with dubious whiteness.⁵ Not to be outdone, state legislatures responded by revoking the right of these aliens to vote. Whiteness begat naturalization. And naturalization begat voting rights. Thus, whiteness became a virtual prerequisite for the franchise. In 1926, Arkansas became the final state to abandon alien suffrage.⁶ Today, only a handful of local-ities—such as Takoma Park, Maryland, and Cambridge, Massachusetts—still grant noncitizens the franchise.⁷

At the same time, whiteness affected social and economic rights. As Cheryl Harris argues, “in the early years of the country, it was not the concept of race alone that operated to oppress Blacks and Indians; rather, it was the interaction between conceptions of race and property that played a critical role in establishing and maintaining racial and economic subordination.”⁸ Similarly, for immigrants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the critical interaction between racial classifications (through the whiteness requirement for naturalization) and property played an instrumental part in the creation of socioeconomic hierarchies. In California, whiteness determined the limitations imposed on an immigrant’s participation in the economy. The Alien Land Law,⁹ passed in 1920 and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court,¹⁰ prevented many noncitizens from owning property in the state. Furthermore, other regulations restrained nonnaturalized immigrants from exercising certain economic rights such as obtaining fishing¹¹ or law¹² licenses. All told, the social, political, and economic rights of new immigrants were intricately tied to racial definitions. Specifically, notions of whiteness affected who would be treated as property, who could own property, and who would wield the social standing and power that is inextricably linked to property.

At first blush, a seemingly vestigial discussion about the relationship between whiteness and the exercise of rights may seem to lack contemporary relevance. To be sure, our reformed immigration laws no longer draw facial distinctions based on race, and the past half century has witnessed the end of many pernicious race-based practices, including segregation. Even in our more “enlightened” era, however, the concept of whiteness, and even relative whiteness, continues to carry tremendous weight, despite the rhetoric of race blindness that permeates public discourse.

To illustrate this point, I am reminded of several mock election spots from an episode of Saturday Night Live during the 1988 presidential race between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. In one scene, a map featuring Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East appears on the screen. At the top left corner, above the northern European countries, the heads of several presidents hover. The announcer—the omniscient voice of authority—informs us, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt was of white northern European heritage. Thomas Jefferson was of white northern European heritage. John F. Kennedy was of white northern European heritage. George Herbert Walker Bush is of white northern European heritage.”¹³ Then, with more than a hint of disdain, the announcer asks, “But Michael Dukakis?”¹⁴ Dukakis’s head then materializes just above the Mediterranean Sea. “Bush,” concludes the spot, “he’s whiter.”¹⁵ A second spot on the broadcast put another twist on the same theme by presenting a police lineup featuring various presidents: “John F. Kennedy was six-foot-one. Abraham Lincoln was six-foot-five. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was six-foot-one. George Bush is six-foot-two.”¹⁶ Then, after a pregnant pause, the announcer remarks in horror, “But Michael Dukakis is five-foot-five-and-a-half.”¹⁷ The conclusion is inevitable: “Bush. He’s taller.”¹⁸

With their wicked sarcasm, the fake advertisements highlighted a latent motif that was, in fact, embedded throughout the election campaign: our notion of what the commander in chief should look like and the racial subtext underlying that notion. Indeed, two pivotal moments—both imbued with the specter of racial politics—cost Dukakis the election.¹⁹ Commentators have focused extensively on the racial dimensions of the first moment—the infamous Willie Horton attack advertisement. Under a program supported by Dukakis while he served as Massachusetts governor, Horton, a convicted African American serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for murder, enjoyed a weekend furlough during which he committed armed robbery and raped a woman. The advertisement, featuring Horton’s dark visage, prominent Afro, and unkempt beard, seized on Horton’s menacing image—described by the advertise-ment’s producer as “every suburban mother’s greatest fear”²⁰—to dramatically turn the electoral tide.

The second pivotal moment was more subtle in its racial undertones, but no less important. During a visit to the General Dynamics plant in Michigan, Dukakis took part in a photo opportunity to bolster his image on national security issues. The resulting image, which featured Dukakis atop an M1 Abrams tank donning a military helmet, resulted in an un-mitigated public relations disaster and appeared to cement concerns about the fitness of Dukakis (who, ironically, was a U.S. Army veteran) to serve as the commander in chief. In many ways, the photographs were no less opportunistic or ridiculous than any other piece of contrived election propaganda commonly disseminated in the age of mass media. Nevertheless, something about Dukakis’s image on the tank resonated with attacks on his ability to serve as our country’s military leader. One cannot help but wonder whether the concerns ultimately had root in the presence of a diminutive, pileous, and swarthy Mediterranean atop a military vehicle, instead of our accepted Anglo-Saxon image of leadership and might. In the end, the campaign raised serious questions about Dukakis’s Americanness, patriotism (exacerbated by his Greek roots and his gubernatorial veto of a bill mandating the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools), toughness, and capacity to adequately project our self-image to the world. And these concerns ultimately translated into a landslide victory for the elder Bush.²¹

Besides these anecdotal tales, recent empirical evidence supports the profound and continuing salience of whiteness in our society. Quite simply, despite Panglossian assertions of its unimportance, color still matters and plays an ongoing and critical role in the ability of individuals to succeed in the United States. In a groundbreaking study of the relationship between pigmentation and socioeconomic achievement among legal immigrants to the United States, Joni Hersch, a law and economics professor at Vanderbilt University, found that the average “light”-skinned immigrant outearned her “dark”-skinned equivalent by approximately 10 percent, even when controlling for race, country of origin, English ability, education, and occupation.²² Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Hersch found that the detriment of a dark complexion was so significant that it sometimes wiped out any benefits accrued from educational attainment. As Hersch noted, “I thought that once we controlled for race and nationality, I expected the difference to go away, but even with people from the same country, the same race—skin color really matters.”²³ The study added to a body of literature documenting the adverse impact of darker skin tone on earning rates and the continued importance of whiteness in the marketplace. For example, a 2006 study published in the American Economic Review found that, even among blacks, skin color had a substantial impact on wages. With all things being equal, lighter-skinned black men significantly outearned their medium- and darker-skinned counterparts.²⁴

A more recent study found profound race-based judgments taking place on a subconscious level. Vetting a vast, thirteen-year data pool capturing split-second decisions, a study of whistle-blowing in the National Basketball Association found that white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players. The study also found that, although black officials called fouls more frequently against white, rather than black, players, the overall effect of this bias was less pronounced. All told, however, ...