Cristina Beltran on a Possible Right-Wing Strategy of Saying ‘You Count as White Either If You are Racially White Or If You Are a Republican’ →

If by some definition, the number of white voters, with some defections to the left, becomes insufficient to support a majority (or is due to become insufficient in the future), then those who hope to maintain a racist system must expand the definition of who is white. This has happened before when Italian-Americans and Irish-Americans were declared white. There are three prominent alternatives here. First is to declare Hispanics who have been in the US for a long time to be white. The second alternative is to treat those who have some white ancestry as white even if they also have non-white ancestry. The third is to treat right-wing political allegiance as conferring honorary whiteness. The link on the title of this post is about that third possibility.

Note: On my part, this is not meant to be against the Republican party. I have hopes that the Republican party will fully distance itself not only from racism, but also from anti-immigrant attitudes. Changing demographics make that a fourth possible outcome.