re: #17 Florida Panhandler

At any given moment in the history of whiteness, the boundaries of who is white are being re-negotaited opportunistically. Whole ethnicities exist in a racial version of quantum indeterminacy: the Irish aren’t white, they’re a kind of lesser white person that can be wielded against non-whites, and then their white. Except when an IRA bomb goes off, in which cases they rapidly descend back into the zone of other-ness.

The best-faith actors within white supremacy might emphasize white solidarity earnestly, but then the other values they hold—rugged individualism, natural hierarchy, meritocracy—mean that resources appropriated through inequality will not be distributed fairly even inside their volkisch sense of solidarity. Ardent Nazis may have completely believed their race schlock, but somehow they got their cut of stolen money—enough to buy castles and estates—first. And what they did let trickle down was doled out not according to need, but according to whim: to projects they found engrossing, to people they rewarded for loyalty.

Because—are you sensing a theme yet—the point isn’t to create actual, concrete distinction between peoples and stick to them, it’s to use the idea of distinction to steal shit and wield power unchecked.