Karim makes plenty of points that are worth discussing; but above all, a phrase that stood out to me was “White, not Hispanic”
The specification of “…not Hispanic” is deliberate to isolate the quality of whiteness to those in power and maintain a white-dominant society. White supremacy is predicated on the fact that white people maintain a powerful and dominant presence in the world. Part of that presence is the exclusivity that prevents individuals with white skin, who may not necessarily be European “white”, from assuming the title of whiteness. A skin color is such a broad category that it is bound to carry with it a diverse set of people who categorize themselves as such, so by specifying that those who may have white skin, but not be the “right” kind of white, are excluded from the power and benefits others enjoy. The statement (and the time period of the work) fails to address that the change has not stopped, and further categorization has been able to specify those who receive this privilege and those who do not. This is not dissimilar in effect to her conflation of African Americans and all American Converts; the notion that all converts are African Americans groups people in the same problematic way (that she recognizes) as having boundaries like “white, not hispanic”.
While I don’t exactly disagree with the statement and its implications as it was presented in the text, I find it important to say that this idea continues to show itself in ways implicitly and explicitly in the real world around us. The more one looks into certain statements/actions the more they will see the underlying tensions that fuel it.
