Transcript
>> HINOJOSA: Our guest today
says race is not about skin
color, but is, instead, a
construct and one that hasn't
always existed.
She digs deep into the roots of
white identity in her book, The
History of White People.
Leading historian and author
Nell Irvin Painter.
I'm Maria Hinojosa, this is One
On One.
Nell Irvin Painter, it's great
to have you here.
You are the author of Sojourner
Truth: A Life, A Symbol and
your latest book, A History of
White People.
>> PAINTER: "The"...
>> HINOJOSA: The History.
>> PAINTER: ...History of White People.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, welcome,
Nell, to our program.
>> PAINTER: Thank you.
>> HINOJOSA: So speaking of The
History of White People...
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm?
>> HINOJOSA: Do you think that
there might be a time, let's say
100 years from now or 200 years
from now, when other historians
are looking back at this moment
in history and saying, "Oh, God,
those silly Americans of back
then."
And these would be other
Americans...
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: ...saying, "Well,
God, they divided people up into
race!"
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: Do you think that
that's possible?
>> PAINTER: Yes.
If they're historians, they
won't cast judgment, however.
They'll just say, "In the past,
Americans divided people up by
race."
They also divided people up by
religion, so it used to be a
really big deal if you were
Jewish or Catholic.
So these are categories that
have fallen by the wayside, and
conceivably, race could be
another one.
However, I will add that race is
really in our national DNA in a
way that religion kind of isn't,
and certainly not head shape,
which was also important.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, so when you
say, "It's in our DNA as a
country"...
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm?
>> HINOJOSA: ...what does
that... what does that mean?
>> PAINTER: Well, one of our great values
is freedom, and freedom makes
sense with its opposite,
slavery.
>> HINOJOSA: Slavery.
>> PAINTER: And so slavery is kind of a
foundation.
Slavery was at its greatest in
the United States in the 18th
and 19th centuries, and our
country was founded in the late
18th century, so it's all in
there together in terms of time
and history.
>> HINOJOSA: Because basically,
to be white came to be what it
is to be an American...
>> PAINTER: It came to be what it means
to be free.
>> HINOJOSA: To be free...
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: ...and that meant
that you had to have blacks who
were not free or people of color
who were not free.
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: But it also...
>> PAINTER: No, it's the other way
around.
You have... you mark blackness
as "slave"...
>> HINOJOSA: As slavery.
>> PAINTER: ...and then what's left as
whiteness is "free."
And that was a kind of two or
three step dance, because, in
the early days of the United
States, in the 1790s, there was
a category of unfree white
people.
That fell away.
>> HINOJOSA: In the United
States?
>> PAINTER: Yes, that feel away in the
early 19th century, what we
historians call the "Jacksonian
Revolution," and then the way to
be a citizen was to be a white
male.
It didn't matter how much money
you had, as long as you were not
a felon.
So freedom, citizenship,
maleness, whiteness, all those
came together before the Civil
War.
>> HINOJOSA: And majority?
Like, did white also at that
time signify, "We are the
majority population"?
>> PAINTER: Yes.
I hesitate because in some parts
of the United States, white
people were not the majority,
and those were the very heavy
slave-owning areas, which in
symbolic terms, were very
important.
So ( hesitantly ) yes.
>> HINOJOSA: At least in
their... in the mentality.
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm.
>> HINOJOSA: But if there comes
a time soon, then, when white
America is a "minority," what
does that mean?
Is that part of what is getting
people so worked up, because
that's just an image that's
never existed for them?
>> PAINTER: Yes... um... I'm hesitating,
Maria, because our idea of
whiteness is something rooted in
the mid-20th century, so it's
fairly recent.
There used to be different white
races.
You could be considered white
but belong to a superior or
inferior white race.
>> HINOJOSA: For example?
>> PAINTER: Saxon, superior.
Celtic, inferior.
Jewish, inferior.
Italian, inferior.
Anglo-Saxon, superior.
So that was... that was an idea
of the late 19th and early 20th
century.
We've forgotten about that, so
even in the 20th century there
was this... not quite a sense of
overweening white majority--
stress on the "overweening."
So we're... it's... these
classifications have always been
fluid.
They've always been changing,
and it's only been useful to
speak of this one great big
white race in which all the
white people are equal since
about the second World War.
>> HINOJOSA: You actually want
people to think about things
like the fact that slavery
predated racial... racial
definitions of slavery.
>> PAINTER: They go together.
Slavery is time immemorial.
It's wherever you have very
stark differences of power and
money.
>> HINOJOSA: But the image of
holding... of having... of white
holding white slaves is not one
that we...
>> PAINTER: This is true.
But we also don't think about
head shape that much anymore.
Used to be a big deal.
So if you look at Normal
Rockwell's paintings, for
instance, the people... the men
have bumps in the back of their
heads.
They're not flat headed, because
that's part of what used... used
to be important for
Anglo-Saxons, the shape of their
heads.
To be Irish and Catholic is not
a big deal anymore.
It was a very big deal in say,
1855, 1860, 1890.
So the categories, the
importance of the categories,
changes over time, and I'm sure
it will keep changing.
>> HINOJOSA: And you... you kind
of dove right into this.
I mean, you've...
>> PAINTER: Well, it was a slow...
>> HINOJOSA: Well, you've been a
historian...
>> PAINTER: I've been a historian for a
long time, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: ...an amazing
historian based at Princeton,
and yes, you have studied
history, but...
>> PAINTER: And I've done lots of
different books.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, amazing books.
>> PAINTER: This is not my first book,
yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: Sojourner Truth,
The Making of the Black
American?
>> PAINTER: Creating Black Americans.
>> HINOJOSA: Creating Black
Americans.
>> PAINTER: Yeah, Southern History Across
the Color Line, The United
States 1977-1919...
>> HINOJOSA: You've been pushing
up against this as a... as an
academic...
>> PAINTER: Yeah, I've been...
>> HINOJOSA: Your entire
career...
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: ...has been kind of
like, "I'm going to push these
buttons."
>> PAINTER: No, no, no, no, me?
Moi?
>> HINOJOSA: ( laughing )
You?
>> PAINTER: I... I just write.
>> HINOJOSA: What is the
motivation?
I mean...
>> PAINTER: I love history.
I love to do historical
research.
I love to write history books.
I love history.
>> HINOJOSA: You, Nell, I know
that you don't like to talk a
lot about your personal
experience, but it does
influence who you ended up
becoming and the work that you
ended up doing.
>> PAINTER: Absolutely, absolutely.
>> HINOJOSA: You grew up... you
were born in Texas...
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: ...but you grew up
in... in the Bay Area.
>> PAINTER: In Oakland.
>> HINOJOSA: Yes.
>> PAINTER: I only spent ten weeks in
Texas.
>> HINOJOSA: So you're not
really a Texan.
>> PAINTER: ( sighing )
>> HINOJOSA: ( laughing )
So then you also travel around
the world...
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: The world... your
mom was extraordinary.
>> PAINTER: Both my parents.
>> HINOJOSA: Both of your
parents.
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: How did that
influence the work that you
ended up doing and kind of how
you saw yourself?
>> PAINTER: It made all the difference in
the world, Maria.
>> HINOJOSA: Because?
>> PAINTER: I... my parents were behind
me.
My father taught me to draw, my
mother taught me to write.
I... it's... I come from an
academic family.
I had an academic career.
That was something I knew how to
do.
But not to have to worry about
taking care of anybody else
financially-- in fact, having...
having financial support--
coming from an educated family,
coming from a place like
Northern California where there
was... I didn't have to face
racial segregation sort of
slapping me in the face all the
time.
So that was of absolute,
fundamental importance.
And then when I... being able to
travel as a young person,
particularly spending a junior
year abroad in Bordeaux and
learning about another world.
And then especially, two years
in Ghana in the 1960s, a black
majority country.
>> HINOJOSA: And so how old were
you then?
>> PAINTER: I was in my 20s, so...
>> HINOJOSA: That must have
been... I mean, well, the United
States was going through its
Civil Rights battle, and you're
living in a black majority
country in Africa.
>> PAINTER: Yeah, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: What were you
thinking?
>> PAINTER: Well, I was learning.
I was learning.
I was... you know, we didn't
have television, so I wasn't
watching super closely, but of
course, this was world news,
what was going on in the United
States.
I remember one response I had.
I was in Ghana during the Watts
Uprising in 1965, and it was the
cover of Paris Match.
My job was to do the French
broadcasts for Ghana radio, so I
was in close touch with the
French press.
So Watts was on the cover of
Paris Match, and I looked at
the houses and they were
absolutely amazing houses.
( laughing ) That's what really
hit me-- the difference in
wealth in the United States and
in West Africa.
That was what hit me then.
But more than that, I learned in
Ghana to think in class terms,
not just in race terms.
And class or the economics, what
the Marxists would call "the
material dimension," that is so
important and so hard for us to
see in the United States because
we use race as a proxy.
And race doesn't fit,
necessarily, and it used to fit
less awkwardly in the 20th
century.
In the 21st century it's... it's
sort of not going together in
many, many ways.
So that was a crucial part of my
personal education.
>> HINOJOSA: You talk about the
essence of democracy of you as a
woman, about basically wanting
to tell the history, the stories
of the forgotten voices.
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm.
>> HINOJOSA: Does that also come
from the fact that you were a
woman of color of a certain
privilege, and you were able to
see that while you had a voice,
there were so many others around
you who didn't.
>> PAINTER: Yes, yes, that's absolutely
the case.
My dissertation was about black
Southerners, people who had
started their lives in slavery.
And I was able to find many of
their voices, they were not
mute, but I had to go look for
them.
That's the beauty of research.
Whereas other people with more
power-- politicians or writers
who were published at the time--
those voices came to much more
easily.
So yes, that is something I
wanted to do, and it was
something that came out of my
experience in Ghana.
>> HINOJOSA: And so as... you
know, why did you decide to say,
"I'm going to jump into writing
this history of white people"?
I mean, just even...
>> PAINTER: It didn't start like, "I'm
going to write this history of
white people."
It started with a question.
You see, for... the first thing
is that I've done so many books
that I can just answer the
questions in my mind.
So for instance, Sojourner
Truth, I didn't start saying,
"I'm going to write a biography
of Sojourner Truth."
I said, "Why is it that the
visions that we have of
Sojourner Truth, the visual
imagery, is of this demure,
bourgeois lady with knitting or
her... a picture of her grandson
on her lap?
That's the visual Sojourner
Truth, but the verbal Sojourner
Truth was this sort of black
power figure, ain't I a woman,
rip off your dress, show your...
you know, all stuff is going on.
They didn't go together.
So I started out by saying,
"What's going on here?"
So with The History of White
People, I started by saying,
"How is it that Chechnya, you
know, which was in flames at the
time, which is the caucuses, why
are white people in the United
States called Chechnyans,
basically, Caucasian?
You know, how does that happen?
So that's where it got... it
started.
>> HINOJOSA: Do you think... I
mean, there is a lot of change
going on in that country right
now.
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
>> HINOJOSA: And a lot of it is
visual.
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: A lot of it has to
do with numbers, when you start
looking at the demographics.
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: So when people
react in fear...
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm.
>> HINOJOSA: ...because it's
unknown what's going to
happen...
>> PAINTER: When people react in fear,
bad things happen.
>> HINOJOSA: But you understand
the fear.
>> PAINTER: Intellectually, yes.
>> HINOJOSA: And beyond that?
>> PAINTER: If somebody asked me to write
about it, I would do some
research, but you know, off the
top of my head, I can only react
in a very superficial way.
>> HINOJOSA: So as a citizen...
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm?
>> HINOJOSA: ...but you have
this basis, right, because you
have delved into history, but...
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm?
>> HINOJOSA: ...so as a citizen,
are we looking at an optimistic
future in our country?
>> PAINTER: I'm an optimist, so finally,
I would say, "Yes."
( laughing ) Yes.
But they're are bound to be
bumps along the way.
Somebody asked me at the
National Book Festival if there
was a time in American history
in which the hysteria about
immigrants was as high, and I
said, "Yes, in the 1920s."
So I think when... to try to
answer your question, I go back
to the 1920s, and in the 1920s,
race was the way Americans
talked about difference, so they
racialized Jews, they racialized
Italians, they racialized
Greeks, and these were
considered alien races.
And part of the threat was
racial degeneration.
They weren't talking about black
people or brown people or red
people or yellow people.
They were talking about people
we consider white people.
Racial degeneration.
However, for a series of
reasons, that time receded, and
the end of that time was
national mobilization during the
1930s and especially during the
1940s, as those people who had
been considered alien races
naturalized or their American
born children became Americans
and voted.
So politics was absolutely
crucial to getting from this
roiling mess of anger and the
will to get rid of these people
to another era in which we have
the nation united against the
threat of Nazism.
So politics is very much
involved in what's going on, and
as new people become citizens,
vote, get rich, spend, our view
of our population can shift.
And I have seen this from, say,
the 1970s and 1980s to now, I
saw a big change in the visual
image of the American
population, and I would date it
to the second half of the 1990s.
When I grew up, all the pictures
in Public Life were white, and
most of them were male, so I saw
a difference from an idea of the
American as white male to a more
multicultural America in which
you can't wrap up the whole
population in one figure.
>> PAINTER: You basically say that what's
happening now is this... what
you call this "fourth great
expansion," where defining
ourselves as American no longer
means defining ourselves as
white.
>> PAINTER: Or in your face as white.
>> HINOJOSA: And one of the
things that's so beautiful, I
was going to say, about the work
that you do, Nell, is that you
make us, in reading history and
therefore, understanding what
comes, understand beauty, and
how beauty... I mean, this whole
notion of like, skull
construction...
>> PAINTER: Yes, yes, yes.
>> HINOJOSA: ...it's just like,
"Ooh, I hadn't really thought
about that."
>> PAINTER: Right.
>> HINOJOSA: Now, as you know,
one of the models of beauty in
America is Michelle Obama.
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: I have been in
places... well, in one place in
particular where it's not just
about beauty, but it's about
intelligence.
For example, Sonia Sotomayor...
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: ...who was actually
in the same room of Jennifer
Lopez, and all the young women
wanted to get the autograph from
Sotomayor.
>> PAINTER: Ah-hah!
>> HINOJOSA: That was who
they... you know.
I'm thinking, "Wow, this is"...
so talk a little bit about how
that popular culture
interpretation of beauty, and
how... how far along have we
made it?
>> PAINTER: Part of beauty has to do with
money.
Beauty...
>> HINOJOSA: Just a part?
>> PAINTER: ...my next book, actually, is
called The Truth About Beauty,
and it's going to be mostly
pictures and just a little bit
of text, because there's not a
lot to say.
Beauty is a mixture of sex and
money, youth, and wealth.
So what... the image of youth
doesn't change that much.
So we always want to see young
people as beautiful.
But who has the power and the
money, that can change over
time.
And so our ideas about what is
beautiful... so you just
mentioned beauty as intelligence
and power in terms of Sotomayor,
but we can also talk about
beauty, just plain old sex
beauty, as having broadened
since the 20th century.
>> HINOJOSA: So you write in
your book, you say, "So long as
racial discrimination remains a
fact of life and statistics can
be arranged to support racial
difference, then the American
belief in races is going to
endure."
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: But then you
actually say, "But if you
actually look at the existing
American population, the notion
of American whiteness is going
to continue to evolve"...
>> PAINTER: Yes.
>> PAINTER: ..."and change."
>> PAINTER: And the notion of American
whiteness continued to evolve
from the moment people started
thinking about it.
So people... somebody once
called in a radio program and
said, "Well, what is the real
definition?"
I said, "What are you trying to
prove?" because it's an
instrumental category.
So the meaning of whiteness
changes, or the meaning of white
changes, depending on what you
want to prove and when you're
trying to prove it.
That is somewhat separate from
the whole question of racism
against non-white people.
So we have both things going on
at the same time.
>> HINOJOSA: So what do you
want... what do you want us to
rethink?
I know that that's like, again,
you wrote the whole book, but
leave some ideas for our... our
audience to just be like, "Okay,
let me ask myself that
question."
>> PAINTER: Yes, yes, that ideas about
race and ideas... and that white
people are raised, those ideas
change over time.
Race is a concept, and our
ideas, concepts, change
according to when and why; who
was speaking to whom and why
change over time.
>> HINOJOSA: And so you want our
audience to like... how...
again, because most people
aren't historians and walking
around with this kind of baggage
of know... so when they're out
on the street, when they're in
a... what do you want them to
ask themselves?
>> PAINTER: Well, when they're out in the
street, I want them to ask
themselves, "How can I love my
neighbor?"
( laughing )
>> HINOJOSA: That's a nice one.
>> PAINTER: "How can we be together."
But...
>> HINOJOSA: How can we all get
along...
>> PAINTER: Together, yes.
And what I would like them to do
is not start by classifying
people, "This person is this,
and that person is that, and
this person is this," because
race, fundamentally, is a way of
dividing people, of creating
difference.
Even when it's used in the best
possible ways to create pride--
not against others-- it's still
a way of saying, "I am this,"
meaning, "You are that."
>> HINOJOSA: And that is so
controversial, because you know
so many institutions are...
civil rights institutions, are
based on the fact that... you
know, you have the NAACP.
>> PAINTER: Yes, yes.
And that's why I say, "As long
as racial discrimination is a
fact, we will have race, for
better or worse."
But that doesn't mean that you
can't understand that race is a
concept.
You can do both things.
>> HINOJOSA: Do you feel like
this conversation of
understanding race as a concept
for our country, beyond the work
that you've done, do you feel
it's kind of out there in the
American lexicon?
>> PAINTER: Depends on who you ask.
So if you ask people in the
academy, it's a commonplace, but
if you ask people on the street,
they probably believe that race
is something in there,
biological, permanent, and
separates people.
So the idea of race, the core of
the idea of race, is that it's
biological and it's permanent.
That's the meaning of the idea.
>> HINOJOSA: So leave our... our
audience with some thoughts
about moving forward, not from a
place of fear, not from a place
of, "Your gain means my loss,"
and, "If this country changes
we're going to go down the tubes
because that's not what we
know."
What do you want... what do you
want us to think about the
future?
>> PAINTER: I'd like us to think about
our grandchildren.
And everybody loves their
grandchildren, no matter who
their... well, nearly everybody
loves their grandchildren.
And if we could think about our
neighbors as our grandchildren
and think about what we have
with them as part of us.
Abbey Lincoln has a song called
The People In Me.
I've got some Irish in me, I've
got some Chinese in me.
I wish that that kind of a
feeling of commonality, instead
of difference and separation,
because we have so much in
common across lines of race and
gender and class.
>> HINOJOSA: Because really,
there's no way that you can say
that you are... and I... this is
not a term that I like to use,
but that anyone is
"racially pure."
>> PAINTER: That's right, that's right.
>> HINOJOSA: So therefore...
>> PAINTER: It's true in terms of
biology, and it's also true in
terms of culture.
>> HINOJOSA: Therefore, why
should I fear you if you are
actually me or will be soon?
>> PAINTER: Yeah, yeah, we could get
together and talk about our
grandchildren.
>> HINOJOSA: And you are
hopeful...
>> PAINTER: Yeah, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: In your day to day
experience.
>> PAINTER: Well, okay, don't push me so
hard.
( laughing ) It's true that I
have my moments of fear and I
think, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no," but by and large, yeah.
I don't think I would've
gotten... I would've persisted
this long if I hadn't been an
optimist.
>> HINOJOSA: And final
thoughts...
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm?
>> HINOJOSA: ...on beauty?
>> PAINTER: Mm-hmm.
>> HINOJOSA: There are probably
a lot of young women of color
who are watching this show, or
older women of color...
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: ...and older women.
>> PAINTER: Keep talking.
>> HINOJOSA: Tell us what we
need to know, because this is
your next book...
>> PAINTER: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: ...about
understanding our own beauty.
Leave us with an uplifting
thought about understanding our
own beauty.
>> PAINTER: We need to understand that
most of the images we see as
beauty are meant to sell us
things.
That's not what it's about.
So to women of color, to older
women of color, to older women,
to younger women, don't get
sucked in by the beauty
industry, because beauty is
something entirely different.
And I should... if there... is a
plural for the adjective
"differences," that you can be
beautiful in many ways, and it's
not about what people want to
sell you and make you feel that
you're awful unless you buy this
thing.
>> HINOJOSA: I'm not buying
anything now but your books.
>> PAINTER: ( laughing ) Thank you.
>> HINOJOSA: Thank you so much
for a wonderful conversation.
>> PAINTER: Thank you so much.
>> HINOJOSA: Thank you so much
for your work, I appreciate it.
>> PAINTER: Yes, thanks.
>> HINOJOSA: Continue the
conversation at
wgbh.org/oneonone.
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