When White People Became “White People”

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Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.How exactly did white people become “white” people?
It seems like most white people have no idea about how they came to identify as “white”. That’s a problem. Overlooking this part of our history, I think, means white people can misunderstand ongoing critiques of white identity politics in today’s culture wars.
So, I’ve broken it down in this bite-sized video:

One key fact that tends to slip our minds is that the concept of whiteness, as a racial identity, didn’t even exist until the mid-17th century. Sure, lighter-skinned people were around, but they identified more with their respective nationalities—be it English, Dutch, or Greek—than with a broader, pan-European “white” identity.
To navigate this complexity, I leaned heavily on the scholarly insights from Dr. Nell Painter’s bestselling book, “The History of White People.” In it, she demonstrates how the concept of whiteness was largely a reaction to Blackness, an identity which colonizers and enslavers linked with inferiority—giving birth to the myth of whiteness, by associating it with notions of moral purity, superiority, and destined rule.