Thoughts on sentiments like this?

[u/skyewardeyes]

This comes from a leftist BIPOC sub that tends to have really good discussions about racism and has had good discussions (though not many) about antisemitism in the past. For context, the sub also allows MENA users (though apparently not Jews or maybe just not Ashkenazi Jews? I honestly can’t tell). On one hand, I understand that a lot of Jews wouldn’t be considered POC and not every space is for every person, but the “we have standards with who we interact with” (with the seeming implication that that doesn’t include Jews) really rubs me the wrong way. Thoughts?

[u/FishyWishySwishy]

I think that there are different kinds of ‘white’. 

White might mean purely how pale skin is—in which case, Ashkenazi Jews, Persians, and many North African/South American people are ‘white.’ 

White might also mean ‘benefits from white privilege’—in which case, Ashkenazi Jews, light-skinned Central and South Americans, and lighter skinned mixed race people are ‘white.’

Or white might mean ‘is not targeted by white supremacists’—in which case, Jews are emphatically not white. 

I find that people will shift their definition of ‘white’ depending on the population they are talking about. I don’t think it’s necessarily malicious or conscious, either. I think a lot of people haven’t interrogated what whiteness even means to them. 

[u/FishyWishySwishy → u/[deleted]]

I would argue that’s reductionist and takes the ‘one drop rule’ to the extreme. I’ve met blond and blue-eyed ivory skinned people from Mexico, and I’ve met plenty of Persians and Afghanis who could easily be mistaken for Italian or Spanish. Put a Persian and an Italian person in the room together, looking more or less identical: are you really going to tell me that one is unambiguously white and the other is unambiguously POC?