Response to "The Matter of Whiteness"

My honest and first response to this essay was that I should not even be reading it. First of all, the article was published more than ten years ago and most of the author’s claims are outdated and no longer apply. He is an English professor who predominantly comments on racial agendas in the United States. How can you accurately judge a society that you are not a part of? I also feel that the subject matter of this essay, the historical race issues that were such a large part of our country’s past, no longer apply. It is 2009 and we have a BLACK president. If you still think the “Western world” has race issues, then watch your evening news. Furthermore, the author claims that if you are Italian, or Catholic, or Jewish, then you are considered white in the United States. In my experience, this statement is absolutely false. If the author was to ask a white supremacist in the U.S. if these people are white, he would adamantly tell the author “NO!” To the whitest of the white in our country, if you are not an Anglo-Saxon Protestant, then you are just as racially inclined as any African, or Mexican, or Asian, etc. I am an Italian-American and have been called racial slurs, such as a “dago” or a “guinea”, by people who are white. I am sorry, but I cannot take seriously someone in Britain who is telling me that because I am Italian, my country considers me to be white, when actual people in my country tell me that I am not white for that same reason.