Snow White And The Sin Of Whiteness
Snow White And The Sin Of Whiteness
On the quest to turn whiteness into the West's original sin
In contemporary western culture the colour white is fast losing its role as a symbol of purity, innocence and perfection. On the contrary, the colour white is increasingly represented in an unattractive light and in some contexts, whiteness has acquired entirely negative connotations. White people in particular, are frequently cast into the role of moral inferiority by identity entrepreneurs.
Political activists in pursuit of what they characterise as racial justice, posit the possession of white skin as a marker of original sin. Take the report published in September 2024 by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR). Titled, Europe’s Original Sin: White Supremacy, Colonialism, and the Contemporary Racial Wealth Gap, it explicitly represents White Europeans and White Supremacy as the root cause of present day problems faced by what it calls ‘racialised minorities’. The authors of the Report appear unaware of the fact that when it comes to the project of racialising they do a thorough job of stigmatizing White Europeans.
The ENAR is funded by the European Commission, indicating that the claimthat white supremacy constitutes Europe’s original sin is likely to be endorsed by this powerful institution. In fact, the all too apparent tendency to frame the colour white in negative terms has been internalized by numerous institutions, especially in the cultural sector. The entertainment and film industry are in the forefront of the project of endowing whiteness with the status of moral inferiority. In the entertainment industry, this project assumes the role of policing films for white content.
The recent controversy that has broken out over the colour of Snow White offers a paradigmatic illustration of the prevailing obsessiveness regarding white identity. Disney’s remake of this children’s film aims to dispossess the main protagonist of her description as Snow White. According to the star of the new film, Colombian-American actress Rachel Zegler, Snow White was ‘named for her resilience not pale complexion’[i]. In Zegler’s fantasy word, Snow White received her name because of her ‘resilience in surviving a snowstorm’. Her new version of the story has little to do with the original fairytale. The original 1812 story by the Brothers Grimm, includes a line which describes the skin of the princess ‘as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony’.
Zegler’s newly invented story of a resilient woman surviving a sandstorm as a baby not only ticks the feminist box for strong women but also the one that seeks to separate the colour white from a conception of beauty. Zegler is not alone in the targeting of white fairy-tale characters. According to one critic;
‘Seven out of the 11 Disney princesses are white, according to mediamilwaukee.com. These ethnic princesses do not display the same feminine and beautiful attributes as white princesses. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle all wear gowns, gloves, and have neatly-done hair. Disney also depicts these white princesses as well mannered and feminine. Princesses of color, however, do not share these elegant characteristics. Mulan, an Asian princess, is a warrior, Pocahontas is depicted as “savage like,” Moana is known for her rebellion, and Jasmine wears pants. This exemplifies Disney’s depiction of white as beautiful and civilized and people of color as other[ii]’.
Racial paranoia does not only focus on the complexion of cartoon characters it also attempts to de-legitimate the status of real people whose original sin is that they happen to be white.
Increasingly, the use of the term white is used as a marker for a quality flaw. The title of a commentary in The Guardian illustrates the usage of the term white to highlight moral deficiency. It states ‘Wealthy, white and rightwing: the Tory members holding the party’s future in their hand’[iii]. It is unclear which of the three terms -wealthy, white and rightwing – constitutes the gravest cultural crime. However, the addition of white to terms that describe the political and economic status of these individuals reinforces these Tories’ unattractive identity.
The construction of whiteness
As an identity, white has acquired a culturally devalued and unappealing quality. The representation of the identity of whiteness as a form of original sin was the invention of its critics. This objective was achieved through the racialisation of western history and the tendentious arguments provided by Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory, with its emphasis on White Privilege and Whiteness aims to indict an entire race of people for their supposed historical complicity in acts of racial oppression. Through the eternalisation of white racism, Critical Race Theory has sought to morally devalue those possessing a white skin. It invented the concept of whiteness to attribute a negative moral connotation to those it brands with this sin. Almost effortlessly the moral devaluation of whiteness has entered the mainstream of society. Hence the growing usage of the terms like ‘too white’ or the patronising meaning conveyed by the phrase ‘talking white’. In the jargon favoured by cultural entrepreneurs, ‘too white’ serves as a synonym for words like ‘unpleasant’, ‘problematic’, repulsive or ‘toxic’.
Just listen to Tom Perez, the American Democratic Party’s National Chairman. He claimed that New Hampshire is ‘too white’ to have the first primary for the election of a president[iv]. He also thinks that Iowa is ‘too white’ to have the first caucus during the election campaign. According to The New Republic, the American Department of Justice is ‘too white’[v]. A survey of minority businesses in the US concludes that local chambers of commerce are ‘too white’[vi]. Apparently American TV is also ‘too white’[vii]. Television in the UK does not get a free pass, Lenny Henry insists that it is ‘too white’[viii] A former head of comedy at the BBC agrees with this assessment and suggests that this broadcast company would not commissions Monty Python today, because it is ‘too white’.[ix] It appears that the UK’s green sector is also ‘too white’[x]. Former head of friends of the Earth, Craig Bennett insisted that his sector is ‘too white’ and must leave behind its ‘white middle class ghetto’[xi]. Even poor old Extinction Rebellion is indicted for being ‘too white, too middle class and lacking in empathy’[xii]. Apparently in America, Disaster Management is too white.[xiii]
The sense of outrage conveyed by the term ‘too white’ can attach itself to the most unexpected of targets. Apparently ‘dyslexia heroes are too white’[xiv]![xv]. Numerous sources insist that classical music is ‘too white’[xvi]. One frequently hears the claim that philosophy is too white. Some would even want to cancel some of the most important philosophers, like Plato and Kant because they are too white[xvii]. In fact, virtually every university discipline – from classical music to mathematics through to history – has been condemned for being ‘too white’[xviii] In a defensive tone, Leicester University denied that it was dropping Chaucer for being ‘too white’ after it proposed to replace him with modules on race and sexuality.[xix]
The current obsession with the identity of whiteness and white privilege is often projected backwards leading to the racialisation of the past. The racialisation of the past often vents its fury at the influence of that very strange contemporary phenomenon, The Dead White Men. Like the term ‘too white’, the expression Dead White Men is used to signal condemnation and disapproval of major figures from the past. They are perceived as individuals who personify a white dominated past which contemporary commentators perceive as best left behind. At the very least the use of the term White Man invites a reaction of disapproval. So, when Professor Sarah Maddison of the University of Melbourne stated: ‘as Australia publicly struggles once again with the contemporary legacy of our brutal colonial history, we need to ask ourselves, are the white men we choose to commemorate the people we truly want to celebrate?’, the response is a resounding NO! [xx]
The speed and the ease with which the phrase Dead White Man has become a widely used colloquial term signifying moral disapproval is trruly remarkable. Ending the hegemony of Dead White Men over contemporary cultural and intellectual is widely endorsed by public and private institutions. One of its companion terms, ‘Male, Pale and Stale’ reinforces the conviction that organisations should put an end to the power of the Living White Men, especially if they are middle aged[xxi]. In a sneering tone, UK’s ‘first transgender investment chief’ declared that finance is ‘pale, male and stale’.[xxii] ‘Pale, male, stale and clueless, why we should send travel TV presenters into exile’, insists train travel expert Monisha Rajesh[xxiii]. The widespread usage of the term, pale, male, stale serves as testimony to the influence of a language devoted to the devaluation of the identity of the white man .
The growing influence of recently invented racial tropes that represents whiteness as a form of original sin illustrates the state of self-loathing of the cultural and political institution of the West. These institutions are complicit in the revival of racial thinking. Worse still they are complicit in encouraging their white citizens to feel defensive if not a sense of shame about the colour of their skin.
No one should feel shame for being white any more than being black. Nor should people feel proud to be white any more than being black. Your skin colour does not convey any moral connotations. Let’s reject the race entrepreneurs who despite racism’s sordid history still judge people by the colour of their skin.
[i] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/05/rachel-zegler-snow-white-remake-colour-skin-live-action/
[ii] https://shgreenwichkingstreetchronicle.org/115987/opinions/disneys-lack-of-diversity-and-use-of-racial-stereotypes-a-tale-as-old-as-time/
[iii] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/05/wealthy-white-and-rightwing-the-tory-members-holding-the-partys-future-in-their-hands
[iv] https://newbostonpost.com/around-new-england/new-hampshire-is-too-white-to-have-the-first-primary-in-the-country-democratic-national-committee-chairman-says/
[v] https://newrepublic.com/article/161280/criminal-justice-diversity-merrick-garland
[vi] In a survey, minority business owners say local chambers ‘too white’
[vii] https://bhsroarnation.com/1983/opinion/tv-is-too-white/
[viii] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lenny-henry-television-is-too-white-after-four-decades-on-screen-i-still-feel-lonely-2zqzkltjz
[ix] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6578895/monty-python-bbc-not-commissioned-too-white-oxbridge/
[x] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/11/too-white-green-sector-launches-work-scheme-to-be-more-diverse
[xi] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/11/too-white-green-sector-launches-work-scheme-to-be-more-diverse
[xii] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/24/uk/extinction-rebellion-environment-diversity-gbr-intl/index.html
[xiii] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/disaster-management-is-too-white-official-tells-congress/
[xiv] https://www.forbes.com/sites/drnancydoyle/2020/09/05/our-dyslexia-heroes-are-too-white-addressing-representation-in-business-with-marcia-brisset-bailey/?sh=542a7c16756e
[xv] In a survey, minority business owners say local chambers ‘too white’
[xvii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/01/08/university-students-demand-philosophers-including-plato-kant/
[xviii] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/history-is-too-white-claim-academics-7m3znjqnr
[xix] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9171987/Leicester-University-denies-dropping-Chaucer-white-proposals.html
https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-the-statues-must-fall-20200612-p5521s.html
[xxi] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191827822.001.0001/acref-9780191827822-e-2138;jsessionid=5F770DCDAD0BC70AF96795553182E403
[xxii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/29/reece-tomlinson-saone-uk-first-trans-led-investment-firm/
[xxiii] https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/inspiration/travel-tv-show-white-male-presenters-b2394859.html
This is Nozik's "normative sociology" at work. In his Anarchy, State and Utopia he joked that it was "the study of what the causes of problems ought to have been". Practised by the Guardian, BBC etc real causes are rewritten or denied in favour of imaginary pasts, motives and causes that serves their agenda. For example, the role of white people in ending the slave trade is omitted entirely as is slavery as a universal of human history. Perhaps we should also talk of "normative history", the portrayal of history as the woke wish it to have been.
I fear Bridget Phillipson's 'review'of the education syllabus will be an exercise in normative sociology and history. It is led by an intersectional feminist who will no doubt be keen to pass judgement on the past by her own self-righteous standards.
At root is a misguided universalism in which the characteristics of peoples are denied in promotion of supposed equality of individuals but not quality before the law (the only meaningful equality) rather equality of rights as the only relevant way to see people. Renaud Camus (of the misunderstood Great Replacement) insisted peoples can have collective characteristic - their culture and history - and put it this way: If a veiled woman with a shaky command of our language, entirely ignorant of our culture can say to a native Frenchman with a passionate interest in Roman churches, the finer points of vocabulary and syntax, Montaigne, Jean-Jaques Rousseau, Burgundy Wine, and Proust and whose family has for several generations lived in the same little valley of the Vivrais […] “I am just as French as you are”, it follows that “being French is nothing”.
And so it is in our multicultural mass invasion from other cultures that being English is now nothing and, as noted in this substack, being white is less than nothing. Incidentlly, Camus was not being racist or ethno-nationalist. Individuals can assimilate. They just can't do it at scale as we can see in the parallel, and often antithetical, cultures now spreading across the UK.
Kenneth Clarke, in his series Civilisation all those decades ago, remakred that civilisations fall when they lose confidence. We must not let the Phillipsons and Critical Theorists demoralise us. We are a peoples, and a welcoming one at an individual level, and we must fight to defend ourselves intellectually and politically.
Totally agree with your sentoments