LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,728
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Whitest state in the union? Well, I think it depends on who gets to say who's white (or white enough) and who isn't.
"Whiteness" is something that's always been defined in opposition to "The Other" in American culture. Up until quite recently Maine people of French descent were that "Other," and were the target of considerable "racial" persecution. Within my own lifetime, "stupid Frenchman" jokes told in an exaggerated Quebecois accent were mainstream humor, French people in general were considered dumb, dirty, and superstitious, and kids raised in French-speaking families were under strong pressure not to speak French in public. When the KKK crawled out from under our cultural rocks to have its brief day in the local sun in the 1920s, its persecution was directed almost entirely against working-class people of French descent. "Froggy pope-kissers are gonna take our jobs and marry our daughters!"