One more time: Being a member of a marginalized ethnic group or religion does not negate your whiteness.

Yes—if you are Jewish, Muslim, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Arab, Persian, Latinx, pick one—you are still white if you have white caste power. That’s how whiteness works.

There are white Jews, white Muslims, white Latinx folks, even white Indigenous folks in the USA. A white American can have a Brown parent or Black grandparent and still be white American. Again, caste is about YOUR lives experience with race, not your family’s.

I’m gonna go on record and say this: There are children of famous Black parents that need to be honest and claim their whiteness. Yes, I am talking about a certain Jewish actress child of a Black music legend, and the white goyshie child of a Black soul singer. Debate your mama.

Those women are fucking white ladies. Even with visibly Black daddies and siblings back home, they are as white as Donald Trump and Pat Boone. And we all need to stop humoring them with the bullshit.

A couple of decades ago, I worked in a Lebanese deli back in my hometown. The owners were Lebanese Christians and they were white as the driven snow, and their kids were white Americans. Their BIPOC Muslim employees were treated like shit, and there was a clear caste hierarchy.

One of my coworkers was a Brown Lebanese immigrant who spoke Arabic on the job. Her American son? A goddamn white Southern good old boy who recited rap lyrics to be a badass. Don’t tell me BIPOC mothers can’t birth white men—I seent that shit with my own eyes.

I am a light brown Black woman, and yes I deal with systemic antiblackness-misogynoir. My spotty work history and empty bank account bear this out. But I am also deeply insulated from the caste violence my late mother faced and that many of my relatives still face. That matters.

And I will not dare insult my loved ones nor desecrate my mother’s memory by appropriating their caste experiences. The benefits I enjoy from white adjacency are tangible and real. I am sitting comfortably in that insulation as I type this. And I remember my cousins who cannot.

And if you’re lighter, brighter, richer, and more connected than me? I will continually remind you of that fact without apology or shame. And if you can pass through society with fascist white bigots assuming you are one of them? Be mindful of what you ask from Black folks.