Racial self-identification can conflict with claiming discrimination status
Evidence
As the judge noted, Pourghoraishi initially attested that “any reasonably aware” person would identify him as Middle Eastern, and as evidence offered his own lawyer’s affidavit of him being “not Caucasian.” The purpose of this testimony, and Pourghoraishi’s adoption of it, was to distinguish the plaintiff from the defendant, the uncontestably white Flying J manager, for the purposes of the Morris test. Yet when the deposition interviewer asked Pourghoraishi if he “looks different than anyone else,” Pourghoraishi said no. Pourghoraishi seemed comfortable stating that his Middle Eastern descent was clearly identifiable but uncomfortable stating that his descent made him look “different than anyone else,” meaning in this case, any other white person. — Neda Maghbouleh, The Limits of Whiteness, 105
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The paradox that one can assert a minority identity for legal harm while refusing to assert visible difference from whiteness is dense and multi-layered — worth sitting with.
- XREF: connects to: Acceptable minority identity requires denying the racism one faces; Racial ascription can override visual passing and self-identification alike — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 526; Identity denial may make mixed-race people shift identification to a different ingroup — Anna X. Huang, Jacqueline M. Chen, and Juliane Degner, Being One or the Other, Both or…, 119 (+4 more)
Related
- Acceptable minority identity requires denying the racism one faces (similarity 0.87)
- Racial ascription can override a person’s own refusal of that identity (similarity 0.81)
- Racial ascription can override visual passing and self-identification alike (similarity 0.80)