“The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege”, by Robert Jensen, part 2

Pg. 89-90

The United States is a white country. By that I don’t just mean that the majority of its citizens are white, though they are (again, for now but not forever). What makes the United States white is not the fact that most Americans are white but the assumption — especially by people with power — that American equals white…

At a 2004 news conference outside the White House, President George W. Bush explained that he believed democracy would come to Iraq over time:

There’s a lot of people in the world who don’t believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren’t necessarily — are a different color than white can self-govern.

It appears the president intended the phrase “people whose skin color may not be the same as ours” to mean people who are not from the United States. That skin color he refers to that is “ours,” he makes it clear, is white. Those people not from the United States are “a different color than white.” So, white is the skin color of the United States. That means that those whose skin is not white but are citizens of the United States are… ? What are they? Are they members in good standing in the nation, even if “their skin color may not be the same as ours”?