It’s the Straight-up Caucacity for Us
Caucacity Defined: (n.)
The white man’s audacity is a phenomenon born from the power and privilege they usurped, from a feeling of dominion over this country that was once known as manifest destiny. It is the belief that when America’s forefathers said: “We the people” they meant, as our early documents attest, only white people. The white man’s audacity takes shape in sundry ways but one of them is in their utmost sense of safety.
The white man’s audacity is the belief that all white people are human beings deserving of inalienable rights and then some, while everybody else has “no rights which the white man was bound to respect." Like the right to destroy a government that doesn’t conform to their world, a right by the way, that belongs only to him. The white man’s audacity does not concede; it coerces; it demands.
Origins of “Caucacity”
The Word:
“Caucasity” is a blending of the words “Caucasian” and “audacity.”
Caucasian is a word for a white person, and audacity is defined as confidence that other people find rude or shocking.
The term was first coined by The Bodega Boys podcast, released by Desus Nice and co-host The Kid Mero in 2015.
Having Caucacity:
Unclear, but we suspect sometime before the doctrine of discovery, so before 1493.
Is Caucacity a Form of Reverse Racism?
Assumptions and stereotypes about white people do exist (e.g. white people can't dance), but this is racial prejudice, not racism. Prejudice refers to a set of discriminatory or derogatory attitudes based on assumptions. This is not considered racism because of the systemic relationship to power. When backed with power, prejudice results in acts of discrimination and oppression against groups or individuals. In Canada, white people hold this cultural power due to Eurocentric modes of thinking, rooted in colonialism, that continue to reproduce and privilege whiteness. It is whiteness that has the power to define the terms of racialized others' existence.
Worth Noting
BIPOC folk can be racist - and often are - to each other. For example, many non-Black communities of colour have deep-rooted anti-Black beliefs.
This is particularly foolish because non-Black and Indigenous people of colour have historically and presently been systemically oppressed by white supremacy, similar to (but not as severely as) Black and Indigenous folk.
People of colour have also deeply benefited from Black and Indigenous activism, and yet, still harbour anti-Black and anti-Indigenous beliefs. Decolonize your minds POC, just because our ancestors were divided and conquered, doesn't mean we need to be.
An Example of Caucacity
Being able to orchestrate a three-week protest* of our capital city without being violently detained, jailed, or hurt.
To be clear, we aren't saying people should be hurt. We aren't even saying this because we disagree with the convoy. We just want to point out that there is an inherent feeling of safety that white privilege gives white folk that allows them to do what they've been doing in Ottawa without the fear of being harmed. To bring their children to the protest*, to honk their trucks for days, etc., etc., etc., etc.,
This is what white privilege looks like in Canada.
Worth Noting
Technically speaking, everyone in Canada has the right to a peaceful protest, but the reality is, that this is a privilege only white folk have.
While many of us racialized folk have always felt this to be true, it is difficult, and sometimes traumatizing, to see it unfold live and in technicolour.
What is happening in Ottawa and across the country is a blatant reminder that the rights and freedoms of BIPOC folk are never going to be upheld in the same way white peoples are in this country.
Now that, in case you were wondering, is systemic oppression.
Source: Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, Esquire, Dictionary.com.
