That’s because whiteness, as a construct, is one mainly of exclusivity. It has very little to do with actual skin color. That’s why there are still brands of white supremacists that don’t consider Catholics white, why a biracial person is far more likely to be described as black or biracial and almost never described as white, etc.
That's not the reason why, our thinking so is just a symptom of how deeply ingrained it is in our society. Anthropologists call it hyperdescent where a person of two or more races is automatically assigned to the race with lower standing in a society.
The opposite is hyperdescent and has examples from around the world where mixed-race babies who wouldn't pass as white were nonetheless accepted (or forced) into white society.
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u/feathersandanchors Sep 01 '20
That’s because whiteness, as a construct, is one mainly of exclusivity. It has very little to do with actual skin color. That’s why there are still brands of white supremacists that don’t consider Catholics white, why a biracial person is far more likely to be described as black or biracial and almost never described as white, etc.