What does "white adjacent" mean

Latinx and Asians are white adjacent because they have privileges that African Americans are denied on a daily basis.

Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Whether or not you agree that there are levels to racial disparity or whether you believe prejudice persists in America today at all, that IS the way the term is used.

Here is a fuller explanation:

drnimishabarton.com

Proximity to Whiteness: Anti-Blackness, People of Color, and the Struggle for Solidarity — Nimisha Barton, PhD

Nimisha Barton

We talk a lot about white folks and whiteness. Less often do we discuss the more awkward question of white-passing and white-adjacent people of color who partake in anti-Black attitudes and behaviors as a means of gaining whi...

Link:www.drnimishabarton.com/redacted/proxi...

It means whatever they say it means.

So that's saying that 'white adjacent' (so non-white) people hold white privilege. I'm confused even more. All I've gathered from the article is that Asians are (nearly) always white adjacent, irregardless of the color of their skin, and Hispanics are often white adjacent.

That could partially explain the animosity that blacks have to Asians, who they perceive as being more privileged than blacks are.

Yeah, it’s confusing to me too. I thought the definition offered at the beginning was helpful: “persons who may be biracial, multiracial, or white-passing people of colour who benefit under systems of white supremacy from having lighter skin colour than visibly Brown, Black or Indigenous people”

My takeaway is it’s a concept related to colorism. Think about a color spectrum from very white skin to very dark. The lighter someone’s skin is if they are bi/mixed race or a person of color, the closer to white they are, aka white adjacent.

Your confusion is valid. The people peddling in racial politics don't exactly present consistent or logical ideas very often.

This CNN article, which may be the most "shake my head" article to come out of this decade's woke hysteria and moral panic, may (ironically) explain where they are coming from with this white-adjacent play. Be careful reading it -- the "logic" is guaranteed to make your eyes cross.

cnn.com

White supremacy, with a tan | CNN

John Blake

White people are projected to become a minority in the US by 2045, but that by itself won't make the country more racially tolerant. Never underestimate White supremacy's ability to adapt.

Link:www.cnn.com/2021/09/04/us/census-brown...

What it really means is that anyone who doesn’t agree with them on everything is “white adjacent”, and therefore must suffered the same opprobrium that whites must suffer.

If, however, you do not have white skin but are prepared to denounce whiteness in all its forms, you will be allowed to live un-cancelled, although you will rank lower in America’s informal but very real caste system of racial grievance and superiority.

Honkies must nod dumbly as whiteness is denounced during mandatory DEI meetings. Should anyone in power begin to suspect that they are less than enthusiastic in embracing the Two Minutes Hate against the enemies of DEI, they will be forced to engage in regular Maoist struggle sessions to avoid cancellation.

The first part (white passing) is probably easier to understand.

The second part (white adjacent) is not really about how one looks. The author of that article is a woman of South Asian origin with dark skin who does not look white at all. Yet she has access to certain privilege enjoyed by white people, largely because white people consider her as "non-threatening" to their status.

Asian Americans are seen as hard working, well-behaved people who do not challenge the existing social order. So white people who benefit from that order, and probably want to maintain it, do not perceive Asian Americans as threats to their status.

"White adjacent" = Black Supremacy language for non "white" lower castes, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, lighter skin blacks (tainted with white blood), full blooded Africans who don't support Black Supremacy.

Interesting. I think it might be a combination of looks and behavior. I looked up the author. She doesn’t look that dark to me. She appears to be closer to the middle of the color spectrum, a shading I would consider white-adjacent:

This makes sense to me. I once heard someone tell an African (immigrant) that he didn't count as 'truly capital-b Black' so it's an ever-expanding category

Amazing. What kind of ideology prompts people to say such ridiculous things?

It's like Obama saying he is black when he could say he is white. Why would he not choose white? Why would at least 50% of people so able and inclined to choose between black and white not chose white instead of black? I bet Obama's genealogy report is something like 66 percent non-African continent. even if that's wrong, most offspring of US Americans who mate interracially, "black" and "white," have more European ancestry than strictly black African.

None of these labels matter and will keep changing with the seasons. What won’t change for a very long time is that Blacks are special and we will be forced as a society to be aware of their blackness in interactions with them. No other group really cares (not counting virtue signaling) about their race or skin color according or denying them privilege.

Umm... ever heard of "one drop rule"?

I get the whole white-passing and white-adjacent, but what do "white translucent" and "white
cosmopolitan" mean?"

The amount of non-Black people obsessed with race on this site show that it’s not just Blacks that cares about it.