Now some people will legitimately make that argument, although I should make it clear I’m not one of them, at least not without a major caveat.
For all of the successes of civil rights and affirmative action and such, America remains largely controlled by white men, and if middle class doesn’t wield the power, it controls access to that power, and collectively, that’s quite a “might”.
In other words, it’s demographically beneficial to be black, Latino, female, etc., because these things give good statistical appearance, but the language of discourse, the cultural qualities considered, the very definition of “normal” is still firmly white, especially Anglo, masculine, heterosexual, and (Protestant) Christian, although not so much as before, and certainly not so overt.
I might want to check a different box on a college application, but only as a veneer. Ultimately, I wouldn’t want to be any different than I am now because although I’m not The Man, I meet him often and can speak his language. Not just English but what words and how they’re spoken.
So that puts the complaint in context. To be white, especially a white man, in America is to be normal, and it’s terrible to be normal. Keep in mind it doesn’t outweigh benefits, whatever some misguidedly believe, and keep in mind that there’s a difference between outward fact and self-identity, but it is a real and valid complaint.
Jesus blessed are’d the poor and weak 2,000 years ago, but it was the 1960s that really flipped society on its head. We’ve become a society that celebrates diversity, the eccentric, and victimhood. Well, no, that’s not quite right. Everyone wants to be a victim in identity without actually suffering for it, or at least only suffering to an extent that can be quit at whim.
The Irish immigrant and their children wanted desperately to be considered white. The part-Cherokee wanted desperately to pass as white, to vote if nothing else. But with the ’60s, something akin to Christian martyrdom reappeared and victimhood became virtue. The 1/32 Cherokee, 31/32 European was Native American, not white. The person with any Italian ancestors was Italian, not white.
To be white isn’t to be without culture, but it’s considered to be. To speak Midwestern English isn’t without accent, but professionally and commercially, it’s considered without accent. It’s normal, bland, and boring. It is without movement because all things move relative to it. It can’t diverge because it’s the path all trails diverge from. Because of power, sure. Because those with power define it so, but arbitrary definitions are no less real.
Being white in America is to actively seek to be different, eccentric, wherever possible identified as a victim.
The American underdog is a long-held tradition, so no one wants to be considered rich, regardless of income. Ethnicity will be played in a sort of weird continuation of the one-drop rule. Some will throw themselves into causes of the oppressed in the hopes of being identified with them. But mainly, white salvation is only found in subculture.
Now, I don’t want to pick on pagans because they’re not actually offensive or harmful and do get mistreated, especially in the Bible belt. But I can’t take them seriously as a religious minority. I can’t be convinced it’s anything more than playing at religion and minority, fun with chats, Internet-purchased incense and daggers, similarly socially awkward adolescents. Certainly, many Christians, many of any religion, are in it artificially and only for appearances, but stick a gun to the head of many and they would say, “Pull the trigger, for to die is gain.” And they’re sure. Never have I met a gun-to-the-head pagan. They want only to feel a victim for something.
Whether being gay is more nature or nurture, I have no idea. If we can accept that some people are born with both sets of physical genitalia, why not homosexual attraction? But if the argument is, “Why would anyone choose to be gay and a victim of prejudice?” this is plainly wrong. Does anyone honestly believe Lindsay Lohan is a lesbian, including Lindsay Lohan? Yet she claims to be and is even personally offended by homophobia. That’s without even getting into actually weird sexual fetishes ranging from BDSM, scat, and genital mutilation, to the just plain odd ones like vore and inflatophilia. Some, like furries, even try to equate their level of discrimination to that of gays and ethnic minorities historically.
Tattoos, piercings, grunge, punk, hippies, Beats, basically every movement or fad since the ’50s and ’60s, there’s a conscious desire by many, if not all, to be set apart, to be noticed for being different. Notice how even Christian groups complain constantly that they’re a minority group being oppressed. To have lots of people agree with you is better than having almost everyone agree with you.
Minorities obviously have their share of identity problems, too. Our president spoke in his first book about the struggle against stereotypes, normalized black American culture, and normalized white American culture that only went away when he visited Kenya for the first time, where his name wasn’t odd or mispronounced, where knowing a name connected one to family history and belonging. “Here the world was black, and so you were just you; you could discover all of those things that were unique to your life without living a lie or betrayal.”
Very true. But freedom isn’t always liberating. Where there’s no group, only milieu, your individualism will still be sought in groups when your identity is in question. Now white flight isn’t to the suburbs but into anything abnormal, for its own sake.
Knowing this, when asked my ethnicity, I say I’m an American. When asked my lineage, I say Euro mutt, or if pushed further, English. I say I’m of the tiny island nation that conquered a fourth the world, made the empire on which the sun never set. I take pride, openly, in my bland, Man, mediocrity. And I worry I do these things not to be true and honest to myself, but because they’re abnormal.
ADJ 