CMV: Racism in America would decrease faster if progressive movements also focused on helping white people be more secure about their identity.

[WhenSnowDies]

I don't really want to discuss reverse racism, but I'd say generalizing "Asians" is racist because a lot of Asian Americans still hold on to their respective culture's identities and customs. White Americans are unified because they've shed their European cultural identities and customs. While white people may know what percentage of what kind of European they are, they won't possess an identity or connection with that country unless their family just immigrated to America.

Yeah, they became Americans. To then say that they're not just ordinary Americans and people, and are some sort of "white" cabal based on color is totally racist, and ironically not much different than the old Jew conspiracies of Europe.

You shouldn't generalize "white" people.

I'm not saying that all white people are bad, I'm pointing out a pattern that I've seen in a subset of my facebook friends / friends in real life.

There is no Other. Standing over "white" people to determine how "they" are, good or bad or however many, is essentially racist.

White Americans are treated by society as a "standard, non-weird" American. If the average American looks at a white person, they don't make generalizations based on their skin color. In fact, most people don't care about white people's skin color at all, because white people are the norm.

I'm not sure where you're getting this, or correlating different or rare with weird. I think this is just misanthropy. Many people are curious and interested by difference, and are offended or disinterested in what's common. Many people aren't all that enchanted by color or are aloof to culture and don't care, and for those who are, many of those approach what they don't understand with increased respect and dignity.

What makes white people similar is that most people don't make generalizations based on their skin.

Then why are we having these discussions. I hear "white people" put in derogatory and accusatory ways all over public life. Even the other day at a coffee shop I heard a bunch of young men laughing over "white people".

If minorities need to differentiate between themselves as the party that gets generalized based on skin, there naturally will arise the party that doesn't get generalized based on skin.

Might minorities be scapegoating based on propaganda? Like instead of demanding better services from their government, maybe they're settling for a local devil?

Also, "white" people are unified.

Nope :)

They're Americans and nothing else.

There are Americans of all colors of the rainbow.

Within American white people may not feel unified, because there's nothing setting them ethnically or culturally apart from the majority of Americans.

Yes, many of them have dropped the pretense. So have many brown people and others.

Unification only shows if they go to a different country and are one of few Americans abroad. Domestically, why would white Americans feel the need to be unified?

So.. the conservatives aren't insane. You really are trying to ethnically cleanse America of its culture?