Wright

Maybe I’m misunderstanding him, but Wright seems to be arguing that if white people thought of themselves as part of the white race, rather than as raceless individuals, they’d be less likely to feel victimized by, and resentful of, affirmative action. Has he, or any of the other people who push this notion, ever offered an explanation (as opposed to an assertion) for why this would be? I’d be curious to see something along those lines. It is, after all, the opposite of what one would expect based on America’s history, where the more closely people have associated themselves with their racial and ethnic groups, the more likely they have been to agitate in favor of the interests of that group. Certainly, the history of white America doesn’t inspire much optimism that it will be the exception.

For a broader question, isn’t it incumbent on advocates of more white identity to explain the correlation between a decline in white identity and an increase in tolerance for minority groups over the past half-century? Correlation is not causation of course, but there’s a clear prima facie argument to be made that it is precisely a lack of racial awareness in whites that has made most of the progress on racial issues in this country possible. Their response to this would be interesting, if anyone knows of one.