Rising Anxiety Among American Whites
nationalgeographic.com
nationalgeographic.com
If you're a white person hearing day in an day out about your inherent power in society, and how much you've benefited from "your people's" exploitation of others, the first thing I can guarantee is that you're much more likely to be defensively thinking along these terms of group identity. Regardless of whether or not those perceptions of privilege hold true for your specific situation, a part of you gains awareness that a non-negligible faction is making these categorizations on your behalf.
Where the identitarian reaction kicks in fully, though, is among the people for whom these tales of privilege and power quite clearly do not hold true. If you're born to two alcoholic parents who beat you and got you working in the coal mines as soon as you possibly could, it's not difficult to see why the prevailing narrative doesn't sound appealing. The absolute baseline human response to feeling attacked along these hard group lines is an identitarian outcry taking various forms, the mildest of which could be classified as "rising anxiety." I'm not saying that this is a good thing, I think it's a terrible thing, I just also happen to think it is an obvious result of the economic and political climate. Trump and his supporters are not a disease, they're an ill-conceived, but expected reactionary symptom.
The anxiety is not only among American Whites but also among Black Americans, and 2nd and 3rd generation Americans who speak only English. At least in cities like mine (Miami, Florida).
It's not just a fear but a real problem because people cannot get jobs here unless they speak Spanish. Black Americans can sometimes get hired without knowing Spanish, but never whites or 3rd generation "Hispanics" who speak only English.
Worse than that is that many businesses will not do any business in English. And they are somehow certified. At all levels. I personally have dealt with business owners, real estate agents, small retail store owners, investors, technicians, restaurant owners, and more who speak no English, only Spanish. You can't even order a pizza in English. My English-speaking son was hung-up on because he tried to order a pizza in English (I speak Spanish so I have to do the ordering).
There are pockets of Miami where English is spoken in businesses, particularly the tourist areas by the beach or downtown. Because it's treated like a foreign language. Also, government offices and libraries still mostly speak English.
There is real discrimination against non-Spanish speakers and white Americans. I don't know if data exists that shows this but it's witnessed and is common knowledge among people who live here.
This was not the case 21 years ago when I began having children. That's why I didn't think it was mandatory to teach my children Spanish. People still spoke English. Now, my kids will likely not get jobs unless we move elsewhere, which is easier said than done.
After all, it seems like racial disparities between whites and people of color still exist, with whites on top (https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-significan...). So the real wealth transfer seems to be from low-income whites to high-income whites. Bear in mind, I don't think that's a good thing at all. Indeed, it seems like the antipathy would be better directed at the wealthy, rather than people of color. Or the energy would be better spent lobbying for help transitioning economically away from dying industries like coal power. But somehow this nebulous notion of racial pride gets dragged into the conversation instead. I suppose that's just people being people, but it doesn't leave me too optimistic about our prospects for a more peaceful and sane future.
We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it,” he said. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
It makes sense today, too. If the wealthy can convince the poor that their hardships are caused by immigrants, then the newly poor won't consider how much of their previous wealth is being concentrated in a few hands.
Honestly, if a community wants to be made of a particular homogeneous ethnicity or race it'd be much better if they were very up-front about it. Its fine, not everyone needs to be multi-cultural or multi-ethnic.
I'm looking at examples like Japan, they make it very difficult for outsiders to integrate, see the various "Gaijin" articles out there. I'm OK with this, Japan is up-front about it, you don't get to a case where you immigrate to Japan and the locals start complaining about losing their "ways".
Really, just say up front, only WASP's allowed.
Similarly, it's really just a natural human response that people of European descent are experiencing anxiety in their native countries when faced with large scale migration.
I think that a lot of people are unwilling to give sympathy to Europeans because of the recent history of European colonization across the world.
But it's not some failing of white people in particular that they in some cases may have anxiety about their communities changing. It's just a result of the human condition, human social behavior. As such they do deserve sympathy. Just like the hypothetical Iranians or Japanese in my prior example.
If you examine "may have anxiety about their communities changing", it clearly implies they think non-whites are changing their community for the worse. It also implies the community belongs to the whites, and they get to define it.
Alternatively, they could (but don't) view their community as something they share, becoming more diverse, more interesting, more inclusive, etc.
It's not pretty in any circumstance.
It doesn't matter how the change manifests itself. People often dislike change, especially of communities they are familiar with.
Hence my point that it's not a problem with white people, but rather a condition of human beings. If a community of majority Latinos became subject to sudden white immigration, I'm sure there would be a certain amount of anxiety on the part of the original residents. I can understand and sympathize with these anxieties though.
Can you?
Whereas people of color I know are worried about being in the wrong town after dark, after Charlottesville showed white supremacists are now bold enough to march in the open. The plight of white people no longer being on top is really not that dangerous or urgent.
Another thing, one is not a whitesupremacist just because he disagrees with your political opinions.
Yet, when compared, it is diminished. Loss of a privileged place in society doesn't hold a candle to the suffering of those who are still struggling to obtain one.
I didn't say those who disagreed with me were white supremacists just for disagreeing. I said white supremacists marched in Charlottesville because, in fact, there were people marching there, arguing for suppressing non-white minorities. Not that hard to grok.
Is it really more dangerous to be black and in the wrong place than to be white and in the wrong place? I'm not from your country but this is certainly not the impression one gets; I do know a white guy from Baltimore who would disagree, anyway...
A white guy wandering in the Baltimore ghettos is liable to be robbed, but no worse. But a black guy in the wrong place is liable to have the police called, which carries the threat of death.
It's not "Change", it's an engineered "Replacement".
Mass immigration is the State's way of electing a new populace.
Mass immigration is the population's way of integrating a new population. Consider that it's the population which elects the state, at least in our case.