Part of the problem is that the ethnic groups white people choose to identify with are often not even real groups in the US. Being "Irish-American" means next to nothing. There's little to no shared experience or history there, which means it is an ethnicity without a price to pick up or put down. White people in the US grow up with the shared experience of whiteness. Just because there's no rational basis for the existence of a white racial or ethnic identity being formed doesn't mean that there isn't a lived experience of being shielded by whiteness. You can't just decide to stop being white, because you have lived a life of whiteness. You can just decide to pick up or put down "German-American" or "Ang*o-American", however, because nothing actually binds them to you.
There is one group, one ethnic identity that has a real concrete connection to the American experience, a group that can transcend the all-consuming bounds of whiteness among Euro descended Americans, and that identity is.....
Part of the problem is that the ethnic groups white people choose to identify with are often not even real groups in the US. Being "Irish-American" means next to nothing. There's little to no shared experience or history there, which means it is an ethnicity without a price to pick up or put down. White people in the US grow up with the shared experience of whiteness. Just because there's no rational basis for the existence of a white racial or ethnic identity being formed doesn't mean that there isn't a lived experience of being shielded by whiteness. You can't just decide to stop being white, because you have lived a life of whiteness. You can just decide to pick up or put down "German-American" or "Ang*o-American", however, because nothing actually binds them to you.
There is one group, one ethnic identity that has a real concrete connection to the American experience, a group that can transcend the all-consuming bounds of whiteness among Euro descended Americans, and that identity is.....
spoiler
G**MERS :only-good-gamer: :freeze-gamer: :gamer-gulag:
Irish-Americans when they get to Ireland and there's no corned beef to be found :frothingfash: