
Rising Anxiety Among American Whites - 11thEarlOfMar
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-rising-anxiety-white-america/
======
ralusek
Identity politics beget identity politics, and it's _always_ bad, period. The
amount of comments in this thread alone talking about what "white people" are
and aren't entitled to feel based off of their own privileges is
representative of the wider left's own brand of identity politics, and quite
frankly, racism.

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.

------
isabelc
This has nothing to do with skin color or racism on the part of white
Americans.

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.

------
rotexo
I observe that the article starts out talking about closing coal mines and the
decline of manufacturing jobs. As a white person, it sounds to me like the
white people interviewed for this article face declining economic prospects
(understandably of concern), notice an increased abundance of people of color
around them, and then feel angry about the people of color. Emotions are of
course not rational things, but I don't really understand the leap there.

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...](https://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/16/report-finds-
significant-racial-ethnic-disparities/)). 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.

~~~
kej
Your comment reminds me of this story told by Bill Moyers about LBJ:

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.

~~~
rotexo
YES to that LBJ quote. I seem to recall also reading a similar observation
backed up quite thoroughly with statistics in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim
Crow.

------
nulldereference
This will probably be unpopular but here goes.

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.

------
sbinthree
Sure, people can reskill, but it is quite hard to do as life goes on and
poverty makes it hard to justify going back to school for four years of CS
that many of these people probably can't make sense of. Don't know what the
solution is, other than encourage people to retrain. People seem to perceive
big companies talking about people needing to learn to code as a way for them
to reduce wages, when in practice most software companies would hire as many
competent developers as they can and you just can't find the people with the
skills.

------
meri_dian
The effect of one's culture and surroundings changing will naturally be
anxiety. Consider a proud ethno-cultural place like Iran or Japan. If a large
number of non-persian or non-japanese people began moving into each of those
respective countries, the result would be anxiety among the established
majority.

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.

~~~
KingMob
While you can argue that racism is universal, that doesn't excuse anyone for
racist behavior, whether they're Japanese, Iranian, or American.

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.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Tribalism is a part of human nature and you engage in it, too.

It's not pretty in any circumstance.

------
alexandercrohde
This is one of those discussions where I almost feel like the comments are
deliberately trying to be provocative.

------
KingMob
Wow, yet another article asking heartland white people what they think. The
worst they have to deal with is anxiety about loss of power and jobs.

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.

~~~
Knufen
Yes, how horrible it is to think of other people. And honestly, one problem
does not diminish another.

Another thing, one is not a whitesupremacist just because he disagrees with
your political opinions.

~~~
KingMob
> And honestly, one problem does not diminish another.

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.

------
patrickg_zill
"In 2000 Hazleton’s 23,399 residents were 95 percent non-Hispanic white and
less than 5 percent Latino. By 2016 Latinos became the majority, composing 52
percent of the population, while the white share plunged to 44 percent."

It's not "Change", it's an engineered "Replacement".

Mass immigration is the State's way of electing a new populace.

~~~
eganist
> 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.

~~~
patrickg_zill
I wish you were correct. However there seems to be plenty of evidence that
shows the State does what it wants to do, regardless of the opinion of the
people. One example would be Obama promising to close Gitmo, and he was
elected with a plurality ; yet Gitmo was never closed.

