I would note that in the educational culture of the past few decades, a black person who proudly labels himself as "black" and a white person who proudly labels himself as "white" are not going to get equivalent treatment. So white people not talking about being white may not be all that much a matter of internal motivation; it may be partly recognition of external penalties, ranging from being thought rude to being administratively disciplined to being sued. Even some white people who honestly feel that they are being abused for the benefit of black people (and that includes a fair number of white people who are getting the short end of the stick) may know that they can't avow their whiteness, or that they must do so very carefully. "Say it now and say it loud,/I'm white and I'm proud" would not be a very popular chant.
In other words, I think it's fallacious to infer internal sense of identity directly from overt behavior in a non-neutral social context—and the United States is definitely a non-neutral social context, not in a uniform way but in a complex and often contradictory one.
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zvi and
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Date: 2009-04-29 04:33 pm (UTC)In other words, I think it's fallacious to infer internal sense of identity directly from overt behavior in a non-neutral social context—and the United States is definitely a non-neutral social context, not in a uniform way but in a complex and often contradictory one.