Then what exactly do you do with someone like me? I appear white-ish. However someone pitched me in a blender and called it done. After around well over 1k years of some of ancestors roaming this continent while others only hit in about 300 years ago. I’m a mixed bag. Then there’s those that I’m sure didn’t like the ride here.
So what culture am I? I knew my great grandparents on several sides. Different people. How do you explain me? I’m old. Learned older ways. Me? I always thought I was an American just like it says on the Statue of Liberty. The one that those Ass Clowns in DC seem to have forgotten.
I hear what you’re saying. A lot of people in this country don’t fit neatly into a single story, and that’s real. Mixed histories, long roots, forced migrations, chosen identities — none of that disappears just because the conversation turns to power. In fact, the largest category in the U.S. census for children under 18 doesn’t have a single box at all: multiracial. You don’t need to explain yourself or prove where you belong.
I’m Latina, Spanish, and Italian. My own background is complicated too. I don’t experience this as a clean line between “us” and “them.” Most people don’t.
This piece isn’t about deciding what culture someone is or where they’re allowed to stand. It’s about naming a pattern: what happens when cultural closeness is welcomed until it starts to demand accountability or equality. “White panic” isn’t an identity. It’s a reaction — one that people of many backgrounds, including Hispanics, can participate in when whiteness or access to power feels threatened.
For me, loving America means telling the truth. It means wrestling honestly with colonialism and racism, and naming what’s happening now — including bureaucratic erasure and ethnic cleansing carried out through policy and power.
The point here isn’t to exclude people with complicated histories. Most Americans have them. The point is to ask a harder question that applies to all of us: what do we do when enjoying the culture is no longer the test, and standing up actually costs something?
If this piece resonated or unsettled you, that doesn’t mean you’re outside of it. It means you’re engaging with the question it’s asking — and I appreciate you doing so.
Ouch, and painful mirror of recognition and knowledge.
So many important descriptions of racial society and stratification of communities.
Some folks obsessions with ethnic food and tourist destinations for "exotic" experiences are a sign of our narcissistic need for acceptance by others.
The spectrum of cultural appropriation or assimilation or oppression is as wide and deep as humanity. Where one starts and another begins are paradoxes of our universes.
Fear can be a survival tool that is easily controlled by the wrong talents.
Thank you for reading it that way. What you’re describing — the fixation on “exotic” food, travel, and experiences — is exactly part of the dynamic I was trying to name. It often looks like curiosity or admiration on the surface, but underneath it can be a search for validation without responsibility.
You’re right that the spectrum between appropriation, assimilation, and oppression is wide. The line isn’t always clean. What tends to clarify it is power: who gets to enjoy, who gets to define, and who pays the cost when things stop being comfortable.
Fear does function as a survival instinct, but as you point out, it’s also easily manipulated. When fear is activated around belonging or status, it often reveals hierarchies that were always there, just unspoken.
I appreciate you engaging with the piece so thoughtfully.
What you name so cleanly here is the switch from consumption to consequence—the moment culture stops functioning as aesthetic cover and starts making moral demands.
The line that keeps echoing for me is “proximity is celebrated, accountability is punished”; that’s the quiet rulebook so many of us have felt but struggled to articulate.
Calling this panic rather than ignorance feels right—it’s the fear that equality might actually rearrange power, not just decorate it.
Now that It hits home and white America finally understands what it like for committing the law enforcement perceived crime of "driving while black", perhaps the blinders have been lifted, and hopefully, that same perceived reality will be extended to women by believing them, when they tell you what's happened to them at the hands of some man.
Lisa, you are absolutely right. As a white hetero man, I have so much privilege. I have seen white friends talk about all of their non-white friends, but it is always on their terms. Obviously, the non-white (and female if I may add) don’t say anything and the friends think that all is ok. Many times I had to apologize when they were not there.
The important thing for me to remember is that it is people like me (those with privilege) who need to recognize the truth and change things. I really hope that what we see now is a final attempt to roll back the clock, and that it will fail. The young people that I have worked with have been more accepting of people who are different from them than we were in the 1970s and 1980s.
I hope that I am making sense. Thank you for the article. I will continue to do my share to break down the current structure.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. You’ve really hit at the heart of it. As always, my hope is that those who really need to read this piece will do so. And that people like me can have a deeper understanding of and clarity around behaviors and deep-seated belief systems.
Thank you for naming this. Your analysis is clear and insightful. I think it takes a lot of self awareness for people to recognize this tendency in their own behavior. Sadly, I think most people tend to be woefully unaware of their interior selves.
I can’t subscribe. Sorry. Living off social security. And his retirement money. He said don’t worry. I’ll live to 100. Died of cancer at 73. Barely making ends meet. Almost 80. I’ll be dead before
this administrations shit hits the fan. And probably Trump will be too. We’re both 80. Rofl.
Then what exactly do you do with someone like me? I appear white-ish. However someone pitched me in a blender and called it done. After around well over 1k years of some of ancestors roaming this continent while others only hit in about 300 years ago. I’m a mixed bag. Then there’s those that I’m sure didn’t like the ride here.
So what culture am I? I knew my great grandparents on several sides. Different people. How do you explain me? I’m old. Learned older ways. Me? I always thought I was an American just like it says on the Statue of Liberty. The one that those Ass Clowns in DC seem to have forgotten.
I hear what you’re saying. A lot of people in this country don’t fit neatly into a single story, and that’s real. Mixed histories, long roots, forced migrations, chosen identities — none of that disappears just because the conversation turns to power. In fact, the largest category in the U.S. census for children under 18 doesn’t have a single box at all: multiracial. You don’t need to explain yourself or prove where you belong.
I’m Latina, Spanish, and Italian. My own background is complicated too. I don’t experience this as a clean line between “us” and “them.” Most people don’t.
This piece isn’t about deciding what culture someone is or where they’re allowed to stand. It’s about naming a pattern: what happens when cultural closeness is welcomed until it starts to demand accountability or equality. “White panic” isn’t an identity. It’s a reaction — one that people of many backgrounds, including Hispanics, can participate in when whiteness or access to power feels threatened.
For me, loving America means telling the truth. It means wrestling honestly with colonialism and racism, and naming what’s happening now — including bureaucratic erasure and ethnic cleansing carried out through policy and power.
The point here isn’t to exclude people with complicated histories. Most Americans have them. The point is to ask a harder question that applies to all of us: what do we do when enjoying the culture is no longer the test, and standing up actually costs something?
If this piece resonated or unsettled you, that doesn’t mean you’re outside of it. It means you’re engaging with the question it’s asking — and I appreciate you doing so.
Ouch, and painful mirror of recognition and knowledge.
So many important descriptions of racial society and stratification of communities.
Some folks obsessions with ethnic food and tourist destinations for "exotic" experiences are a sign of our narcissistic need for acceptance by others.
The spectrum of cultural appropriation or assimilation or oppression is as wide and deep as humanity. Where one starts and another begins are paradoxes of our universes.
Fear can be a survival tool that is easily controlled by the wrong talents.
Thank you for reading it that way. What you’re describing — the fixation on “exotic” food, travel, and experiences — is exactly part of the dynamic I was trying to name. It often looks like curiosity or admiration on the surface, but underneath it can be a search for validation without responsibility.
You’re right that the spectrum between appropriation, assimilation, and oppression is wide. The line isn’t always clean. What tends to clarify it is power: who gets to enjoy, who gets to define, and who pays the cost when things stop being comfortable.
Fear does function as a survival instinct, but as you point out, it’s also easily manipulated. When fear is activated around belonging or status, it often reveals hierarchies that were always there, just unspoken.
I appreciate you engaging with the piece so thoughtfully.
When the world assaults your senses and your brain seeks calm, rational arguments and positions based on hope and joy are a refuge.
What you name so cleanly here is the switch from consumption to consequence—the moment culture stops functioning as aesthetic cover and starts making moral demands.
The line that keeps echoing for me is “proximity is celebrated, accountability is punished”; that’s the quiet rulebook so many of us have felt but struggled to articulate.
Calling this panic rather than ignorance feels right—it’s the fear that equality might actually rearrange power, not just decorate it.
Now that It hits home and white America finally understands what it like for committing the law enforcement perceived crime of "driving while black", perhaps the blinders have been lifted, and hopefully, that same perceived reality will be extended to women by believing them, when they tell you what's happened to them at the hands of some man.
As always your storytelling and social lenses are insightful and useful for me to ponder and reflect on. Thank you.
Thank you
. I’ll be reading this on repeat and sharing.
Thank you Anita for engaging so thoughtfully being here.
In 1981 the band Black Flag released a song called white minority. It’s 2026 would you say this is relevant today ?
Here are the lyrics
We're gonna be a white minority
We won't listen to the majority
We're gonna feel inferiority
We're gonna be white minority
White pride
You're an American
I'm gonna hide
Anywhere I can
Gonna be a white minority
We don't believe there's a possibility
Well you just wait and see
We're gonna be white minority
White pride
You're an American
White pride
Anywhere I can?
Gonna be a white minority
There's gonna be large cavity
Within my new territory
We're all gonna die
Lisa, you are absolutely right. As a white hetero man, I have so much privilege. I have seen white friends talk about all of their non-white friends, but it is always on their terms. Obviously, the non-white (and female if I may add) don’t say anything and the friends think that all is ok. Many times I had to apologize when they were not there.
The important thing for me to remember is that it is people like me (those with privilege) who need to recognize the truth and change things. I really hope that what we see now is a final attempt to roll back the clock, and that it will fail. The young people that I have worked with have been more accepting of people who are different from them than we were in the 1970s and 1980s.
I hope that I am making sense. Thank you for the article. I will continue to do my share to break down the current structure.
🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
It’s so hard for my fellow yt people to let go of the access and push through the discomfort. Thank you for your thoughtful piece.
Your insights are so helpful as I grapple with my own history as a white person. Thank you.
Good analysis of this phenomenon.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and leave a comment. Truly appreciate. you being here and being willing to engage in the conversation.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. You’ve really hit at the heart of it. As always, my hope is that those who really need to read this piece will do so. And that people like me can have a deeper understanding of and clarity around behaviors and deep-seated belief systems.
Thank you for naming this. Your analysis is clear and insightful. I think it takes a lot of self awareness for people to recognize this tendency in their own behavior. Sadly, I think most people tend to be woefully unaware of their interior selves.
Thank you for calling out the safety of “hierarchy” and the falseness of the performance.
I can’t subscribe. Sorry. Living off social security. And his retirement money. He said don’t worry. I’ll live to 100. Died of cancer at 73. Barely making ends meet. Almost 80. I’ll be dead before
this administrations shit hits the fan. And probably Trump will be too. We’re both 80. Rofl.
Maybe you’re just a jerk. And maybe I am.
Whichever is the case it doesn’t change the oppressive fact that Trump and his toadies (Including Steven Miller) are a cancer on this nation.