Perhaps "white" is not a group people should identify with. "Black" is meaningful in the US because it represents a distinct group of people who have a common

Perhaps "white" is not a group people should identify with. "Black" is meaningful in the US because it represents a distinct group of people who have a common culture, not because they have dark skin. The thousands of ethnic groups that live in subsaharan Africa aren't "black" in this cultural sense. Black Americans are a uniquely American ethnic group that was formed from broadly west African stock (i.e., various ethnic and tribal groups in that part of the continent). This is not to deny the racial characteristics, only that ethnicity, while it tracks race, is not strictly racial. Capital W "White", on the other hand, is not an ethnic group. The history of this term is a rather strange one. The US used to be a patchwork of ethnic European neighborhoods. Only later was the label "white" imposed on them over time, especially as they lost their ethnic character through assimilation. But because this imposed identity isn't a real ethnic identity, it doesn't really have any substance. So the content of that identity is supplied by whoever controls the meaning of that label. And because those who control it have determined that "white" means "racist", you will have adopted the identity of "racist". So what do you do? You take on that identity and then either do penance for how bad you are or you double down and "own" your supposed racism. Or you renounce or reject whiteness as your identity. Frankly, because it's not a real identity, the last option is the best it seems, but then what are you? In the US, once assimilation happens, your only remaining identity is religious identity; American identity itself is vacuous. Religious identity functions as a kind of substitute for ethnic identity (though I would argue not entirely). Even if you don't believe the faith of your ancestors, your cultural upbringing can still reflect that history in some way (this reminds me of how someone in Ireland might have asked "Yes, we know you're an atheist, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?"; absurd in that religious identity is more fundamental than cultural identity, but still provides insight). Now with the waning of religious identity, American identity crises are flaring up again. This is a crisis of identity. This is why ideologies and subculture are attractive to people: they're (very mediocre) substitutes for ethnic and religious identity. We are in the middle of a religious war, a war for the soul of a society. Secular liberalism, itself a religion, has been demonstrated to be unworkable, not least because the very pluralism it purports to celebrate is its executioner. No social order tolerates a true pluralism of religion because then these other religions would not be subject to the constraints of the religion of the social order which is impractical. Here, liberal tolerance constrains the scope of valid religions according to its own norms. This liberalism lasted as long as it did because there was at least a very broad religious consensus which is now finished, but even then the situation was tense. Gutted of this consensus, the collapse of a hollow worldview is accelerated. Motus in fine velocior.