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The Brothers Krynn's avatar

I'm gonna be honest I don't think of myself as white, I'm Metis (part Native), but I mostly regard myself as Franco-Irish (ethnically,my family is a mix of Scottish, English, Native and Irish on my mother's side, on my father's it is French, Native and possibly Irish). This is not uncommon in French Canada, where the French mated primarily with either the Irish or the Natives, as the three 'minority' groups at the founding banded together to protect themselves from the 'big bad Anglo-Saxons'.

What's interesting in my background is that my English ancestors chose to in time assimilate to French, despite coming from England.

That is when I think of race at all (not often, to us French culture is absolute ethnicity is secondary).

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Rods of Iron's avatar

There is some weird (subconscious I think) substitution of white and American. One accepts that a heritage American is one of likely mixed NW Europe ancestry and yet slavery first and the continuation of a black ethnicity that has every right to be called American, then mass migration with little to no integration really muddies the water. There’s an honest yearning for more cohesion that we sense used to be, but there are already at least 5 subcultures on the continent. Even depending on where you are in the states, saying ‘that’s what white people do’ means different things, but would concede there is a broader category. I usually find it kind of low status to think of myself as white or even talk about it. I know who my people are and who they aren’t and it’s fairly organic. Humans are more complex and layered than that and certain things are left to more subtle understandings and cues. There is certainly more integration in the South and southwest particularly Texas and surrounding where there has been natural integration going on between the Tejanos, Mexicans and Anglo settlers for over 200 years resulting in a thicker unique regional culture. At least until the mass invasion of the last 3 decades...

It was a good faith conversation there just seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what is being said and what time it is and how to respond politically. The anti-white rhetoric creates understandable anger and makes people act in ways subject to propaganda as you tried to point out.

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