I really appreciate the discussion on white privilege and framing it as "freedom" and understanding how this country really isn't a free society for most people of color. One thing I would love to have part of the conversation is class and understanding the different privileges that wealthy people vs. poor white people get and understanding the history on why they wanted they divide people.
As for the TED talk, I appreciate the understanding around Native identity and the erasure we haved in our society such as, "You have to look Native" and that is disconnected from the idea that Indigenous people is not a racial identity but a political identity that has been racialized in our society to make them all "one" people.
I agree that the framing of "white culture" as being one that almost fetishizes, and thoroughly enjoys, freedom, is helpful in understanding it better. It really makes all the resistance to Covid precautions make more sense. I associate this emphasis on freedom with conservative, redneck, NRA white culture. But I agree with Brian, that class is a big part of this discussion. I have a lot of class prejudice. It's like, I can SEE white culture when it's what I just described. But educated, middle-class white culture? That's a bit harder for me to define. I feel self-righteous about it. Which is what I guess a lot of conservative white Americans think about liberal whites. They're probably not wrong. At any rate, I feel like I need to sit down with pen and paper and try to define my own culture. It's pretty outrageous that I would find that hard to do.
Cheryl I don’t have any answers because I am in the muck with you trying to figure this out as a fellow white person. I just wanted to comment that your post resonated with me because I’m struggling with the same thoughts, observations and questions and I agree the intersection of race and class (especially amongst white people) is quite pernicious and confusing. in my experience, class/SES is still a quite taboo layer of identity that is not openly broached or discussed amongst most.
One of the things I am going to teach my kids is to not feel entitled or feel like the norm. There is no norm, there are no entitlements. We are all sharing this world, we were all born with nothing and we all leave with nothing.