Fear of a nonwhite America

To end on a more personal note: Since we’re talking about cultural concerns, what about all of the white Americans who internalized the ideal of colorblindness, have tried to live up to it, and see it as a core aspect of the post–Jim Crow American creed — and a logical implication of the highest ideals this country has stood for from the start — even as we realize that ideals are not the same thing as reality? What about all the black Americans who share the goal of colorblindness even if they know it’s still far away? What about all the immigrants who were attracted to the idea of America as somewhere everyone is free to succeed, regardless of race?

My own heritage is some mix of Dutch and German. I didn’t put it together that “Dutch” people come from a place called “the Netherlands” until I was in middle school. (Why are they completely different words and why is “Holland” also a thing?) Despite an acute interest in human genetics, I have never bothered to take an ancestry test. Suffice it to say that not much of my identity is tied up in where my distant ancestors happened to live, and that I don’t really have much to fight for if immigration policy becomes a game of “acting in [one’s] racial self-interest, which is not racist.” Given how common and successful racially inclusive rhetoric is in American politics, I must be far from alone.

Oddly enough, when I think about giving up aspirations toward a post-racial America, I feel the profound sense of loss that Kaufmann imagines white people feel when they see too much demographic change.