Reply #29: It's a yearning for cultural identity.

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I don't have it but I know people who do. They feel like the "white culture" is pushed aside and discouraged from building the same sense of community and unity as other ethnic groups. When I try to explain to them, from my mutt's perspective, that there is no real "white culture" just Swedish, Dutch, French, Norweigen, Italian, Irish, Scottish, British, Swiss, Castillian, Polish, etc. etc. etc. they have one of two responses. If it's Irish, Italian, or sometimes Polish, they can be a smartass and say "well those people aren't really white" or in the case of the others they say "no I mean like the African Americans have." When I point out that Hispanic Americans don't really join together in unison but rather celebrate their ethnic holidays as Mexican, Venezuelan, Cuban, etc etc that doesn't seem to help.

People need to understand that the reason why African Americans have a special sense of community in this country is their common history and experience, and that "whites" don't really have that. Instead what they have is subgroups like "Daughters of the American Revolution" and "children of the Gold Rush" and "wagon train settlers" and, on the less romantic side, "three generations of trailer parks and bologna." It wouldn't hurt if people were encouraged to pull a Saint Patrick's Day stint of debauchery on one of the more "white" American holidays, like President's day or such, or pushing a nordic/american-folk-music day. Just give them something to call their own, force feed it to them until they feel guilty for not participating in it, and then they won't feel quite so alone-in-the-world.

Though that will only fulfill the need. It won't take care of the negative feelings that have been pimped up into a lather by the likes of Limbaugh. That's a separate problem that will take some time to dissipate.

Oh, and by the way, it also wouldn't hurt if there was a national mongrel day where us mutts can celebrate our "hybrid vigor" :-)