First of all let me say that I really, deeply appreciate that you responded to my comment in a genuine and respectful way, I think the more we can set aside our political differences and just discuss our dissagreements rationally the better.
I will take your points one at a time.
First of all you bring up police executions. I am not an American, but like most people throughout the world I am intimately aware of American issues. A few weeks ago if I remember correctly Philip Defranco showed a video of a black man who had been pulled over for a minor infringement politely inform the officer that he was carrying and that he was just reaching for his licence, and the officer panicked and killed him. That video made me violently angry and sad. If every case of police brutality was as cut and dried as that, I would feel differently about BLM than I do. But when I hear chants calling for dead cops, I lose all sympathy. Another big reason for my disdain for BLM is that one of the main points of the thought leaders for BLM is that white people do not care enough, and that they are silent or dismissive of black issues. And when Justine Damond was killed these same people said it was unreasonable for white people to think they should give a damn. When BLM first appeared I was naturally sympathetic, It was steady exposure to the attitudes and actions of its members that caused my switch.
Finally onto your point about identification with a group. I never saw myself as being a “white" person. (It is telling that I have no idea whether you are white or not). I saw myself as an individual first. The point I am making, is that when it came to early American immigration for a variety of cultural and other reasons the new immigrants did not view their ethnicity or nation as being that big a part of their identity. Therefore they were able to easily adopt an American cultural identity instead. But when immigrants from more collectivist cultures migrate to America they tend to be more resistant to learning the language, to integrating into society, and to seeing their prominent identity as being American. I am obviously not saying that some German immigrants didn’t hold onto some level of a German identity for some time, or that no non-white or Catholic immigrants made a valiant effort to become American. I am talking about trends, not absolutes.
And this has little to do with a feeling of superiority, white countries could be backward and primitive and the fact that accepting migrants who will, for whatever reason not integrate, is not a good thing would remain. It shouldn’t matter whether individualism is “better" or not it matters if the country was founded on those principles, and if the ethnic majority wants it to remain that way.
And as to me viewing myself as intrinsically superior to non-whites or the question which is your main premise, which is whether or not it is viable to put your identity in something that is arguably illusory, like race.
As a Christian I do not believe that my race gives me any intrinsic value over anyone else. The reason why young white men like me become racially conscious is because we see that non whites instinctively support and identify with their racial group. Movements like BLM, and La Raza, and institutions like the National Black Caucus and AIPAC all have implicit or explicit goals of ethnic interest, while politicians like Donald Trump who speak almost exclusively in civic nationalist terms are painted as unjustly advocating for the interests of white America as a group.
My end point is this. If we in the Western World are living in a radically individualistic society of the kind you advocate for, in which people like me feel no special sense of kinship with my ethnic brethren, as such things are based on illusions, then the moral argument for affirmative action is gone, and it should be abolished. And any movement like BLM should be scorned as advocating for the protection of an illusory people group who do not even exist.
Either that or non-violent movements advocating for white nationalism are A OK.
