I’ve heard and read several different assertions regarding the non-existence of White Culture, from a number of different sources. Each time I reacted defensively.

I am white, so the statement suggests that I have no culture. Which feels somehow like calling my humanity into question. So I lash back.

Eventually, I exhaust myself and my defenses fall. Then I breath and consider the question: What is White culture? What are its values, its myths, it patterns of behavior and perception?

I can find no answer, except those that connect directly with systems of White Supremacy.

Some months ago, in a discussion thread following her blog post on the movie “Get Out,” my colleague, Enger Allen described attending the People’s Institute anti-racism training. The participants were asked “What do you like about being your race?” People of color in the room answered with elements of their culture: values, modes of behavior or expression, music, food, art and the like.

White people in the room responded with elements of privilege: not being scrutinized, a sense belonging in the institutions of society, opportunities and access. The contrast was stark. It raised for me this question:

Is there any substance to White culture, apart from participation in its privilege?

The fact that Whiteness was an invented category of the late 16th century is so well documented as to need no further comment. The critical point of said analysis is not so much that Whiteness is artificial, but rather, that there was a purpose in its creation. Whiteness was explicitly and consciously invented to divide people and to establish a hierarchy by that division. The function of Whiteness was to establish and protect the social privilege of those who would be considered White. It continues in this function today.

This essential function determined the nature of the psuedo-culture that emerged from Whiteness. White psuedo-culture didn’t arise out of nothing. It was constructed, initially, from pieces of English culture.

But it used a very particular slice and moment of English culture: that of early-modernism and the proto-enlightenment. This was a culture that, in the main, valued individualism at the expense of collectivism, perceived (if not actual) innovation at the expense of tradition, and de-personalized instruction (especially the written word) at the expense of inter-personal learning. It was, at least in some senses, an anti-culture.

In this way, it served as the perfect basis for Whiteness. If the essential function of White culture is to preserve White privilege, then the essential nature of White identity is to not be Black. Whereas before English, French and Scottish colonists would have understood themselves as being very different peoples, with distinct (and often oppositional) history, now they could band together in the knowledge that they were not Black, and in the benefits and social capital this knowledge provided. Together, they became White.

But not without cost. Adoption of White identity required rejection of national and ethnic identity, at least to a certain extent. Enlightenment values, which, to a degree, overlooked such identities constituted an ideal template for this rejection.

The process of cultural rejection was particular evident as the category of Whiteness slowly expanded to include the Irish, Northern Mediterraneans and Eastern Europeans. Because these groups all broadly looked the part, they all received the benefits of Whiteness, up to a point. But to fully enjoy White privilege, they were expected, and required to assimilate as ‘Americans’ (a term that, in this country, has always been a code for Whites) and abandon their ethnic identities. Because the social and economic privileges of Whiteness are so seductive, these new Whites, by and large, accepted the bargain.

It’s worth considering the two major counter-narratives to this pattern. The first would be the way people of color have responded to the same bargain. We are told that if non-whites would just assimilate to American culture, that is, pay the cost of abandoning their culture; they would stand on equal footing, and be allowed to participate equally in society. But, ‘American’ culture has always been a White culture: You have to look the part to participate. Effectively, people of color are asked to pay the cost of abandoning culture without receiving the goods of White privilege. Hence, after trying out, and flirting with the bargain, many communities of color have ultimately rejected it.

The second major counter narrative would be that of Jewish people in America. Ashkenazi Jews in American have, largely, accepted the bargain of Whiteness, but with reservation. Broadly speaking, even secular Jews maintain a self-consciously distinct culture and identity, in a way that very few other White groups have. This results in a condition of probationary Whiteness for Ashkenazi Jews in America: Jewish people get to be White until the shit hits the fan, at which point their Whiteness is revoked. The re-emergence of explicit and vicious anti-Semitism in the current White Nationalist moment would seem to confirm this pattern.

I believe White pseudo-culture, and the abandonment of pre-White European ethnic cultures is important. I believe it conditions our White fragility, and our propensity for cultural appropriation.

When we (White people) go to address structures of racism and white-supremacy, we go to face the reality that we participate in, and benefit from oppressive privileges. Conscience requires us to reject them, if possible. Often at the very same moment, we begin to see how culture provides people of color with resources to address hardship: it is a fountain of strength, encouragement and wisdom. We lack these resources. We abandoned them long ago. To dismantle our privilege would be to reject the wages we received for abandoning these things. Hence we react defensively.

We look to ourselves, and find nothing where cultural identity should be. We see how people of color draw strength from culture and identity. We are envious. So we attempt to claim what they possess and we do not. Hence, we misappropriate.

Given that we are still a majority in this country; that we will continue as a plurality for some time, and more importantly, that we participate in disproportionate economic, political and social power, these defensive impulses will work continually to sabotage efforts at racial justice in this country. (There are, of course, others factors that will also work to sabotage such efforts, most notably social and economic self-interest.)

Therefore, it would appear there are two viable paths toward for racial justice. The first would be for people of color to voluntarily exit White social, political and economic institutions. Many very smart people have advocated exactly for this. I am personally opposed to the idea, as it would require the division of my family. Moreover I doubt the aforementioned institutions of power would allow people of color to opt out without a fight.

Regardless, my perspective on this option is irrelevant, as it would fall to people of color to make the decision to opt out. Many have already. I personally, cannot act on it, one way or the other.

The second path would require White people to begin creating new cultures, cultures not rooted in Whiteness, to fill the existential lack we have inflicted on ourselves. Since this is an option I can act on, I would like to direct at least some attention toward it.

As far as projects of racial-justice go, this is hardly a priority. Remedy for the gross racialized inequities of our economic, legal and politic systems, along with an end to racist violence that perpetually threatens brown bodies is drastically more urgent.

Still, unless we address this underlying anxiety, I suspect we (White people) will always, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally hamstring efforts to dismantle white supremacist structures.

I don’t know exactly how such a project, of creating new cultures not rooted in white supremacy, would function.

There are precedents. It’s worth noting that Black culture, which, among other things, arose to resist, survive and undermine White supremacy, did not arise wholly as a matter of happenstance. There were at times (including the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Power Movement), specific, conscious and intentional efforts to grow and develop such a culture or resistance and survival.

There is also material to work with. The erasure of pre-White ethnic identities is, like all human endeavors, incomplete. Remnants of European ethnic identities exist throughout White culture: in music, in stories, in faith, in a vague feeling of connection to our various nations of origin (though often without an understanding of what these connections mean.) In a way this is encouraging, it suggests that there are pieces to pick up, and rebuild from.

And there are people making the attempt.

I suspect the Hipster culture of the last decade has been one such attempt (and I say this acknowledging that not all Hipsters are white.) Unfortunately it has all too often participated in patterns of appropriation, displacement and gentrification.

There are certain religious groups that are attempting something similar. I was recently discussing these issues with Paul Vasille, the director of “Music that Makes Community,” an organization that helps congregations learn to sing without printed music. One of their trainers Anna Hernandez told me, “We only have to do these workshops because society spent years teaching folks that this wasn’t how you do music.” I interpret this statement as evidence of White psuedo-cultural conditioning: a conditioning that values de-personalized (that is, written) knowledge at the expense of inter-personal learning. One way to understand the work of MMC is that they are attempting to help people unlearn this conditioning (again, I say this acknowledging that, like Anna, not all MMC participants are White.)

There are also many potential pitfalls. The growth of neo-Odinism among many White Nationalist groups is, itself, an attempt to reclaim a kind of pre-American identity, but carried forth in a way that promotes White Supremacy, rather than challenges it. The project I suggest could end up on the same road

Likewise, in a recent article DiDi Delgado noted how the propagation of aspirationally anti-racist White affinity groups has often devolved into a re-centering of Whiteness in racial justice spaces. A project of rebuilding non-White supremacist cultures could very easily fall into the same trap.

I have no real answers to this quandary: just a sense that, alongside the more pressing work of confronting racial injustice, it’s something I need to look at. At least for myself.

Because, underneath it all there is a sort of existential crisis: I will never be able to say who I am, unless I can confront the absurdity of a White supremacist project that constructed a whole region of my identity.