Gaul Atreides (@gaulatreides)

One is the fact that, as a former colonial power, race and racial conflict is central to the lived experience of all Americans. As the country becomes more diverse, this factor is going to become stronger, not weaker—for the same reason race is such a dominant factor in U.S. prisons. Correct. This is already happening in America. I wrote about this a while ago, making the point that the salience of Whiteness as a personal identifier will increase alongside the increase in proximate racial diversity. Understanding that White Americans don't have the strong ethnic touchstones which are familiar to Europeans (owing to our high rate of interethnic marriage), it was always more likely to be a broadly White racial identity that would coalesce in the consciousness of White Americans. In a 90% White America, Whites reflexively preferred to identify themselves by their particular ethnic ancestry, if they thought about their racial heritage at all. In 60-50-40% White America, Whites will reflexively prefer to identify themselves by their Whiteness, and because of America's influence on Europe, Europeans will slowly inch toward a similar pan-White identity, converging with the racial consciousness percolating in America.