Who we are as a people and a nation has been 400 years in the making.
(This started as a response post but got way too long so I started my own thread.)
Our country was founded on white exceptionalism, and that ideology has been reinforced both passively, and aggressively, through various means. Violence has always been used to subjugate nonwhites and is still used today and is normalized. Check out Sessions and how he plans to roll back protections for nonwhites and go back to prosecuting marijuana. Sessions is old and knows that the drug war has done exactly what was intended, which is defacto segregation via the prison system. They really do want to keep them down.
Anytime a nonwhite is attacked by the police it is always their fault unless there is so much damning evidence that it can't be ignored. Then you just wait quietly for something else to happen so fingers can be pointed to prove that it is really all nonwhites fault and that as a race, they are violent and beneath whites. It is the reason that so many white people cherish the 2nd amendment, especially in the south. These people had a real fear of uprisings (as well they should have) and that fear exists today. In the very rural area in which I live, this fear is overwhelming even though our crime rate is very low. There are many concealed permit holders carrying guns who are waiting for the "war". This fear is ingrained and is part of their DNA. Many have never met a minority of any kind yet still harbor this kind of fear and resentment.
Our institutions have always been a part of perpetuating this myth of white exceptionalism. This goes from the government to the media. Our history is white washed with only a literal token representation during February to pretend to teach about black history. Both print and TV news subscribe to the if it bleeds it leads mantra, and nothing drives sales like nonwhites on the cover, especially if a horrific crime has been committed. Why else do we love to watch shows about, and obsess, over OJ Simpson? There are many very rich people who have committed the same crime without anywhere near the same media attention and focus. John DuPont ring any bells?
Getting a job is also the same. There is a real glass ceiling, and if you dare to break out of the acepted paths to becoming successful, entertainer and athlete, you are constantly told that you are a token or there because of affirmative action and not on your own merits. Whites hate affirmative action so much as they really believe that unqualified minorities are taking their rightful place by trickery. The 8 years of attack on Barack Obama illustrates this point perfectly.Republicans plotted from day one against him, not because he was a democrat, but because he was black.
Even Democrats can fall into this kind of thinking. Uncle Tom is a phrase I have read repeatedly on DU in the 8 years I have been on this board, as if blacks can only have an identity based on a stereotype that dates back to slavery.You see this when our choice for a vice president wasn't a Hispanic or black, but a white man who spoke Spanish. Many really believed that this would help fire up the base.
Of course this isn't all white people, and probably a small minority of people on this forum, but that is another false argument too. The "I can't be __________ because some of my best __________ are __________." Trump uses that argument to show he isn't antisemitic, or playing to that base because of his son-ion-law. You can't have lived in this country from birth and not been touched by the brush or racism and white exceptionalism. I have seen white outrage on this board, with one today prompting this post.
The saving grace in most of this is the young people, who really are changing before our eye and will remake America if they are allowed. They really have embraced many of the Democratic beliefs of tolerance and fair play. This is why the republicans are willing to jump straight into bed with the Russians, no matter the danger to our society. They really believe their way of life is threatened by groups of nonwhites, and if they don't continue to fight back, their country will be lost. Even a dictator is okay, as long as he is white also.