The Return of Whiteness

And How to Respond

In the summer of 2020, as protests unfolded throughout the streets of America highlighting a response to police brutality, there appeared to be a watershed moment. This was the moment that a new America was being forged. Books on ‘white fragility’ gained traction. The New York Times’ 1619 Project emerged to “reframe the country’s history.” Antiracism research centers were founded at leading universities. The term ‘white privilege’ dominantly trended online.

Fast-forward to 2024, just four years later, and a new phenomenon seems to be defining the moment: the return of whiteness. What is it, and what should be the response?

Whiteness in Flux

To most people, the return of whiteness appears to be a misnomer – when did whiteness even go away? In July 2015, the Census Bureau reported that “just over half – 50.2% – of U.S. babies younger than one year old were racial or ethnic minorities.” While the great replacement theory may be a white supremacist talking point, it is clear that the West as a whole and the U.S. in particular has become browner and blacker, in most part due to migration. This has been numerical and demographic and is also reflected in the social and cultural character of the wider society. Whatever the reasons and whether or not this is intrinsically good or bad, it has been a growing phenomenon.

Simultaneously, globally, non-white powers have been on the rise. While China has been the tilt of the global order, at the middling level of Middle Earth, India and the Gulf countries have shifted the weight of capital and industry away from Europe. American whites increasingly get on flights to see the browns to raise their next round.

America has been the world’s dominant power for about a century. Before this, the British Empire was at the pole position. The contestation of multiple European powers to dominate the globe through colonialism in the centuries prior—itself coming after the Renaissance—meant that whites were backed by might for nearly half a millennium.

To interrogate this reality means one must be dispassionate and color-blind. Of course, there was domination by one part of the world of the other. Yet that power dynamic brought both ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ White powers led the slavery movement. Conversely, white powers also led the abolitionist movement globally, including in Africa and the Middle East. White powers fostered concepts of individual freedom for modern men and women in the Age of Enlightenment. At the same time, white powers perpetuated genocides of epic proportions and used nuclear weapons for the first and only time. Much more can be said regarding the scientific revolution, technological innovation, and advancement of health and life expectancy. That exploration is best left for another thread.

In any case, within the public narrative of the last two decades, there has been a concerted effort to build a more inclusive frame of the West, especially in light of demographics, immigration, and culture, and as the rest of the world – which is mostly non-white – caught up. Westernness and whiteness were effectively decoupled. To be in the West and to be white were no longer synonymous. And, gradually, whiteness as a construct itself was heavily maligned.

Discarding Whiteness and its Discontents

Most Americans and even guardians of the West would not claim ‘whiteness’ as a pre-requisite to anything. Yet something happened over the last several years—the civilizational baby was also thrown out with the bathwater. Founders of nations, from John A. Macdonald in Canada to Thomas Jefferson in the U.S., were discarded as shameful relics of history. Even the founder of the modern political America, Woodrow Wilson, was nullified. The origins of Westernism were thrown out in an effort to discard whiteness and balance the equation.

Empowerment of visible minorities also has become perceived by some as a zero-sum effort at the cost of the white plurality. The justification for a zero-sum approach was influenced by the sociological construct of white privilege. While undoubtedly rooted in the very real racial impediments in the United States, the effort to remove ‘white privilege’ also relegated the plight of poor whites to the side.

Since the 1980s, one of the groups most affected economically has been midwestern whites, alongside urban blacks, due to the hollowing of America’s industrial base combined with an inflow of immigration that depressed wage growth. Urban blight and rural ruin have often been the result. And follow-on consequences have been dire. White male suicide and opioid overdoses are by far the highest compared to all demographic segments in America.

One report in recent years from the Federal Reserve Bank noted, “In contrast to the white working class, both black and Hispanic working classes improved over time in relative terms on all three of the other measures we tracked: homeownership, marriage, and self-assessed health.”

Whiteness 2.0

These intertwined developments prompted a rejection of the prevailing narrative, first on the fringes and then in the mainstream, that is only gaining strength for several reasons. Firstly, whites in the US – and Europe – still constitute a substantial demographic group. While prior segmentation meant this constituency was fragmented and included disparately identified ethnic groups – Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, and so forth – that is no longer the case. Partly due to the passage of time and partly due to the identitarian definitional context – and notably pollsters – ‘white’ is now definitively a group, informally and otherwise.

This group is sizable and not going away. Through various currents, it now has mainstream political voice and representation. Thus, we have reached the limits of white negation. Short of actual suppression, elimination, or actual replacement through increased migration – whiteness is here to stay.

Secondly, grievances between poor and elite whites have converged, creating a broader white constituency. Their interests may have previously diverged, but opportunities have declined for both, although perhaps for elite whites only in perception. For elite whites, reduced access to elite centers due to minority advancement programs has caused its own outcry and even led to victories at the Supreme Court. Their interest set has now dovetailed with that of the poor whites of the industrial Midwest, who were more clearly marginalized, as covered prior. This coalition now expresses a view of white empowerment from a ‘justice’ and ‘equity’ basis.

Finally, a concurrent positivist and affirmative mantra has also emerged to respond to a recurring theme in public discourse: Western civilizational shame. As the West steps into geopolitical rivalry in a changing world, eroding its civilizational ethos would make little sense. It is similarly unclear if elevating heroes of other civilizations, countries, and origins is preferred. Is racism, homophobia, gender inequality, poverty, and genocide less pervasive in the Global South and East? Given more power, would those regions and civilizational bases create more or less hostility for so-called ‘out’ groups?

The underpinnings of the return of whiteness are clearly multifaceted. They are amplified by conservative movements in America and further afield. The return of whiteness has also seemingly crossed a point of no return. New leaders of all stripes have emerged as have formal political organizations and philosophical principles beyond whatever populist du jour reigns supreme.

This return operates under the banner of American greatness, Western revival, civilizational supremacy, or simply whiteness. As it gains steam, the strong desire by existing establishment structures, non-white elites, or marginalized groups would be to put the genie back in the bottle – to constrain it and contain it, demonize it, and criticize any person expressing support. Yet, it is too little and too late for that. And any attempt to do so will have – and already has had – a boomerang effect.

Engaging Whiteness

Instead, the return of whiteness needs to be engaged. It must be empathetically discussed to encourage a more inclusive and expansive frame to move it beyond racial unidimensionality. This perspective may shock some people, but this is the only way forward, as white people and whiteness are not going away, the West is still ascendant, and Western civilization is not going to be nullified by short-lived sociological papers from the 1980s.

Two things, however, need to be acknowledged. Firstly, white grievance does not negate the very real dynamics of American society, from inception that continue to today. Racially segmented outcomes still exist and can be all-pervasive. Black men are incarcerated at astronomical rates. A poor black man will stay poorcompared to a poor white man at a rate of almost 2:1. How and why this occurs and what the remedies are requires further discussion and debate. Regardless of that larger conversation, both black (and brown) and white marginalization, whenever they occur, can both be viewed as integrated failures of nation-building rather than as diametric realities.  

Secondly, the return of whiteness has brought with it a racial puritanism and chauvinism as a concurrent undercurrent. There is a rising resurrection of homophobic epithets. Black Americans are increasingly caricatured on anonymous social media accounts. For example, a United Airlines plane may have an incident, and posts will simply paste a link and say ‘equity.’ [This is itself sophomoric, as what about Boeing and its many issues being led by a white CEO?] Then there is a growing movement of incel/incel adjacent viewpoints openly hostile to women that express a desire to ‘return’ to the ‘Western way’ of denying women the right to vote. Yes, that’s a real and growing movement.

This only makes the imperative to engage whiteness and discuss Westernness more urgent in order to shape the debate that will define its contours. Ultimately, Western philosophy and America itself have at their root principles of universalism and religious and racial equality. Attempting to ‘throw’ out Western civilization and America’s origins ignores a more expansive and constructive conversation to be had.

The Frosty Road Ahead

Western civilization is not at odds with an integrated reality of history and an embrace of the concomitant development of an inclusive view of human civilization. Apt here is Raphael’s School of Athens, where Ibn Rushd or Averroes is featured prominently. Averroes was responsible for bringing the works of great Western philosophers to the Renaissance. Similarly, Avicenna, Ibn Sina, is widely acknowledged as the godfather of modern medicine. This civilizational continuum creates a broader definition of Westernness.

While constructive conversations will bring results over time, chauvinism will not easily dissipate. Certain extremists may still be ascendant. Yet, whiteness and Westernism have not only returned, but they are resurgent and are here to stay. Either we build together and engage, or the West falls into internecine strife.

Which way, Western man? *

[This is also a popular meme phrase adopted from a book with the same name. The book and its author are clearly antisemitic. Yet the phrase is among the most popular on X and other platforms within mainstream accounts, which are unaware of the book. Its use here is not to endorse that book nor its themes but to coopt it towards a better aim]