‘White’ Identity in American Culture

Leonce Gaiter seems to advocate an America that is a culture-free zone, where different ethnic traditions can coexist, untouched by any other (“America’s Nationhood Must Not Be Reduced to Its ‘Whiteness,’ ” Opinion, Oct. 19). The reality is America has a distinct mainstream culture, the cumulative product of many indigenous and immigrant traditions, and an individual’s acceptance by this or any dominant culture depends on his or her success in assimilating into it.

Thanks to those who fought institutionalized racism in the ‘50s and ‘60s, the American mainstream is now open to more people, of more races, than ever before. Far from fearing the assimilation of “hordes of blacks,” mainstream America applauds it, and wonders why all Americans of color aren’t as articulate and well-mannered as Tiger Woods, Colin Powell and the millions of others less famous.

Gaiter is right about disassociating “white” from “American,” but the answer is not reclaiming so-called “bona fide” cultures. That is the road to Balkanization. The answer is to assimilate into and enrich the American mainstream.

DALE KUTZERA

Los Angeles

* Kudos for printing Gaiter’s piece. His comments on the expansion of minority opportunity and its threat to the white American identity are supported by the current views of some affirmative action opponents.

Minorities are expected to feel ashamed and stigmatized, and are viewed as unqualified, for benefiting from alleged racial preferences. But for decades America had segregated, all-white colleges, corporations, trade unions, professional organizations, sports teams, country clubs and the like; such preferences for whites, although currently illegal, continue unspoken. I have yet to hear affirmative action opponents judge whites who have benefited from these preferences as stigmatized or unqualified.

Such double standards reinforce Gaiter’s contention that the amorphous white identity is the one most harmful to the prospect of one nation, indivisible.

MICHAEL A. ESTES

National City

* The cultural divide is a myth. As any immigrant, of any race, can testify, America is a nation largely populated with multihued peoples sharing a cultural sameness. Black and white America are divided by anger, not culture. The black elite, many of whom have turned this anger into an industry, are incapable of acknowledging progress among blacks, and refuse to recognize the endless contemporary examples that clearly demonstrate that the racist attitudes of white Americans have diminished enormously with the passage of time.

It is black intellectuals like Gaiter who are nervous. They fear a society in which people rally around common values instead of racial or ethnic characteristics.

SHANNON CREAM

Chino Hills