title: more migrants pitch tents on paris streets as calais camp shuts
text: amanda taub new york times november   
  call it the crisis of whiteness 
  white anxiety has fueled this years political tumult in the west britains surprising vote to exit the european union donald j trumps unexpected capture of the republican presidential nomination in the united states the rise of rightwing nationalism in norway hungary austria and greece 
  whiteness in this context is more than just skin color you could define it as membership in the ethnonational majority but thats a mouthful what it really means is the privilege of not being defined as other 
  whiteness means being part of the group whose appearance traditions religion and even food are the default norm its being a person who by unspoken rules was long entitled as part of us instead of them 
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  its fundamentally about who are we said eric kaufmann a professor of politics at birkbeck college university of london what does it mean to be part of this nation is it not our nation anymore our meaning the ethnic majority 
  these kinds of questions are really front and center even though theyre not necessarily verbalized 
  the questions can seem like a sudden reversal after decades of rising multiculturalism through the civil rights movement in the united states and the european unions opening up of borders 
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  white peoples officially privileged status waned over the latter half of the th century with the demise of discriminatory practices in say university admissions but rising wages an expanding social safety net and new educational opportunities helped offset that most white adults were wealthier and more successful than their parents and confident that their children would do better still 
  that feeling of success may have provided a sort of identity in itself 
  but as western manufacturing and industry have declined taking many workingclass towns with them parents and grandparents have found that the opportunities they once had are unavailable to the next generation 
  that creates an identity vacuum to be filled 
  for someone who is lower income or lower class professor kaufmann explained youre going to get more selfesteem out of a communal identity such as ethnicity or the nation than you would out of any sort of achieved identity 
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  a recent gallup study found that mr trumps supporters tend to earn aboveaverage incomes for their communities but also tend to live in majoritywhite areas where children are likely to be worse off than their parents 
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  the formal rejection of racial discrimination in those societies has by extension constructed a new broader national identity the united states has a black president london has a muslim mayor of pakistani descent 
  but that broadening can to some feel like a painful loss articulated in the demand voiced over and over at trump rallies probrexit events and gatherings for populist parties throughout europe i want my country back 
  the mantra is not all about bigotry rather being part of a culture designed around peoples own community and customs is a constant background hum of reassurance of belonging 
  the loss of that comforting hum has accelerated a phenomenon that robin diangelo a lecturer and author calls white fragilitythe stress white people feel when they confront the knowledge that they are neither special nor the default that whiteness is just a race like any other 
  fragility leads to feelings of insecurity defensiveness even threat and it can trigger a backlash against those who are perceived as outsiders 
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  for decades the language of white identity has only existed in the context of white supremacy when that became taboo it left white identity politics without a vocabulary 
  if you are a workingclass white person and you fear that the new cosmopolitan world will destroy or diminish an identity you cherish you have no culturally acceptable way to articulate what you perceive as a crisis 
  some of these people have instead reached for issues that feel close to their concerns trade crime the war on drugs controlling the borders fear of islamist terrorism all are significant in their own right and create very real fears for many people but they have also become a means to have a public conversation about what societys changes mean for white majorities 
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  there will not likely be a return to the whiteness of social dominance and exclusive national identity immigration cannot be halted without damaging western nations economies immigrants who have already arrived cannot be expelled en masse without causing social and moral damage and the other groups who seem to be cutting in line are in fact getting a chance at progress that was long denied them 
  western whites have a place within their nations new broader national identities but unless they accept it the crisis of whiteness seems likely to continue