I get so frustrated by double standards like this.
The fact of the matter is that people always have a reason - which is to say, an excuse - for their actions. And so anytime we ever say someone "has no excuse", we are, in fact, always wrong. If we ever say someone has no excuse, it's because we've decided we don't want to acknowledge or look for the reason.
In the case of white Americans, some of them obviously crave connection to a culture with older roots than 300 years of American history can offer, and so they sometimes land on this Viking culture that seems uniquely "theirs". I'll argue below that I think this practice should be discouraged. But for you to say this isn't analogous to black people's search for roots demonstrates my claim from above - which is to say, you didn't look hard enough for the reason.
What we ultimately need to recognize is that a strong sense of hereditary identity is, in fact, not a necessary ingredient for human happiness. All humans really need is hope - which is to say, the belief that they will experience some reasonable level of happiness in the future. And if you think about it, that's actually the whole reason why people try to find a group identity in the first place.
People are stronger in a group. And so being part of a group gives people confidence. Which in turn gives them more hope for a better future. This is the underlying driver for group pride, and group identity-seeking. Hereditary pride is actually just an attempt to meet our need to feel hopeful.
The problem with all of this, is that it's divisive. And that it's ultimately always built on myths and stereotypes. Pride in hereditary identity is always a form of tribalism (racism, ethnicm, etc.), which is to say, bigotry. And what people don't realize, is that whenever we encourage any form of hereditary pride, for any race or ethnic group, we are implicitly encouraging white cultural pride, hoteps, snowteps, etc.
And so the way out, which I think is very clear, is to reject all forms of hereditary pride. Because, as I said, what we really need is hope. And there are better ways of arriving at hope than by leaning on tribalist myths.
Please see the truth in this. The only way we ever move forward towards a better society for everyone is if more and more people start to recognize this.
