Reddit mentions of White Women, Race Matters

> Does the fact that Black people once were slaved make it alright to be simply put, proud of their heritage?

Yes? Because the fact is that many black people do not know their heritage. It was, as I said, systematically erased. Most white folks do. There's a difference between being forced into a race (as many black folks are) and being allowed to "choose" a racial signifier. Ergo, how many white people are able to claim whiteness as well as their respective ethnic heritage, in comparison to many black folks who are nearly always read as just "black", even if they're, say, second-generation immigrants.

This has a lot to do with how race is constructed, etc. There's a lot of resources about this, including entire books. Mary Waters's "Optional Ethnicities?" is a fairly good primer, though, if you're really curious about this.

> How? excuse me I don't feel more powerful than my fellow black man.

I'm referring to systemic power, not individual.

Obama was one black President amongst 44 (including Trump). Congress doesn't fare much better. As of 2015, 13.5% of the U.S. population is black, not counting mixed race folks. We are not in any way close to reaching parity.

This isn't counting other institutional issues, such as systemic housing discrimination, job discrimination, the racial wage gap, and (of course!) police brutality.

> What criteria is that that only a few have and that allows them to enter the structure you mentionned?

Again, this is a racial formation question. You might want to read up on how immigrants such as the Irish and the Italians became white. And "conditional whiteness" in terms of how Ashkenazi Jewish folks are sometimes read as "white" and sometimes read as "Jewish".

The criteria, as most things of this nature, are often arbitrary. Both Indian and Japanese folks have lobbied for citizenship on the basis of their close identification with "whiteness". Both of these claims were rejected.

Wikipedia actually has an article on the whole idea of whiteness in the United States.

> Why are all these peoples treated differently?

Because society treats these people differently. (Refer to above.)

Again, "white" is not a heritage. It is perfectly all right to be proud of being French or German or Italian.