Being Proud of One's Race is Silly
It's a cheap way of feeling special
This is one of my very few rants.
Years ago I did a little research into White supremacy to better understand their outlook. One of the things that quickly became obvious was the prevalence of racial pride. They’re proud to be White. They think they’re cool and awesome. When I checked out their forums, I could see that some of them were interested in knowing what type of European they were, and they would take pride in the fact that they were mostly German or something like that.
This type of thinking is not restricted to White supremacists, of course. There are all sorts of people who are proud to be their race. I’ve never emotionally understood the appeal of this, and I’ve always found it odd.
The assumption seems to be that being of a particular ancestry says something significant about you. It’s almost like if your ancestors were awesome, that somehow makes you awesome, like the awesomeness rubs off on you.
I’m sorry. It doesn’t.
The fact that you’re German or whatever doesn’t mean you're awesome in any way. You’re not Beethoven. You haven’t composed anything.
So why do people take pride in their race? My guess is because they want to feel special, and they don’t have any other way of doing it. They have nothing else they can take pride in. It’s much easier to be of the same race as Beethoven than to compose music yourself. In fact, racial pride means you don’t even have to do anything. You’re just automatically special by birth.
If you want to feel proud, then do something with your life. Get good at something. Learn an instrument. Become an expert. That way, the accomplishment is yours. You can take credit for it.
Lastly, just as you shouldn’t be proud of your ancestry, you shouldn’t be ashamed of it either. If your ancestors did bad things instead of good things, it doesn’t mean you’re guilty. You’re guilty of your own bad actions, and you should feel ashamed of those.
Neither pride nor shame should be intergenerational.