Emily,
Philadelphia, PA.
I am a white American. My family is here because the Turkish government was committing genocide against Anatolian Greeks in the early 1920s. My grandmother lost her family and came to NY, and when Smyrna was burned she had no home to go back to.
The confederacy does not serve my family. To the white Christians we were not white enough to be allowed to assimilate, but at some point we did. My father was born less than white, and because of cultural shifts he became a white man. I was born in 1987 and have always enjoyed the privilege of his whiteness. I actively use language and context to disallow the idea that to be American is to be a middle class white person. I will never accept my country as being primarily for whites. This country is for everyone. Lest we forget.
