You should read the CJR link. The "shared sense of identity and community" is being descendants of the victims of the slave trade and not the color of their skin.

That's a strange definition, because it excludes the majority of the world's dark skinned population. If only the descendants of slaves brought to the Americas can claim to be Black, then there are no Black people in Africa. Hell, even Barack Obama can't claim to be Black, since he is a child of immigrants, not slaves.

Can you explain how that works for each other grouping that is capitalized, but is not also true for white people?

> descendants of the victims of the slave trade

The Irish were white.

Independent of the stated rationale, I think the primary function is as an ideological test and signal:

Does one hold that all the diverse peoples of Africa can be considered with a shared group identity, which deserves acknowledgement and respect, and do you simultaneously hold that white people of Europe can be grouped together, but that grouping is undeserving of the same validity and respect.

If someone is willing to engage in this Act of cognitive dissonance, they can be considered part of the political in-group or at least sufficiently compliant to be trusted.

It is absolutely an example of the liberal racism that Powell is talking about and straight out of 1984.

>Does one hold that all the diverse peoples of Africa can be considered with a shared group identity, which deserves acknowledgement and respect, and do you simultaneously hold that white people of Europe can be grouped together, but that grouping is undeserving of the same validity and respect.

We have words for those people.

African. European.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here? It's confusing.

Maybe the problem here seems to be that "white" is implied to be the umbrella term for "European." It's not, nor do I believe very many people think it should be. We don't want to go back to the Pre-WW2 eugenics thinking. That pretty much tore the continent apart.

Shared Black identity across nationalities and ethnicities, and even moreso shared American Black identity as a product of active erasure of nationalities and ethnicities, are products of shared experience within the context of White supremacy.

So is shared White identity across nationalities and ethnicities. But identifying with the shared White experience of White supremacy has a substantially different character than identifying with the shared Black experience of White supremacy.