We don’t tend to think of white folks’ fights to secure government benefits and protections as “identity politics,” informed by a set of grievances specific to one’s racial or ethnic background. We tend to talk about these fights in terms of religion, class and other markers, or simply as politics, without racial or ethnic qualifiers. Can Mitt Romney win over evangelicals? Blue-collar workers are feeling the pressures of wage stagnation! The widely understood subtext is that most of the folks in question are also white.

This election cycle, there’s notably broad, public acknowledgement that the concerns and complaints of many white voters are all tied up with race and racially motivated unease.

On Who Gets To Be A ‘Real American,’ And Who Deserves A Helping Hand : Code Switch : NPR