“My dad says in a few years they’ll outnumber us white folks.”

Another 5th grade boy jerked his head towards the Asian kid walking near our small circle at recess, quickly lowering his voice. The others nodded gravely, pulling closer. I scanned from face to face and a queasy knot twisted my stomach. These other boys were not friends, yet suddenly I’d been included in a special club simply by sharing their same skin color. It was clearly shameful, why else did everyone look so nervous? Even silently participating left me feeling nauseous as the other youths switched topics, laughing awkwardly, then moving on without me.

Seattle, much like the wider Pacific Northwest in the mid 1980s, hardly felt like a place where whiteness was threatened. Only a small handful of Black students attended our large school. Classes were scattered with Asian children and a few Native ones too. White kids formed the vast majority and many retained proud cultural affiliation with European nationalities. Our neighborhood of Ballard was a historic Scandinavian enclave… people joked that it was the last place left where Swedes and Norwegians still hated each other.

Grade school allowed limited political conclusions. We learned European colonists were brave pioneers, simply bringing civilization to new lands. For Thanksgiving, our classes dressed up in construction paper Indian costumes and acted out pageants welcoming white settlers. Yet, as a voracious reader, I knew better… about chattel slavery, civil rights struggles, and Native American genocide. Martin Luther King Day was only first observed nationally in 1986, perhaps not coincidentally the same year my schoolmates felt their whiteness under peril.

Over subsequent decades, progress crawled forward. Despite qualms from conservatives that social equality would destroy America, capitalism grudgingly found diversity acceptable. I remember some leftists predicting that future anti-war movements would contend with inclusive flavored imperialism that showcased transgender pilots bombing hospitals while femme combat soldiers waved rainbow flags.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, fascism under Trump Pt. II now features state power unleashed against immigrants and citizens of color, while offering preferential treatment to white asylum seekers. Transgender soldiers forced out of the military with no retirement benefits, even after lengthy years of service. National Parks removing historical markers commemorating resistance against slavery. Federal troops ordered into American cities to combat imagined insurrections while lists of dangerous words are sent out for removal by agencies and nonprofits. One banned in my workplace providing mental health services for youth, including victims of child sex trafficking? EQUITY.

In 5th grade I didn’t speak up against racism but adults have no excuses. Excluding others because of who they are is wrong. Erasing uncomfortable history to avoid reality is weakness. Persecuting immigrants of color while welcoming white ones is hypocrisy. Turning the US military against Americans is a crime. Perhaps someday I will live in the minority, but as a white man who doesn’t need government troops propping up my place in the world. No social status is worth the shame of state power forcing others down below me.