Wow you nailed it! Euro-mutt here. The status-seeking, the role-playing, the violent childrearing practices that enforce all this, yes indeed!

Whiteness has a terrible price. It strips us of our empathy, our humanity, even our self-compassion. And it starts every early on, seeing how our family treats those whom society considers less-than, hearing our fathers' and grandfathers' racist rants at the dinner table, being told early on that we must conform to all expectations and succeed at all costs, even if it means kissing up and stomping down all along the way. Most of this is carried out at the subliminal level so most of us never get around to seeing it, let alone challenging it. In this, I regard my autism as a precious gift because it rendered me somewhat impervious to subliminal conditioning during my formative years, giving me an outsider perspective.

Like you, my DNA test shows that I have ancestry from all over the world. I guess that comes with my ancestors having lived in New Orleans for hundreds of years, and along ancient Eurasian trade routes before that. People see me as white and treat me accordingly, yet I hear from my African, Asian, and Indigenous ancestors all the time. Wish I could opt out of whiteness but as long as race is defined by others' gaze, that's not an option.

Meanwhile, duty calls. White people have a taboo -- enforced early and often --against acknowledging or discussing race. Some taboos need to be broken.