There is some truth to what Carrol says. But looking at this optical illusion from another angle, one must take account that Black people are "invisible" to white people, to use Ralph Ellison's metaphor. Thus, Dukakis is just a presidential candidate because in looking at presidential candidates only white people are visible. There is no need to distinguish them from Black people.
When forced to "see" Black people , and therefore bring them into relation with white people, the adjective "white" is used. Emmett Till "whistled" at a white woman. The "White Man" had a burden _vis-a-vis_ Filipinos.
Part of the reason a "white pride" movement can't take off is that to use the term "white pride" would force white people to constantly "see" Black people. Whites prefer to forget about and not think about the existence of Black people, to treat them as "invisible".
Black people, forced more frequently to take account of the relationship, of course, use the terms "white man" , "white people", all the time. So, what Carrol describes below is from the perspective of white people.
Charles
^^^^^ To some extent I think the perspective on "whiteness" is skewed a bit. Notice. Dukakis was a presidential candidate. Jackson was a _black_ presidential candidate. Pynchon is a novelist. Oates is a female novelist. Toni Morrison is a black female novelist. It wasn't the _white_ race that was invented. Whites are not a race. They are simply humans. It was the Negro Race that was invented.
That's why attempts to create an entity called "white pride" never really succeeded, because it is not that a person is white but that he/she is _not_ black.
Carrol