I don't think that it is pretending for all... just for me. If Internet groups provide a community for you, I am glad. But it doesn't for me. Perhaps because I have different ideas of a community. Which is not to say I have not made friends on this list. For example, Joanna is a great friend, but then again, it is not much fun (for me) to have friends 3000 miles away.
Some of it probably also has to do with expat status, as seen in Wojtek's response (similar to mine). I am guessing here, since I do not really know what a white USer's life looks like, but it's probably not as isolated as that of a non-white leftist foreign-born person's is. Especially if one does not get assimilated into the culture by adopting a passion for such things as baseball or tinkering with household appliances.
--ravi