Assuming this is about ethnic groups in the context of America, saying "White" doesn't have a "shared culture and history in the way Black does" is arguably true, but "Asian" and "Latino" also both don't have a shared culture and history in the way "Black" does. Also "White" is the only ethnic group name that doesn't refer to a place, even though it's clearly a stand-in for "European", which kind of implies everyone else came from somewhere else.
> "White" doesn't have a "shared culture and history in the way Black does" is arguably true
I don't think this is even right. For example, many Australian aborigines or natives of the Caribbean are "black" but are only from Africa in the sense that all humans are including Europeans. Likewise, a recent immigrant from Zimbabwe will have a very different "culture and history" than a fifth generation resident of Brooklyn, even if they have similar genetics and skin color. For that matter, at this point a resident of New York and a resident of Mississippi will have about as much in common as someone from France and someone from Poland, regardless of the color of their skin.
It also seems like quite a presumption to even suggest the contrary. Are we really safe to claim that people from Ghana and people from Ethiopia have a uniform culture just because they're both on the same continent and we aren't that familiar with either of them?
> Also "White" is the only ethnic group name that doesn't refer to a place, even though it's clearly a stand-in for "European"
How is this standing in any different than "Latino" implying Central and South America or "Black" implying Africa?
It seems like the best solution is to just not capitalize any of them. Or, for that matter, to stop trying to categorize people in this way, since the entire premise was established by foolish racists and doesn't deserve the dignity of continued deference.
The problem is that we do need the categorization because no matter the subcategory, the interactions with foolish racists are common and need to be talked about and addressed.
Black is not just the shared culture of African Americans but also includes Africans who immigrated after the slavery era, Afro-Latinos, and Afro-Caribbean people, which have significantly less overlap.
It is why African-American has dropped out of usage as the general term.
