Neil Gaiman's American Gods and White Behavior

I've been reading a whole bunch of Neil Gaiman's children's books and just started American Gods which is not at all for children. But it is very much a like a modern fairy tale for adults. It will really help you get into the Christmas Spirit in a more adult way, as Odin features heavily in this book, though there are gods from other cultures as well.
Why do I say Christmas spirit? Because Santa Claus is Odin, and also around this time of year I think everyone starts feeling a little more Nordic. Find a non Nordic person (i.e. Hispanic/Black/Asian) and as the weather gets cold here in Boston, they will begin to behave more Nordically, hanging up trees and wreaths. Christmassy stuff.

A lot of nonwhite people, both in America and indeed people from former colonies, tend to be very confused about White behavior, even today. Especially the nonwhites that emulate white culture. They think that being good Christians means putting away the Kwan Gung altars of heathen idolatry and hanging up pictures of Odin's incarnate (Santa). They tend to see all the human sacrifice and backward superstitious and horrid aspects of their own culture and be embarrassed by it. They are happy that whites brought Christianity and saved them from their backward ways. Though of course they are angry about the atrocities carried out by greedy business men who must have not followed the Christian way or true European ideals (which they take to be either Enlightened Atheism or bland Christianity that ignores the old testament)

Or

If they are first and foremost upset about the White Power structure when they complain about whites and their behavior, or satyrize the depiction of non-whites on Upworthy showing some whites rioting and saying that you can't focus on "the bad apples" to portray a population... but they kind of miss  the mark on white behavior. They believe that "racist whites" are a different species and culture from Nordic culture or white culture or white American culture. They think that whites rioting is hypocritical, or that types of white savagery is a momentary lapse, something that is not part of real European Culture, or something that White people left behind long ago before they rose up to conquer the world with ships, guns, steel...

Jamaica Kincaid wrote something in "A small place" about the white tourist believing that the world is as it should because his ancestors were smarter or more ruthless... And I am going to stop there because ruthless is the world I am looking for. A lot of non-whites do not understand that most aware whites do not really believe they are more civilized or that it was civilization that got them ahead of the game. It was ruthlessness.

The reason why this is confusing is because modern white culture constantly represents itself through Greece, Rome, and Jesus, and then the Enlightenment. They write stuff in Latin and they harken back to ancestors in Rome. But if they did have Roman ancestors it was only through raping Soldiers, and through that same method, most Whites in America, and England and Ireland, and therefore the Whites that went out and colonized Hong Kong and America are more related to another group of people. Vikings. And culturally that's really who the mysterious "white man" is.

Basically if you are white of that mixture and you always felt the meta-narrative fed you about Greece being the cradle of Western Civilization (which implies culture) and didn't quite feel like that matched your culture, or if the Jesus meta-narrative (the greco-fied version meant to convert Romans) of love thy neighbor and handing over your stuff to strangers and living like a hippie never seemed to quite add up to what your parents taught you of how to behave outside of Church or indeed how any man taught you to act or, admire in other men.. then take a look at the Norse myths.

If you are non-white and have been confused at times by how White people taught one set of values in school but seemed to have a different way of thinking (a way of thinking perhaps closer to your non white culture) and you were confused by this or no angered by it's hypocrisy.... take a look at the Norse myths.

Neil Gaiman's American Gods is a nice little novel blending not only traditional values of many cultures, but also the newer things Americans worship as a society. And that's a nice entertaining starting point too I think.