"For white [American] youth, who are disconnected from European heritage or legacy, it often feels like whiteness as a concept is empty," Thomas said.
He recalled a trip to Jerusalem in his youth: "At the Wailing Wall I saw all these guys praying, and I remember feeling kind of inadequate and sadly disconnected from my heritage.
For Jews disconnected from their heritage, the three-day summit — one part Bohemian Grove, one part Masons — is an off-the-record free-for-all of cultural and spiritual inquiry.
This was not adequately reflected at this year's Brits, however, and we have been slow to look to ourselves and recognise that the processes behind the awards have somehow become disconnected from this heritage of diversity.
Individually, the girls we meet are the movie's captivating soul: fatherless ninth-grade goalie Marcella, prone to anger and thoughts of quitting; captain Tsieboo, a senior once consumed by suicidal thoughts but who's now a possible college recruit; and the emergent Lazore sisters, star scorers who admit to feeling disconnected from their heritage.
But the striving he portrays is so often a striving within the framework of dependence — a striving disconnected from the American heritage of being out on the prairie, with no one to rely on, and somehow making it work.
For their children, many of whom were born in refugee camps and thus for the most part disconnected from their agrarian heritage, it is likewise important.
"When I came here, in many ways I was a westerner," he said, "I was an American, unfamiliar with my father and his birthplace, really disconnected from half of my heritage.
She can make out odd words and things, but there's a sense in which she's disconnected from that aspect of her heritage.
Feeling disconnected from others?
They're disconnected from politicians.
