Your description of people adopting "a curated persona as eternally victimized souls, ever carrying and defined by the memories and injuries of our people across four centuries behind us, ever “unrecognized,” ever “misunderstood,” ever unpaid" is really resonant with me and I think the phenomenon of people adopting that kind of persona deserves further exploration, because it happens pretty often across different groups and times.

For example, as someone of part-Jewish ancestry with a deep love of Jewish culture and history, I think that sadly there is a segment of contemporary Jewish culture which has come to rely on this same sort of persona. The terrible thing is that this kind of identification has contributed to the rationalization of Israeli human rights abuses, and the smearing of legitimate criticism of those abuses as anti-Semitic. When you think of yourself as a perpetual victim you can talk yourself into excusing things that would otherwise be obvious wrongs.