There is something to be said for learning that life is full of sadness and disappointment and still being able to feel joy.
I think our society at large fails to teach that. Consumerism, defining oneself by public image - there’s no strength in that for the bad times. There’s not enough acknowledgment that suffering comes to us all. A sufferer can feel isolated, a misfit.
I don’t think that shallowness and suffering fall on racial lines though. Misery enough for all.
It has a lot to do with turning inward or outward toward others though...maybe that does tend to sort along racial lines.
Rugged individualism is not Biblical. Freedom though is to be sure, but when our limited government was the crafted, there was the prevailing assumption that families, churches, communities would be the fabric holding society together.