Many scholars contend that white Americans instinctively and perhaps subconsciously protect white hegemony and superiority in the racial, political, and social status quo. This work, taken together, would seem to suggest that priming white Americans to think about race should cause defensive and hostile psychological reactions. However, empirical evidence suggests most white Americans lack strong attachment to a shared racial identity. Yet ethnic and ancestral roots seem to matter for millions of Americans. We expect that priming individuals’ ethnic identities (writing a paragraph about a time this identity was important to the respondent) should lessen racial resentment, while priming individuals’ racial category should increase resentment. Using a large census-representative sample of white Americans, we find that white racial consciousness cannot be easily activated through simple priming exercises. Yet the open-ended responses to our priming exercise indicate that white identity is highly polylithic—white Americans express multiple, conflicting frameworks for understanding their racial identity. These findings challenge assumptions that whiteness can be easily mobilized for political purposes.