If you’re in a room full of white people and you’re reading a book about Chinese railroad workers, then you’re correct that’s not divisive. If you add some asian kids, and then treat the Asian kids indistinguishable from the white kids—everyone is a modern american reading about history—that’s also not divisive.
But what you have in schools today is an additional layer on top of that, where the non-white kids are treated differently than the white kids. The non-white kids are encouraged in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to identify with the oppressed people in the books in a way the white aren’t. At my kids school, they have racially segregated “affinity” groups to facilitate this. My daughter was invited to the weekly “black girl magic” lunch once a month (because I guess that’s the math for a half white half south asian kid). I know that sounds like something I just made up but it’s absolutely true.
This is because academics and authors who write this stuff really do believe in racial identity and solidarity. Specifically, they generalize african american racial identity and solidarity and politics to all non-whites. If you walk into a book reading for some of this stuff, you’ll find way more people promoting “brown people” ethnic identity and solidarity than you will find people promoting “white people” ethnic identity and solidarity at a Trump rally. The vast majority of both white and “brown” Trump supporters just want to go back to the 1990s where we didn’t “talk about race.”
But what you have in schools today is an additional layer on top of that, where the non-white kids are treated differently than the white kids. The non-white kids are encouraged in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to identify with the oppressed people in the books in a way the white aren’t. At my kids school, they have racially segregated “affinity” groups to facilitate this. My daughter was invited to the weekly “black girl magic” lunch once a month (because I guess that’s the math for a half white half south asian kid). I know that sounds like something I just made up but it’s absolutely true.
This is because academics and authors who write this stuff really do believe in racial identity and solidarity. Specifically, they generalize african american racial identity and solidarity and politics to all non-whites. If you walk into a book reading for some of this stuff, you’ll find way more people promoting “brown people” ethnic identity and solidarity than you will find people promoting “white people” ethnic identity and solidarity at a Trump rally. The vast majority of both white and “brown” Trump supporters just want to go back to the 1990s where we didn’t “talk about race.”