Yeah yea, tell that to the people who "ching chong" me whenever I leave the liberal coasts.
Incredible how you people paint one of America's greatest strengths, one that few other countries possess - the willingness to speak about racial problems and create a real _home_ for talented immigrants - as a bad thing. There's a reason people like Jenson Huang and Satya Nadella are not in France, for example.
The "American obsession with racial and gender identity" is a symptom of our desire for a better society and country, unlike the unobsessed French, 22.7% of whom are unwilling to live next to non-white neighbors[1].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...
Numbers like that tell you little more than how blunt the French are, and what's considered acceptable to tell a pollster over the phone.
The real data is in the ground truth of ethnic divides.
I'm pretty sure the US's "white flight" phenomenon and its self-segregated inner cities are more pronounced than anything happening in France.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20171020/more-than-570-slums-house-1...
Is it upsetting sometimes? Sure. But it only shows certain people's ignorance. It's not my identity.
Let me try to show my perspective. I come from a culture that is painfully aware of its minority status and a long history of extreme violence directed against it. I believe that the story of our persecution is valuable insofar as it makes us tolerant of others. But I have always believed that the factions in my own ethnic group who use victimhood to explain failures or to bolster their personal identity are committing what might be called "stolen valor". And that it in fact not only reflects negatively on the group, but is deeply corrosive to an individual over time, to frame one's understanding of interactions with the other groups in that way.
In short, even if it's absolutely true, it's a crutch. And when you want to see it everywhere, you can.
There's a blessing in being born different, or in a minority. It makes it easier to separate good people from assholes.
The discussion of racist history and racial integration is extremely important in America. But it's ill served by allowing race to be a marker for our individual identity, or to project an assumption of identity on other people. My people came here to get away from that and, even with discrimination, even being hated by some, to succeed on their personal hard work and their individual merits. Let the haters hate. Be bigger and don't let them define you.
We literally had a mass shooting within the last month that specifically targeted black people.
How sheltered are you that you believe this?
EDIT: Because calling you sheltered for your ignorance of racism isn't enough:
You're claiming that people who think they're experiencing racism are simply primed to view negative interactions as racism, raising their sensitivity and lowering their specificity of racist experiences (i.e. that they can't tell the difference between assholes or reasonable setbacks in life and racism).
You're using this perception of minorities' racist experiences to prime yourself to dismiss every racist experience. Do you see how this is problematic?
> But if that's the case, you're lucky not to know, because the worst thing you can do is let a sense of victimization become a central part of your identity.
But this really takes the cake. I'm not sure what bizarre leap of logic has led you to believe that the only options are "rank ignorance" and "extremist crusader".
It is very convenient for <the people victimizing you/people made uncomfortable by you pointing this out> if you do just that, though.
This seemingly small insight goes miles toward explaining the current American obsession with racial and gender identity. Gender/racial/age discrimination are not surface-level obvious in America these days, which is why once people are told they're being victimized and discriminated against for X reason, everything starts to look to them like a microaggression against their identity group. They're essentially told you have no choice, you are this. This in turn creates an artificial political base where you're supposed to put your X identity ahead of all other considerations and fight for X people, and since X people only vote for Party A or Party B, you're supposed to vote that way.
I can tell you why it's utter nonsense. Because these groupings are engineered, as you said, to make people identify a difference that they wouldn't have noticed before. The same people who claim racial identity is so central to one's "lived experience" and such a huge basis for discrimination are quick to tell me "well, you can choose not to be Jewish if you want."
Caste is like a whole new frontier. Surely, they'll say, you've been subjected to terrible treatment and it's changed you... you just don't realize how unfair it's been, but we can show you!
It is of course possible that other Indian-Americans can identify your caste, and have discriminated against you, without you realizing it. But if that's the case, you're lucky not to know, because the worst thing you can do is let a sense of victimization become a central part of your identity.