I've heard people make references to the Occupy Wall Street protests a decade+ back being the catalyst for corporations and governments to start using "diversity" as a wedge issue to distract and divide people into groups to keep people from organizing. (Further down the conspiracy rabbit-hole, the CIA has been known to work with entertainment and critical industries to push opinions and ideas to sway the populace)

It really does feel like people weren't at each others throats as much 10 years ago as they seem to be now. It's almost like it's being used as a wedge to divide and distract from more important issues.

That's because it is.

But the identity and diversity stuff was a thing long before that time.

Don't get me wrong, politicians and elites are absolutely using identity to play the populace against each other. But this is less part of a grand conspiracy and more the oldest trick in the book of politics, there's evidence of it going back all the way to classic antiquity.

Or maybe you just weren't as aware of the problems black people face in america? The amount of times my conservative family members tell me "Such and such wasn't a problem when I was a kid" while completely ignoring the problems proves it isn't a genuine concern.

Europeans don't really have much of a right to comment on this issue, especially given their own attitudes towards race. The sheer levels of racial hostility in most of your collective political discourse would make the far-right in the US blush.

Good move not providing any example, probably much simpler to lump 30-ish different countries all together that way.

Yeah, I'm sure that Googling for racism in Europe doesn't pull up any relevant stories for you to educate yourself with.

The attitudes to race are different because of the different situations. The US is multicultural and founded on stolen land, whereas European countries (at least in the east) are nation states with a single dominant culture.

Finally somebody who gets it.

The poor black urbanite and poor white trumpist are arch enemies but should be close allies.

The world is governed by international capitalist classism. It gives no shit about race or gender. It just cares about having lots of disposables that have few options. There being more disposables in a particular race is a historical artifact, not a goal in itself.

Likewise, you could diversify the captains of industry but the system remains exactly the same. Because it isn't governed by race.

Back in 2009 I thought the tea party and occupy Wall Street crowds would realize they were opposite sides of the same coin. I thought if both sides came together maybe we’d see some material change. But no, the powers that be divided them apart and convinced each the other was the real enemy. Same as it ever was.

> EU countries where I lived before settling in the US it would be unthinkable to include race in these policies.

Depends on the country. As usual, Romania isn't really a EU country. We have reserved places for Gypsies in universities as a means of integration... not that it's ever worked.