You make a good point about how your attitude affects your behavior. I see it with immigrants who didn't grow up in the south like I did. I've repeatedly heard "oh, I wouldn't want to go visit southern Virginia because of all the racists." I kid you not, I was just in southern Virginia with my white wife, our mixed kids, and a Chinese friend and her Jewish husband. It was great! Everyone was great. It's a lovely part of the country with lovely people. I wouldn't want my kid to deny herself those experiences out of some fear of "white supremacists" lurking in the shadows.
> Perhaps I'm applying my own personal experiences a bit too much here, but what worries me especially is the effect is has on self-confidence of these kids. It's fine to have these kind of discussions in politics or academia, but teaching them to kids? I find it worrying.
Agreed. I think "systemic racism" is a bad name for quantifiable disparities that, in an academic context, can be show to exist using facts and statistics. That doesn't mean you should teach it to kids, especially using labels that were specifically chosen to make them think their neighbors are out to get them.
"White supremacy," by contrast, doesn't exist, and it's absurd to pretend it does in a country where whites are poorer than several immigrant demographics, and are effectively underrepresented in elite colleges, Silicon Valley, etc.
As you observe, these discussions are politically fraught. I would prefer to stay out of them. But this sort of teaching and rhetoric has been extended to Asians now, and as someone with Asian kids I can't ignore it anymore.