It appears that racial segregation is back in the vogue. Here's a comment about these "racial affinity groups":
I have small children of mixed racial backgrounds. Though the infractions are minor, we’ve encountered strange things in regards to the race of my children. Both my wife and I have been disturbed by requests to clarify our children’s racial identity by school authorities. The only way I can explain what’s going on is it’s like being a Jew in 1980’s Northern Ireland and being asked if your children are Protestant or Catholic. We’re not Christian, and race isn’t super important to our identities (unlike some people). Being asked even implicitly is an imposition and we don’t appreciate our children be asked to racialize themselves (I’m being politic, we were enraged).
People have been saying that the United States is on its way to a Brazil-style race-based social stratification and having children declare their racial allegiance early is certainly a pre-condition to a successful entrenchment of such racial structures. It seems that the liberal approach of "color-blindness" has been completely replaced by the division of racial spoils.
But the real problem I have is the white affinity groups. I am not happy with the “people of color” affinity groups either, but in some way, these have been around since the 1960’s. The emergence of white affinity groups seems a nod to the re-racialization of society as the explicit text. The fundamental issue is simple: I do not want white people to think about their race. I do not want white people to think of themselves in racial terms. The history of white Americans thinking in racialized terms is not good for people who look like me. These fools are going to get us killed!
Taking activists who are nonwhite at their word rather than self-interest, they believe white examination and embrace of their racial identity will allow for true anti-racism and justice. My rejoinder is simple: you put far too much faith in the innate goodness of these white people. My wife’s grandparents were good people, yes, but I know for a fact they were opposed to integration. They were good people, but of their time. Most people conform and follow the spirit of the times. Don’t tempt fate to think you can tame the snake of racial identity. It’s evil among all races and all people. It is always with us, but it is sin. As a brown-skinned minority in a majority-white country, I do not want white people to think in racial terms.
This seems a peculiar concern. I mean, what did you expect, really? that every racial group in the society will band together except the whites? Especially, with the long-prophesied coming of a majority-minority nation, it's not surprising that white affinity groups gain in popularity. Given that the elites are already well on the way to reaching the PoC nirvana (68% of Princeton admissions are people of color, this in a 76% white country), white affinity groups seem as logical as black affinity groups were in the 60s. Of course, there's always a possibility that such groups will be subverted by "white guilt", "white shame" and "white fragility". But I concur with the author that many people embracing their white identity will likely lead to more racial antagonism, not less. This antagonism will in turn result in more hand-wringing about "white supremacy" and more strenuous efforts to stamp out such identity groups. This phenomenon can perhaps be understood as a type of accelerationism, where white identity is seen to be on the way to extinction, the country turning more mixed and brown day by day until we all live in a FALGSC "utopia". Then again, it appears to me that such a transition will not (and can not) be peaceful. What do you think will be the end state of such accelerationism? A civil war, a peaceful separation, or perhaps the rise of China forces us to unite instead?