From an outsider's (not living in the US) perspective, the adherence to identity politics there has really gone to the extremes. It is a paradox in itself: if every group emphasizes its uniqueness, its needs to be viewed, heard and treated differently from the status quo, then how would it be possible to arrive at an endgame of "everybody being treated equally"?<p>From an European perspective, identity politics is quite puzzling. In France for example, there is simply no item called "ethnicity" in the population census. As long as you're "French", you're supposed to enjoy the same rights and have the same duties, and should be able to communicate with each other based on a fundamental set of values and cultural understanding. The idea of "skin color" is very much de-emphasized instead of strengthened, which IMO makes sense if you want to reach a true state of "equality for all". In a sense it is similar to the idea of "let us ignore the 'sex' of a person when evaluating their abilities and agreeing on their duties, just treat all sexes as the same and equal, instead of arguing about which sex should enjoy more privileges on which fronts".<p>Of course, I understand that everything has historical and societal roots. The US society has always been divided along ethnic lines. After all, the vast amount of African Americans' sole purpose of existence, until less than 2 centuries ago, was to be slaves to a superior master class, not to mention the various comparisons between the US and Rome, even up to the present. Even after the liberation, the social-economic organizational structure hasn't really changed. Of course, this is not to say that similar problems don't exist in Europe. France also had a long history of colonization, and the group identity of Northern Africans is always a tricky issue in their society. However, in general, and especially in Northern European countries which didn't get to partake in much colonization, for example, most migrants are relatively recent economic migrants. This makes it much harder for a historically discriminatory social-economic structure to form against them, and makes it quite easier for the society to de-emphasize the skin color and regard everybody equally as much as possible. Of course, there is still a long way to go before any form of racism truly doesn't exist even in those countries, that's for sure. I just feel that the current situation in the US is incredibly polarized, nobody is listening to what the others are talking about, and only insists on pushing their own narratives, which is just not conducive to eventually solving the problems. No matter whether you're on the left or on the right, a dogmatic adherence to ideology and the need to bash anybody who in your eyes dares to think slightly differently is an extremely dangerous thing to do.