Wow, I’m sad for you. My boys are biracial, but didn’t notice their ethnicity until I pointed it out to them in about grade 5. It had never come up before. The palpable shock and incomprehension from the students when the teacher first talked about racial discrimination during “Black History Month” in grade 5 was interesting. (My oldest was upset for weeks – he had assumed that adults in ‘modern times’ were rational…)

However, I will say that *cultural* differences rather than physical differences are noticed by the kids much, much earlier. The kids in the neighborhood are racially diverse, but culturally uniform – Canadian liberal urban middle-class.

You’re small in every meaning imaginable..

My oldest refers to herself as Black. She understands that to be Black in this country and be decedents of slaves means that you are mixed race by definition. She looks at her grandfather, cousins and aunts on the Black side of her family and see people who are the same color as her eventhough they have two parents who are “Black.” Her mother and I have taught her that she has the right to define herself.

My youngest calls herself Bi-racial. This again is her choice. She see her mom and wants to acknowledge her mother through her self chosen title. Again she has the right to define herself.

For the record, I thought I was going to be able to raise my kids as human. The world’s left, right, black, white and all shade of in between have not allowed me to do this. Their identity was being questioned from day one at school and on the play ground. To combat this we needed to help embrace their ethnicity and take pride in it. Now race is not the issue for them. They are far more concerned with body image as.

I have problems with people who try to define me without first understanding me. The inability to get to know a person is the root of all the “-isms.” Perhaps if we organized our bookshelves by how the authors define themselves as writters, then we might have less of a problem.

Now personally, I think if I had been running the store, I would have had that in the history section. Less confusing, at least to my way of thinking. Still, I did not, and do not, see that as evidence of leftist racism.

Also, if you’re having trouble finding a book in a store these days, many of them now have computer terminals around that will tell you whether it’s in stock, and what section to find them in. Not unlike a library.

If your argument is that no books should ever be filed under “African American Literature”, you’ve probably never been to a library. Good luck trying to wade through thousands of stacks of books to find a certain category of works if the only classifications are “fiction” or “non-fiction”.

I am, of course, assuming that people here actually go to libraries. Which is a rather huge assumption to make, considering that libararies are public institutions and therefore are Socialist/Marxist/Totalitatianist/Fascist/Sith.

Identity politcs whether practiced in bookstores or political campaigns is inherently racist. I long for the day when we can all think of ourselves as Americans – to do otherwise is racist.

Noooooooooooo

Silly people. You’ll be happy to know that the left is up in arms about this as well, assuming it’s a right wing conspiracy while the right is up in arms assuming it’s a left-wing conspiracy. Has all the makings of a mediocre comedy film.

Nobody has asked whether the *customers* might find it convenient. And the answer is, the bookstores certainly think so.

Hell, if THIS HERE, especially the arguments here, is is the best that America has to offer for our future, may God save our souls.