There is a big chunk of history you have ignored in this article. Let me fill you in:

My wife's uncle was one of the Black soldiers who helped liberate concentration camps in WWII. He came back to the United States to the hateful racism here. Some other returning Black soldiers were lynched in their uniforms. This experience shined a spotlight on the disparity between the ideals we were supposedly fighting for, and the reality of this Country. That spotlight on this disparity is what jump-started the Civil Rights Movement.

That Movement was based on solidarity - not division. It was based on the idea that an injury to one is an injury to all. For a brief period of the history of this country, enough people united against all forms of oppression to make a difference. That unity is what led to the successes of the Civil Rights Movement.

Today, those gains (small as they may seem in the overall picture) are being dismantled. Today, our country is ominously similar to 1932 Germany. Your focus on “privilege” only makes things worse by encouraging division, rather than solidarity.

I have no “privilege” in the fact that nearly all my family in Europe were murdered. My wife’s Uncle had no “privilege” in seeing the Death Camps first hand. Our only “privilege” — if you want to call it that — is in our knowledge of these facts.

Nor is there any basis in your assertion that white students have the “privilege” of being taught about the Holocaust. Thirty-one states don’t even teach about the Holocaust. As a result, a shockingly-large portion of the population, especially younger people (your students) either deny or are ignorant of it.

The problem is not “privilege” but ignorance — among all “races.” As a teacher, you had the “privilege” of learning this history, and now you have the corresponding obligation to counter that ignorance with knowledge. I trust you did. As a society, it is our obligation to teach history, without skipping the “inconvenient truths.” We are failing in that job, not because of “privilege” but because of the lack of it.

By focusing on “White Privilege” you encourage division, not unity. You fan the flames which are dividing us, rather than making the connections we need to unite us. Teaching about slavery, Jim Crow, the Holocaust, and the many other “inconvenient truths” is not only being avoided, but actually criminalized in many places. What we really need is to teach all these things, and to teach them together.

Racism itself is the result of pointing blame at someone else for our ills, instead of recognizing our common cause. Pointing blame is easy. What takes courage is standing up to racism and pointing out our common interest.

What we need now is to make connections, as my wife's Uncle did, as the Civil Rights pioneers did. That is our only hope to fight back the assault on civil rights, our only hope to avoid a Fourth Reich in America.