The official censors in some American states have decided, for example, that focusing too much on the oppression of black people might hurt the feelings of white kids, identified as heirs of the oppressors. That is an actual argument, perhaps politically effective, but not, in my opinion, morally serious. The unofficial censors, by contrast, worry that any teacher of American who doesn’t manage to express the full awfulness of slavery will hurt the feelings of black kids. The kids are, in effect, urged to consider themselves victims or possible victims, sensitive to real and imagined slights–rather than intellectually alert and angry students. At such moments, one longs for an activist moral concerns. The black kids need to stand up and argue. Everyone else, too…
Michael Walzer, “On Moral Concern,” Liberties, Vol. 3 (Winter 2023), 94-95.