Just reading this web-page from Seattle’s public schools sends a shiver down your spine. There are religious fundamentalisms and there are secular ones. The secular religion of multiculturalism has the same tropes as a real religion. It constructs an abstract devil and posits one completely virtuous state of being. There can be no compromise between them. The abstract devil is "institutional racism":
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.
Notice how this is not some individual choice to perform a specific act; it’s a structure of attitudes and ideas that must be resisted. Foucault is turned into the very oppressive thought-system he loathed. And just as your conscience can be "misinformed" in religious fundamentalisms, when you are not in conformity with true doctrine, so you can be a racist in the religion of multiculturalism without realizing it. Hence the insidious threat of "Cultural Racism":
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as ‘other’, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.
Individualism is now racist? And so is showing up on time for an appointment? Our culture is besieged right now by these fundamentalist religions and pseudo-religions. It’s as if people have given up thinking for themselves and have to adhere to one or another totalizing thought-system that can also render them moral. The only response is the exercize of ordinary reason, the insistence on individual moral responsibility, and political resistance to the inevitable attempts to impose these religious thought-structures by law or policy on everyone else. Occasional guffawing at the hubris of the new puritans helps as well. So scoff away. It helps you feel better as well.
The Dish 