In the last few decades, those of us who live in multicultural
societies have been thoroughly propagandized against any visible display of racial animus. The social
project of stigmatizing Western “racists” — to the point where even inadvertently
acknowledging obvious differences between people groups commonly results in
social shaming and summary disemployment — has been a great success among
liberal whites, though notably less transformative across other demographics.
Having grown up in an era largely free of war, half-lobotomized
by the steadily-mounting pressure of political correctness, more than a few of us
may have difficulty imagining a time in which intense race-consciousness might have served
the occasional useful purpose.
That would be most of the rest of human history.