After having spent half the summer informing our readers about the popularity of White Fragility and How to Be an Anti-Racist, the scene now shifts from the trendy “woke” crowd to libraries and schools as the academic year kicks off.

While practically all libraries were shuttered during the Wuhan flu outbreak, their umbrella group was apologizing for a past sin they likely weren’t even aware of until the riots began. “The American Library Association (ALA) accepts and acknowledges its role in upholding unjust systems of racism and discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) within the association and the profession,” the ALA wrote in a June release. “We recognize that the founding of our Association was not built on inclusion and equity, but instead was built on systemic racism and discrimination in many forms. We also recognize the hurt and harm done to BIPOC library workers and communities due to these racist structures.”

Chastened enough that they felt the need for a mea culpa, individual libraries have been hard at work compiling book lists to assuage their guilt. But fear of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction has led critics to question the sincerity and goals of the ALA. At the same time, schools are rushing to re-educate their staff about this new paradigm.

Where libraries go, however, so do schools. Many students returning this fall will be tasked with reading one or more of these approved tomes, with discussions likely being led in a similar manner to these guidelines put out by, of all groups, the National Park Service. Its handy guide to the “‘How to Be an Antiracist’ Book Club” shows that “woke” people in government have way too much time on their hands. But it also shows how dead serious are those who believe that skin color supersedes the content of one’s character and how committed they are to installing this view as our nation’s predominant belief system.

It’s no accident that these authors are targeting our young people with their latest appeal. And unfortunately, given the relatively recent indoctrination of their moms and dads, it won’t take a lot of convincing — even if this initiative is all about righting wrongs none of us were around to commit.

No one questions that we need to continue to strive for a more perfect union. But our contention is that we’ve made a lot of progress on racial issues since the days of Jim Crow, even though some of the “advances” — such as erasing the father from many black families — have done a lot more harm than good.

Instead of these activist authors trying to place blame where it doesn’t belong, perhaps a book built around the Golden Rule would be a more valuable lesson for all of us.