America is awash in “systemic racism,” the woke Left asserts. Following the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer who happened to be white, the radical Left’s woke narrative of systemic racism went mainstream. There was seemingly a white racist around every corner and behind every door. Furthermore, white liberals seeking to “prove” they are committed to fighting this systemic racism bogeyman went out of their way to virtue-signal their allegiance to blacks.

On Facebook, these folks replaced their identity images with black boxes. At home, people began placing “Black Lives Matter” placards in their yards or bumper stickers on their cars. “We care about black people” was their self-righteous claim, as if those who did not engage in such showy, shallow displays didn’t. Indeed, when anyone who responded to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” by asserting that “all lives matter,” they were branded as racists and part of the problem.

Recognizing the universal dignity of all mankind no matter their race, the very ideal that civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. were fighting for, is now labeled “racist” by the radical leftist wokescolds.

Indeed, the once-popular goal of a colorblind society has been derided as denialism of systemic racism, as well as an attempt to “whitewash” minority cultures. Anything that doesn’t conform to the woke “anti-racism” narrative is smeared as racist by much of the mainstream media.

This reality was exposed last week when ESPN reporter Jenna Laine, likely unwittingly, sought to further the woke racism narrative in her question to Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles. She asked him about being one of four black head coaches in the NFL going up against one of the other black coaches — Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Laine was clearly surprised by Bowles’s ultimate response. He first tried to avoid it by noting that he and Tomlin have a good relationship. However, when he was pressed about his thoughts on Steve Wilks, a black coach, taking over the interim head coaching position for the Carolina Panthers, he answered, “We don’t look at what color we are when we coach against each other; we just know each other.” He added: “I have a lot of very good white friends that coach in this league as well, and I don’t think it’s a big deal as far as us coaching against each other. I think it’s normal. Wilks got an opportunity to do a good job. Hopefully he does it. And we coach ball, we don’t look at color.”

Obviously not satisfied with his answer, Laine pressed again for an acknowledgment of the importance of the woke “diversity” and “equity” agenda, asking him how important it was for representation of minorities in coaching for NFL coaches who “look like them” and possibly “grew up like them.” Bowles refused to accept the narrative. “Well, when you say, ‘They see you guys’ and ‘look like them and grew up like them,’ it means that we’re oddballs to begin with,” he responded. “I think the minute you guys stop making a big deal about it, everybody else will as well.”

Bowles’s answer is reminiscent of what actor Morgan Freeman said back in 2005 when he challenged CBS’s Mike Wallace over Black History Month, contending that he didn’t want it. Freeman’s argument was that black history was American history. When Wallace pressed regarding how to improve race relations, Freeman answered flatly, “Stop talking about it.”

Clearly, white woke leftists haven’t gotten the message. That’s ironic given the fact that they continually assert that white Americans need to listen to blacks and other minorities. Why, then, has the Left not listened to a growing number of black Americans who reject the woke racist narrative?

According to another black American, sports and cultural commentator Jason Whitlock, it’s because the radical Left’s agenda is fundamentally anti-American. Whitlock observes: “America was founded on biblical principles. [Leftists are] hostile to God. They want to end this biblical experiment called America and they’re using race to do it.” When the first thing one notices about another person is his race rather than their shared humanity, divisions grow.

Racism is not America’s biggest problem, nor has it been for half a century. We need to follow the advice of both Bowles and Freeman and stop talking about it. In turn, we need to remind ourselves what it means to be Americans, which is not the woke credo “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” but rather “e pluribus unum” — “out of many, one.” Then, individual Americans will be better able to claim the other great founding principles found in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.