> When you need to specify what kind of lineage a person carries people will commonly say a person is "african-american" or "native-american", but never say "european-american".

Well, as I say, Italian American is another one, and that's for white people. But more generally: these categories are (mostly) self-imposed (although I hear people who progressives would call "native American" actually call themselves "Indian"). African American is a substitute for "black", and driven by black Americans and progressives. It's a deliberate choice to enforce the label, just as it's a deliberate choice to have the n-word be, as they'd say, "our word". "people of color" is the same, although that's more an excluding category than an including one. This isn't coming from "systemic racism". It's coming from progressive academia, determined to re-divide America, and transitively everywhere else, in order to create some lovely social sciences problems to "solve".

You say its "progressive academia" but unless people are reading sociology research papers the way nearly all people come upon this is through mass media.

Is it now your theory to say that "progressive academia" controls mass media?

Or do you think its fine to say that somehow viewers themselves control mass media?

The truth is advertisers and shareholders control mass media.

Your statement also hinges on the assumption that america was united, at least on racial issues, and is now trying to be divided.

Back to the media. Your argument also uses the same rationalization as anti-DEI folks who blame a diversity-conspiracy when in reality it was just corporations (capitalism) trying to appear cool and understanding for more shareholder value. Every minority knew it was mostly a marketing gimmick by corporations (i knew).

The analogy here is that you take something the media did for money and externalize it as a social-sciences conspiracy.

The biggest mistake the masses do is thinking what the media and corporations do for money actually represents the will of the masses. That is the culture war.

The fact of the matter is that there is a racial-default bias within mass media and little plastic toy companies (lego) due to historical contexts. There's also racial tip-toeing to avoid being seen as racist due to company reputation and shareholder value. You are focused on the latter.