No matter how well-intentioned, the notion of solidarity among each and every oppressed identity group has somehow wound up systematically deferring the dreams of black America. The cult of diversity, in its celebrations, lures its faithful into acting as if no grievances are more fundamental or more rooted in history than others.

Black Americans know better, but they are institutionally pressured to fall silent. On the left, they are hemmed in by the pact of solidarity among self-identified oppressed groups. On the right, they are denied their due privilege as America’s most aggrieved, betrayed, and abused. Even the Native Americans, who were massacred almost to the point of extinction, escaped the curse of race slavery.

There is no analog to the experience of race slavery, and no analog to its bitter legacy. American race slavery was an institution without parallel in all of human history, before or since. It was not an act of genocide, but it was the largest and most enduring program devised by man to subjugate a race.

In a society where polite Republicans enthuse over race-blind equality, and polite Democrats over the dogma of equal diversity, African Americans are disadvantaged—yet again—from the start. For comfortable egalitarians of all stripes, the uniqueness of black America is an inconvenient truth.