White people are finding it “difficult to adjust” to becoming a minority, goes the premise of a new AP history textbook — with the implication that this reflects some kind of character defect. Responding to this, conservative writers have generally denied the claim, sometimes calling it a “Marxist lie.” But a different point should be made.
Imagine that a history book presented European colonization of North America by asserting, with the same character-defect implication, that Indians found it “difficult to adjust” to becoming a minority. Would people be left scratching their heads? Might this even be called offensive? I think the only response really necessary would be “duh.”