Mark, I had to read Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? for a class my first semester at the University of Michigan: American Culture 100, “Rethinking American Culture.” (I elected to take it because, after all, I had to fill my Race & Ethnicity distribution requirement somehow.)

Dr. Beverly Tatum’s book dishes out the kool-aid pitchers at a time to vulnerable college students. The book insists that all of America’s race problems are due to that insidious phenomenon, “structural racism,” which is used to justify virtually every liberal cause under the sun, from massive welfare spending to increased use of affirmative action. My favorite part of the book came when Tatum insists that only white people can be racist—because, after all, if you’re a victim of “structural racism,” then you’re only acting out against that unjust system.

The book was the absolute worst in AmCult 100, which, to be fair, had a great professor, and included books like Friday Night Lights and The Right Nation on its syllabus. But no serious academic should include such a profoundly poor book like Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? in its reading list.