No, I genuinely wouldn't suspect this. I don't understand how my desire for a world where we all see each other as one people makes you think I'm "hung up on race." That's truly baffling to me.

It's also really hard for me to see how you're separating this idea that African Americans would somehow inevitably be interested in pre-slavery traditions with some degree of race essentialism.

I mean is it a notion that you apply equally to everyone? Do you make the same assumption about Native Americans or white Americans? That some percentage of them would inevitably be interested in pre-slavery traditions too? Just because of historical curiosity?

Or is it based on "race"? Do you think some number of Asian Americans are inevitably interested in keeping traditional abacus counting techniques alive? Are you surprised when you meed somebody of Latin ancestry, say, who doesn't know a word of Latin? Do you think that when traditions die out, as they inevitably do, it's because the holders of those traditions were "avoiding something"? Or do you think they simply moved forward? Do you think it's that they didn't define themselves by those traditions? Especially if there was a 400 year or so gap between them and those traditions?

Again, to be very clear, I'm not criticising anybody for being interested in any aspect of history or tradition. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. But in the context you're describing it, as I said, I can't see how you're separating it from race essentialism.