Just pointing out that many in academia (humanities) believe the only way to approach and eventually understand a ‘foreign’ concept, culture, event, mindset, justification, etc, is to completely strip oneself of the preconceived notions, all the years of saturation in “our own” personal and cultural perspective. Limit value judgments. An exercise and not an easy one.
So, I do think some of our reactions to the Chi notice are based on our own comfort level with our own identities (most likely, the dominant demographics.) We don’t want to be confronted with the (fact) that, no matter how fair minded we think we are, our perspective is not the same as, say, a Black person’s.
Yes, a dedicated scholar, on a level of teaching, say, the Divine Comedy, at college level, should be prepared to discuss from all relevant angles and anticipate directions a discussion might take.
Unfortunately, our picture of the ideal versus what’s accomplishable, don’t always mesh.