Agreed. When I was growing up, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I was equally interested in books about boys, girls, black people, white people, you name it. I read Goosebumps with equal interest as The Babysitters' Club. Having such a wide variety of topics that I read (and consumed in other media) made me a better, more well rounded person.

The idea that people must see things that look like them is toxic. We need to raise children who learn to look past superficial characteristics to see the deep human similarities beneath them, not children who uphold race (etc) as the most important thing you can know about a person.