Perhaps separate ethnic communities are better. (The Segregation Question.)

Great Debates
1

Conservatives like to accuse liberals, especially liberals of color, of “reverse racism.”

They say things like, “You still want to have your own separate community. You want your own fraternities in college, your own scholarship programs, your own businesses and institutions. That’s racism! That’s segregation! Ha-ha, we caught you! The finger’s pointing at YOU now!!!”

I have always felt instinctively that those conservatives are wrong, but now I think I have a good argument that explains why they’re wrong.

If total integration were carried out throughout the United States, people of color would be a minority in every single town and Congressional district. That might not be such a bad thing, IF AND ONLY IF:

–Nobody voted for a candidate out of racial solidarity. A qualified white candidate would not beat a qualified black candidate merely because there are more white voters, and vice versa.

–Nobody denied anyone else a job, a house, a loan or admission to college because of the color of their skin. (Yes, this still does happen, but it’s kept quiet.)

–Nobody denied educational funding and opportunities to anyone else merely because they go to “that ghetto school.”

In such an ideal society, the proportion of people of color in Congress, the statehouses and the business and professional worlds would eventually be more or less the same as their proportion in the population. It wouldn’t matter where you lived, because you could be sure of being treated fairly anywhere you go in the USA.

Unfortunately, those ideal conditions do not exist yet. Therefore, it is a legitimate survival tactic for minorities to stick to their own communities and institutions, because there at least someone will be assured of rising to the top.

That’s not “reverse racism,” it’s merely pragmatic recognition that integration doesn’t work too well if it’s only halfway.

In fact, some older African-Americans have been heard to blame integration for the destruction of their communities.

Am I totally off base? Or has this occurred to someone else as well?

2

The first and foremost point against this is quite simply, how the heck do we learn to accept each other if we each stay in our seperate community?

What if someone whom does not want to be seperated is forced to, due to the peer pressure?

Why should a minority of racists keep society in general from reaping the rewards of diverse thoughts, cultures, and backgrounds?

3

Second, what is to prevent a minority in a district in which he is of a minority, from having the high EQ and the sass required to get along with other races, enought so to acquire political power? White people manage to do that all of the time.

4

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Which I’ve always found silly myself. Discrimination is discrimination and racism is racism. No need to add “reverse” to it.

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Personally I don’t think scholarships or businesses represent what I’d call a separate community. Would any of us accept a fraternity that only admitted whites?

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Is it ok for college dorms to be segregated by race, sexual preference, or religion?

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You’ll find all sorts of people who blame those evil “outsiders” for bringing down their community. I know some white racist complain about blacks making things worse so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that black racist might say the same thing about integration.

Marc

5

Separate for the sake of being separate essentially serves no purpose.

But separate for the sake of maintaining and fostering an already existing community is different.

Yes, but just like total integretation is ideal only in a perfect world, so is total segregation. In the real world, communities don’t exist in vacuums. Unless spatial barriers exist, interaction will occur. Segregation fosters a “we against them” mentality that makes interaction unnecessarily difficult and painful.

Also, if minorities close in on themselves, logically the majority will do likewise. And because the majority–by definition–holds the most power–then someone’s going to get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. I don’t see this as a good thing.

I’ve heard this argument before as well, and I agree with about 2% of it. But integretation wasn’t/isn’t the problem. Ultimately, the blame lies with racism. Keeping blacks and whites segregrated would have done nothing to cure that problem; IMHO, I think it would have made it much worse. It’s easier to hate someone when they aren’t sitting next to you in the classroom or at the workplace. And just because you have your own bank or hospital or school or state representative doesn’t mean you’re better protected from The Man, who still has most of the power.

Now when you advocate segregation, what are you advocating? Separate schools? Separate neighborhoods or voting districts? Parties delineated along racials lines? And are the barriers restrictive (as in, you cannot belong to this institution if you’re not of blank ethnicity) or are they only nominal (as in, you can belong to this institution even if you’re not blank, but you’ll be treated as if you’re blank and expected to go along with the blank way of doing things). I suppose we need some definitions before we can go further with the conversation.

6

The entire philosophical/religious foundation of the Apartheid regime was the issue of separate cultures - the black man and the white man had such different cultures and practices that they should not be expected to live together and so a system of “Homelands” was created where the black man (indeed the different tribes that were carefully identified) could live in peace and harmony with his own kind.

Unfortunately, add to the mix the idea that the black man is not capable of higher learning and sophisticated thinking and was destined (biblically) to be the servant of the white man, and you get 85% of the population living on 13% of the land, and that being the bits of the country that no-one wanted (or that had no valuable natural resources), with the enforcement of migrant labourer status on all Africans outside their own homeland, with no right to own property (migrant) and no right to vote (since they were a citizen of Transkei, not South Africa).

Ultimately, it is all about freedom - the freedom to make your own choices about where you live and with whom you associate - if you choose to remain separate, well I feel that you are loosing out, if you choose to integrate, then I feel that you may lose some of your cultural identity over the years - the choice is yours. Maintain a balance and you will be the richer for it…

Grim

7

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

This is very hard to do when children are being brought up to think the exact opposite. To vote for someone because of their race and not their views, to hire someone because of their skin color and not the quaility of work they do, to put more stock in their words because of the pigment of their flesh rather than the strength of their ideas. I believe MLK was talking to ALL races here, not just one. And in certain respects, I think he would be very disappointed on how things have progressed since this speech.

8

Actually there are probably plenty of fraternities that only accept white people, they just don’t advertise it. I don’t have a problem (from a legal perspective) with smaller businesses being of a particular race. These businesses are probably more affected by nepotism than racism.
As for scholarships, one for European Americans might raise eyebrows, but one for those of Scottish descent probably wouldn’t. I know there are quite a few for Jewish people, probably some for Asians too. No big deal to me.

As long as it’s private, I think it’s legally ok. Not the sort of place I would attend or send my children though. Keep in mind, many are already segregated by sex.

Integration is a complex question in a nation of immigrants. There’s plenty of room on both sides of the fence without either being racist.

Segregation is ok when it is free association. Segregation sucks when people are denied housing because of their race. If people of a certain race choose to live in a neighborhood because of the predominance of a certain race/culture that’s not bad, as long they don’t actively prevent those of other races from moving to that neighborhood.

I lived through a desegregation case in my school district. I was apprehensive at first, and not happy about being bussed across the city. But ultimately I learned a lot by attending school where my race/culture wasn’t in the majority. Still the desegregation could have been harmful if black students had been shipped to all of the schools equally, so that there was only a token amount at each school. I think it’s better to have a balance that encourages contact but doesn’t demand assimilation into the majority.

9

But this is a practical measure: it limits the need for bathrooms, and limits the chances of people being embarrassed by “accidental viewings”. Aside from which, a great many people do not want to live next to people of the other sex in what is, by nature, a semi-public living arrangement. This is a little different from not wanting to live next to black people or Jews.

10

I think it’s actually a measure based on prudish moral outlooks. I’m sure some racists would consider their anti-miscegenation agendas moral as well. The only reason it hasn’t raised controversy is because the quality of the seperate dorms are usually comparable. I’m sure if women’s dorms were crappy, there’d be a push to sexually integrate the dorms.

I think the policy actually discriminates against heterosexual couples, since gay couples are allowed to live together but not het’s.

If someone goes to a christian bible school aren’t they effectively seperating themselves from Jews? The key to me is primarily free association.

11

I guess I should clarify that I think of the “problems of integration” more as a question of economic opportunity and political power than a question of different cultures getting along.

FWIW, I love integration and multicultural diversity. But it sucks if it’s only halfway, because that means the “talented tenth” can rise to the top but won’t necessarily bring the rest of their people along with them.

(I am also in favor of affirmative action.)

I am also not offended by the existence of African-American colleges/fraternities/scholarships, any more than I would be offended by the existence of Irish-American clubs. Some conservatives point to campus organizations like MEChA and the BSA as evidence of a “new segregation,” but I don’t see it that way. My brother’s majority-black high school had a German club.

I agree to some extent with perspective that free association should not be confused with illegal discrimination. Take, for instance, the most personal arena of all: finding and choosing a mate. That is the last area where people are able to completely discriminate, often for silly and superficial reasons.

However, if someone denies someone a job, loan, home or scholarship because of an accident of birth – that’s a crime. The qualified black job applicant is asking you to hire him, not marry him.