# Should the USA have black states?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [August 29, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335 "2015-08-29T21:59:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/61 "2015-08-30T05:49:43Z")
> [@Grotonian](#):
>
> Watch those Detroiters turn their city into a utopia! They’ll have to build a wall along 8 Mile to keep the Grosse Pointers out!
An odd view of geography. Why would a wall along the boundary with Warren, Hazel Park, Oak Park, and Southfield keep out people on the other side of Mack? 😃
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### Author:  [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/62 "2015-08-30T06:02:55Z")
Hmm, how about this. Can we apply this to any oppressed minority? Say women? Under-represented in government and the upper levels of business, etc. I’d say it matches your model closely enough. Yet, oddly, I think complete segregation is not likely to solve any problems.
Hasn’t segregation been tried both here and elsewhere? Has it ever worked? How is this plan of creating new states in the U.S. any different than shipping blacks “back to Africa”? In the end it smacks of giving up on any desire for true equality. It gives up on all the gains of the Civil Rights movement of the last 60 years. It says, “why keep working together, let’s just go back to separate but equal.” Because that worked so well.
As a member of a minority, and a mother of mixed race children, I freely acknowledge race relations and racial representation in politics could use some work. I don’t see how setting up these new states with diluted, and minimal, Congressional representation will accomplish anything other increasing tensions.
I find this proposal odd, and as defined so far, likely to have the opposite effect from that desired.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/63 "2015-08-30T06:31:08Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> I’m confused by your post. Are in favor of or in disagreement with the proposal put forth in the OP?
I have a different perspective from many. It often leads to confusion.
_ **My priority is to identify and understand problems.** _ Proposing solutions is a secondary matter, after the problems are understood. Thus in this case, as in many others, I’m more interested in understanding the problem that OP identifies, rather than jumping to a conclusion or “solution.”
HTH.
NETA: If it helps, my Myers-Briggs type is INTP. Most of you guys are INT **J** with a capital J.
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/64 "2015-08-30T06:40:30Z")
Last time we had a black-majority area, certain states made damn sure they couldn’t vote. Let’s get DC residents full voting rights before we start thinking about ethnic homelands.
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### Author:  [@Grotonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grotonian)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/65 "2015-08-30T06:49:30Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> An odd view of geography. Why would a wall along the boundary with Warren, Hazel Park, Oak Park, and Southfield keep out people on the other side of Mack? 😃
Because people have heard of 8 Mile and the Grosse Pointes. It reads better.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/66 "2015-08-30T07:15:16Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> NETA: If it helps, my Myers-Briggs type is INTP. Most of you guys are INT **J** with a capital J.
hmmm
Mine varies between SLJO and STFU.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/67 "2015-08-30T07:28:13Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> I have a different perspective from many. It often leads to confusion.
>
> _ **My priority is to identify and understand problems.** _ Proposing solutions is a secondary matter, after the problems are understood. Thus in this case, as in many others, I’m more interested in understanding the problem that OP identifies, rather than jumping to a conclusion or “solution.”
>
> HTH.
>
> NETA: If it helps, my Myers-Briggs type is INTP. Most of you guys are INT **J** with a capital J.
Well, me too. Before you even posted, I asked several times what the problem was that the OP was trying to solve. I have not received an answer yet.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/68 "2015-08-30T07:32:08Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Well, me too. Before you even posted, I asked several times what the problem was that the OP was trying to solve. I have not received an answer yet.
😕 Well, then why didn’t address my questions instead of letting them confuse you?
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### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/69 "2015-08-30T09:41:57Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> But apparently, even that is considered a pipe dream. And so, I almost have to conclude that the black nationalists are _right._ Assimilation is a joke. Obama is a joke.
Right. Even if black people take over a couple states their power will be dwarfed by the rest of the white states, who will seem them as the enemy. Better to break away entirely from the racist system and make your own. You know who would especially love that plan? White nationalists. They’d throw a big going away party.
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I disagree with the OP’s premise that American culture is white culture and other races are outside of it. I figure black Americans are just as much a part of America as white Americans are.
I just think it’s interesting people are admitting whites have culture, outside of eating mayonnaise sandwiches or playing D&D or golf. The usual refrain is black people have music, athletics, entertainment, and all the good slang, which whites have appropriated or outright stolen, and white people are just blank cardboard cutouts.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/70 "2015-08-30T09:46:46Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> But what is that common culture?
Your Constitution and “the American dream”, surely? You’re confusing civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism.
(Herder has a lot to answer for).
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/71 "2015-08-30T09:56:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Well, me too. Before you even posted, I asked several times what the problem was that the OP was trying to solve. I have not received an answer yet.
I believe he said something about “political power.” But I get the idea he _really_ wants Those People in Other States. Not his…
He (or she) really ought to read up on current demographic patterns in the USA. What about overlapping communities, mixed race families, mixed race _people_?
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/72 "2015-08-30T10:26:09Z")
> [@marshmallow](#):
>
> I just think it’s interesting people are admitting whites have culture, outside of eating mayonnaise sandwiches or playing D&D or golf. The usual refrain is black people have music, athletics, entertainment, and all the good slang, which whites have appropriated or outright stolen, and white people are just blank cardboard cutouts.
_**[del]Wow!![/del]**_ … Err … cite?
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/73 "2015-08-30T10:34:05Z")
Recently ‘white culture’, in many manifestations, seems to revolve around turning back time these days. Or maybe it’s just me.
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### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/74 "2015-08-30T10:50:19Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> Yes. _Just like the several states now._
Are you sure? “Just like now” means that any US citizen who moves into any particular state automatically becomes a citizen of that state, and that cannot be denied based on their race.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/75 "2015-08-30T12:03:26Z")
Well what about this - a “reservation” system like native americans have? On these the “natives” have their own government and can set their own laws (to a point).
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/76 "2015-08-30T14:11:37Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#):
>
> I think it actually was considered for a while shortly after the civil war when they were wondering what to do with ex-slaves. There are even some small towns here in Kansas that were established by ex-slaves and were for awhile all black. Same as some other towns might have been for awhile all Germans or Norwegians and such.
>
> But the idea of seperate black states never went very far.
Before the Civil War, some thought that any freed black must be shipped far, far away. Back To Africa was preferred, or perhaps to islands in the Caribbean–or to lands in the as yet unsettled Far West. This discussion of slavery cited Classical examples, then continued:
> [@](#):
>
> But the slaves of which Homer speaks were whites. Notwithstanding these considerations which must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity. – The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the subject may be submitted to the Anatomical knife, to Optical glasses, to analysis by fire, or by solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses; where the conditions of its existence are various and variously combined; where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to calculation; let me add too, as a circumstance of great tenderness, where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them.
>
> To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them?
>
> This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question `What further is to be done with them?’ join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.
I’ve added a few paragraph breaks to this excerpt from [Notes On The State of Virginia](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffvir.asp). I find Jefferson’s horror at “staining the blood of his master” especially piquant…
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/77 "2015-08-30T14:17:43Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> To be clear:
>
> It’s your opinion (except, again, for Construct) that the system we should sustain is one in which black people can live in every state in the union, but have power in _none_ of them. That’s a good plan in your eyes.
Perhaps you should work on giving them some power, instead of entering some insane separate-but-equal solution.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/78 "2015-08-30T15:12:41Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Actually, most of the ethnic enclave voting districts appear to have been established for the opposite reason. Groups who might possibly provide a majority (or strong plurality) in multiple districts are generally placed in a single district so that their vote is limited to that single district, minimizing their potential power.
That may be the unintended result, sure, but minority-majority districts were set up as a result of the Voting Rights Act, in an attempt to guarantee minority representation.
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### Author:  [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/79 "2015-08-30T15:22:39Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#):
>
> Well what about this - a “reservation” system like native americans have? On these the “natives” have their own government and can set their own laws (to a point).
I was joking on page one.
It wouldn’t work; far better to loan them some big ass open boats, give them all rowing lessons and point them back to Africa.
If not that then sure, lets do the reservation thing. The Gays can have one too, and the pot heads, and the mooslims. I’m pretty conflicted on the disabled?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-usa-have-black-states/729335/80 "2015-08-30T15:30:01Z")
> [@septimus](#):
>
> 😕 Well, then why didn’t address my questions instead of letting them confuse you?
It was not at all clear what you were doing with that post. It appeared to be just a rant about the past election. And when you state up-front that anyone who disagrees with you should “take their ignorant questions to the pit”, it doesn’t exactly appear that you are interested in an exchange of ideas. That’s one reason why. Actually, two reasons.
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