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I personally believe we are the second one on the list, but I wanted to provide a discussion on this specific issue after many people on completely opposite sides of the aisle (conservatives and the Black Lives Matter organization) both bring it up frequently. Below is an unedited writing of my opinion that I discussed with a college teacher of mine in February 2020. Feel free to leave your own opinions as well.
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I am writing this document as a supplement to our discussion happening at an undecided date and time. I want to start by notifying you that I have reviewed the part of the textbook you mentioned regarding the opposition to the idea of a color-blind society. After careful review (about four pages mention it), I remain unconvinced that the alternative presented (race/color-conscious programs) is beneficial to U.S. society in any respect due to the overwhelming success of the color-blind movement. I claim this because I have heard that the very idea of a color-blind society was one of the main eventual goals of the Civil Rights Movement in the early to mid 1960s, which ended all de jure segregation in the U.S.A. However, this idea persisted long after the Civil Rights Movement ended, and to the best of my knowledge had no significant opposition until about 5 or 10 years ago.
By contrast, let’s address the color-conscious movement that has become predominant in many of our schools and major cities. Proponents of this movement argue that this is a necessary step that our society needs to take “in order to end racial inequality and the legacy of racism”. The specific detail of these programs are not elaborated upon in the book, so maybe you can explain it better. However, it is mentioned that the popular opinion among proponents of these programs is that the color-blind system supposedly “is inaction and further perpetuates racism and the equality gap”. To put it bluntly, this opinion baffles and concerns me because I think it shows how far our country has strayed from the original Civil Rights Movement, and has moved on to more radical ideas mostly defined by excessive government intervention. There is also a sense of irony in this because the original movement itself gave the federal government new agencies and unprecedented power to try to hunt down instances of discrimination. In my opinion, the U.S. government already almost overstepped its boundaries the first time, but some current color-conscious proposals are proposing that racism-related subjects be taught from Kindergarten to twelfth grade in public and private schools. If passed, this would be a clear violation of our rights and liberties because elementary and middle school students most likely won’t understand yet how racism affected generations before theirs if it hasn’t affected them personally. I think that in the rare event that individual cases of discrimination spring up with a particular kid, it should be dealt with in a private manner with the family affected, not in front of the general public in a school.
My overall statement on this matter of a color-blind society being portrayed as modern racism is this:
It is nothing short of astonishing, that one of the ideas at the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement, lauded and praised by the vast majority of Americans is being portrayed as a form of “modern racism” fifty years later. This is a living testament to the fact that some people will never be satisfied with government intervention no matter how radical or extreme. It doesn’t matter even if it ended de jure segregation, or if it dramatically increased enforcement and punishment for any type of discrimination. If we keep going down this path of becoming more and more radical, I fear other ideas of the Civil Rights Movement would also be ridiculed and reformed in 10 or 20 years from now.
LOLOL...if the country was colorblind, we wouldn’t have color/racial labels on almost every application. Color/race is ingrained in the culture, far more than many other countries. For generations upon generations, Americans chose to keep it that way. Now people want to act like the U.S. is colorblind...lol. That denial is why the nation is where we are today.
Colorblindness has been completely rejected by the left and increasingly by the entire liberal establishment. America is, unfortunately, far less colorblind now than it was before the rise of identity politics.
The US is systemically racist in many ways. The biggest and most obvious issue is the criminal justice system -- hence BLM and a growing demand for police reform. But the CJ system, beyond police, is rigged against minority people and is probably the most entrenched. Healthcare, employment, and education have their own set of problems.
The USA since the 1700s, has been under white rule. Of course if you're not white you're going going to feel left out. You can't stop people from being white. Just as you can't stop blacks from being black. Or Asians from being Asian.
The problem with the word "racism" is that no one knows what it is, and everyone thinks they do. They apply the word to ideas like the inherent superiority of whites or the inherent inferiority of blacks, to words like the stupid jokes that white guys tell when they don't think black guys are listening, or like N-word-filled rants by white guys who don't realize they're being recorded, or like inequality in the justice system, education, housing, employment, health care, et cetera et cetera.
The problem with each of these identifications is that they fail a basic test: if the object (the ideas, words, and behavior) is reduced, is the quality (racism) also reduced? It is not. Between 1960 and 1980 such ideas and words went from fairly common to extremely rare. Between 1970 and 1980 the schools were integrated (albeit poorly), reducing inequality in education. And yet real racism changed not at all. Therefore none of these things are actually racism.
Real racism is found in the marriage rate of white men with black women. The reason is this: if we were to somehow increase that marriage rate as high as possible, and keep it there for four generations, no further white men would be produced in this society. We would become a black society. At that point, racism would end. Thus this marriage rate has to be the real source of racism.
Now, black is just a word. If we had the reverse problem, if it was black guys who could not be brought to marry white women, the solution would be just the reverse, and we would call the result a "white" society - but the overall color of the resulting population would be exactly the same. And so the words "white" and "black" in this context don't have any real meaning.
Interestingly - or perhaps not - what this means is that there is no racism problem where Chinese Americans or Arab Americans or white hispanics are concerned, because there is no marriage barrier between them and "whites." The only racism problem in this country is white vs black. All of those ethnic groups are actually white. This doesn't mean we don't have a prejudice problem - but that's something that can be fixed intellectually. People can learn to overcome prejudice. That's not true of racism - or at least, the learning process is much more demanding with racism, a different order of magnitude - which is why racism is so intractable, or has been until now.
· the fatal shooting of 9-year-old Janari Ricks
· 1-year-old Sincere Gaston was also shot and killed in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood
· 38 Juveniles Killed in Gun Violence in Chicago So Far This Year
· Grim milestone for St. Louis: 15 child homicides in 2020 tops all of last year
· Secoriea Turner, 8, Atlanta
· Royta De'Marco Giles, 8, Hoover, Alabama
· Davon McNeal, 11, Washington DC
· Natalia Wallace, 7, Chicago
· Six-year-old killed in San Francisco
· LeGend Taliferro was killed while asleep in his bed in Kansas City, Missouri on June 29, 2020.
I think we’re far more segregated than we were 6 months ago.
You can thank BLM.
Segregation is not necessarily a bad thing!
There can indeed be separate but equal if there is autonomy and control within each part that is separated.
For example, if Asians were in Nevada, Hispanics were in California, African Americans in Georgia and Caucasians are in Arkansas. And, each State has adequate natural resources - water, food, etc. and is relatively autonomous.
Is there separation but equality?
Yes, there is.
So, when does in-equality enter the equation?
Simple, inequality is the product of a false narrative,White Superiority, juxtaposed against a backdrop of Capitalism and the need for cost minimization of labor costs and maximization of profits.
Black Lives Matter are for the equal treatment of Black people - similar to the way other groups of people are treated.
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