Saturday, June 19, 2021

Are We Segregated?

 Bob Somerby has griped about descriptions of various aspects of our society as "segregated".   He's not as old as I am, but we share a memory of the civil rights movement which fought "segregation".  So how can the movement be considered victorious, and the US still have segregation?

The answer is obvious--the word "segregation" now has multiple meanings.  Back in the day it meant legal segregation, usually the result of statutes or legal contracts, but always enforced by both the police and sheriffs and by informal community pressures.  That segregation was ended by the victories of the civil rights movement.

Today "segregation" means essentially disparate outcomes: residential areas, schools, or institutions which by some measure are predominately one ethnic/racial group or which don't have appropriate representation of other ethnic/racial groups; the group usually being white or black.

By changing means current day liberals are, in my humble opinion, changing the measuring stick, minimizing the gains of the past and accentuating the problems of the present. 

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