[rarestia]

Forgive me if this sounds racist; I wasn’t alive during this time in our country’s history: the law is written to state, essentially, that the forced segregation of races was intended to maintain morality and community cohesiveness within the respective communities. Has integration made society any better? I agree with you ClearCase, government screws up everything, and in this case, these laws created a perceived injustice. In reality, however, wouldn’t it be safe to say that the white and black communities segregate themselves on purpose anyway?

I live in a 95% white community. The nearest black “community” consists of a few blocks of row houses and section 8 apartments about 15 miles south of me. Those folks can’t afford to live where I live, and likewise, no one from my area would want to move there. Why push the issue of integration between races when they’re going to subconsciously segregate anyway?

Humans are animals like the rest of the orders, phyla, and geni on this planet. To be colorblind to race is to ignore fundamental differences in each other. That doesn’t mean that hyenas, lions, and gazelles can’t live together, it just means that on occasion one of those lions is going to get hungry and attack.

Thoughts?

[DugwayDuke]

“I live in a 95% white community. The nearest black “community” consists of a few blocks of row houses and section 8 apartments about 15 miles south of me. Those folks can’t afford to live where I live, and likewise, no one from my area would want to move there. Why push the issue of integration between races when they’re going to subconsciously segregate anyway?”

There are already government programs to buy up housing in areas like yours and provide that housing to Section 8 occupants. Some federal laws require aggressive action by local governments to implement such programs.

Liberals believe that if Section 8 housing is available in upper middle class areas, the Section 8 residents will adopt upper middle class values and that when the upper-middle class see how badly Section 8 need assistance they will drop their resistance to welfare and higher taxation.

[delapaz]

Replace “race” with “culture” and you will be on far better footing here, philosophically.

And in that frame, you might have something. Minorities that have fully assimilated American middle class cultural values be a problem to you?

[mnehring]

In reality, however, wouldn’t it be safe to say that the white and black communities segregate themselves on purpose anyway?......Thoughts?

You are trapped in the liberal mentality of keeping people in stereotypical categories. This creates the cycle you see where people self-segregate and end up living the culture they are told they must fit in. You do have a lot of community self-segregation though attitudes that you must 'keep within your category' and act the culture you are 'expected' to act. This results in the 'other side of the tracks' mentality that seems to have segments of cities and communities that have higher crime, etc.

Free individuals living as individuals, not bound by what or how others say they must act and who they must associate with is the only way to break that cycle. It destroys the collectivist/statist attitudes where the 'controllers', be it government, community leaders, or just attitude, keep groups segregated and acting the way others define them.

You are also way off base with your 'lions and gazelles' analogy. We aren't talking about separate species here, we are all one species who happens to have slightly different traits in things like melanin content.

No offense, but a lot of what you say is just a reflection of that old collectivist, categorization attitude that keeps the cycle going- it allows others to categorize you and define your behavior by your category instead of you being and acting like an individual, not bound by your category, and not having a category to blame for your actions.

[Agamemnon]

Humans are animals like the rest of the orders, phyla, and geni on this planet. To be colorblind to race is to ignore fundamental differences in each other.

Seems that you need a rudimentary lesson in basic biology and taxonomy.

All human beings classified on the basis of genus and species, are classified homo sapiens What phyla does a phenotypically "black" person belong to that a phenotypically "white" person does not belong to?

We are all members of the human race -- one race. "Race" as you have attempted to classify it parrots Darwinian bilge.

Human beings vary in shades of brown. Genetically speaking no two persons differ genetically to any significant degree; the DNA of any two people will differ at most in one out of every thousand to ten thousand nucleotides, or a mere 0.01-0.1%. The Human Genome Project determined that 99.9% of the human genetic complement is the same in everyone.

"Race is a social construct, not a scientific classification, .... Any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations is both arbitrary and subjective." Robert S. Schwartz, M.D. in "Race Is a Poor Measure," New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 344, No. 18, May 3, 2001.

The only ones that are ignorant are those who buy into Darwinism and the MSM spin that glorifies his world view.

FReegards!

[Vigilanteman]

Much of the basis for the original segregation laws were based on societial perceptions that allowing black people and white people to marry, live or even dine or ride public transportation in close proximity would disrupt the social order and create trouble which would be more disruptive than requiring "separate but equal" segregation.

I'm not advocating such a position, of course, but simply stating a historical fact for how it came about. Some sixty-odd years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, the sport was actually on its way to integration. Jackie was not, in fact, the first black professional baseball player. That honor belonged to Moses Fleetwood Walker who played an entire professional season in 1884 and opened the way for other black players to compete until pressure on the owners by Jim Crow laws then sweeping the nation led them to adopt an informal ban 3-4 years later, which would remain in force until Jackie Robinson was able to break it for good in 1947.

It is worth noting that the driving force behind Jim Crow laws were Democrat politicians who sold the public on the idea that the harmony acheived through legally mandated segregation was more in the public interest than civil rights outlined in the landmark 1964 legislation which we have all come to take for granted.

[Cyber Liberty]

Those folks can’t afford to live where I live, and likewise, no one from my area would want to move there.

Shhhh. Obama will hear you, and plunk down a bunch of Section 8 properties in your neighborhood.