George Will wrote in his column about the latest Supreme Court case regarding the decision to limit how race can be used to compose the student body. That is to say, the court is refusing to tell certain children to go to a certain school all in the name of “diversity.”
In making the point, Will hits on another issue that I had while I was a Resident Assistant in school. As he put it:
Breyer said that last week's decision abandons "the promise of Brown." Actually, that promise -- a colorblind society -- has been traduced by the "diversity" exception to the equal protection clause. That exception allows white majorities to feel noble while treating blacks and certain other minorities as seasoning -- a sort of human oregano -- to be sprinkled across a student body to make the majority's educational experience more flavorful.
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The point for race-mongering diversity tinkerers is their professional and ideological stake in preventing America from achieving "a colorblind mentality."
I hate to break it to some of my former fellow co-workers, but I do not think we were helping the situation ourselves. And on that note, I wonder how many of those professional staffers and other resident assistants of Residence Life in my university and so many others actually read any newspaper? Were they always reading from a pre-selected script on what diversity means, and why they should support it? The beauty in manufacturing consent is that it makes you believe that you are thinking for yourself.
5 comments:
I think these systems, particularly Louisville's, were centered around immediate and consistent race integration. Hence, the only way to invalidate a system that was once fundamentally based upon segregating the races is to build a system whose sole purpose is to integrate the races. Otherwise, it's likely that the dangerous race-based socioeconomic divisions will not be solved by inaction.
There are two issues with that Will.
First, we're saying that the system used to manufacture diversity still works today and/or is relevant in our time. I think that's highly debatable.
Second, the system in question was in Washington...racial tensions I will agree exist, but hardly in the south.
Also, remember that segregation was forced and endorsed by local governments. What's happening now is a forced diversity, an affirmative action. And coming from a libertarian perspective, I don't know how I would feel if I were forced or coerced to go to only a certain school because of my race.
At bureaucratic and institutional levels it's theoretically sound. But, granted, on the individual level, that sort of system is tedious. That said, good will attempts to regulate racial divisions should be tried else it must be conceded that the rampant crime and addiction in cities like Baltimore and L.A. are lifestyles that are acceptable to the majority.
So the government can fix racism?
First, exposure to diversity nearly always corrects misconceptions and stereotypes. It is the fundamental reason that homosexuals are more accepted by younger individuals than older. Second, crime and addiction are those functions of income that exacerbate the racial divide. "Together and (relatively) equal" schooling should, in theory, decrease racism by utilizing diversity exposure and decrease crime and addiction by decreasing the number of "forgotten" schools. But, constitutional issues aside, the amount of bureaucratic entanglements, taxpayer funds, and headaches that fueled the system likely outweighed those benefits.
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