“I have a dream …”
Martin Luther King
Thirty-nine years ago this month, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned its 1896 doctrine by declaring, “separate but equal institutions for whites and blacks, had no place in education and were inherently unequal.” The intervening decades witnessed remarkable progress toward the enfranchisement of America’s minorities, providing them official access to all of the institutions of American society.
In their well-meaning efforts to correct the injustices of the past, many civil libertarians, social engineers and ambitious politicians, however, based their integration strategies on several erroneous assumptions. During the 1950s and 1960s, these included such premises as the stereotypical (white) American was the model after which people of all races, religious persuasions and/or ethnic backgrounds would aspire to emulate. A second myth tended to obfuscate the cultural heritages of non-Judeo-Christian and non-European cultures; and, predictable, with the proper laws on the books, remaining problems could be resolved if enough money was thrown at them.
In the legislative arena, the Civil Rights Bills of 1960, 1964 and 1968 officially erased the last vestiges of American apartheid. For a time, it appeared as if Martin Luther King’s dream that people would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” might become a reality. Tragically, an assassins bullet and an unpopular war put such a vision on hold.
With the end of the Vietnam experience, the political activism of the late 1960s and early 1970s was once again turned toward domestic social issues. Their targets included the latent and pervasive institutional racism which lingered throughout America … and which was immune from government mandates or sanctions.
Concurrently, various minority communities began to grope for their cultural identities outside the mainstream of American society from which they still felt alienated. In the process, terms such as “black power” emerged which, although unifying some segments of their respective communities, tended to breed unreasonable fear and distrust in a predominately white America.
Meantime, ignoring the lessons of previous failures, the neo-social scientists of the 1970s and 1980s spawned a fresh set of canons to solve the continuing problems of racism in the United States. These new truths embraced a variety of affirmative action programs, a rejection of many cornerstones of western culture; the introduction of political correctness in all its manifestations, frequently at the expense of legitimate and constitutionally-guaranteed dissent; and (naturally) demands for even greater government spending.
In the process, the fabric of our delicate American tapestry has become stretched. Whereas our nation’s great strength has been the diversity of its people which, in turn, has been a product of their individual and collective cultural and religious heritages and experiences … powerful forces have emerged which are once again threatening to breed racial and ethnic separatism within our society.
Such actions are no where more apparent than on our college campuses where “politically correct” administrations seem more bent on appeasing extremist elements than on the preservation of the multi-cultural society they so glibly profess to defend. There is absolutely no justification for the encouragement of either official or defacto segregation at our institutions of higher learning!
Rather than permitting separate black and white athletic team buses, yearbooks, or on-campus dorms … college administrators should demonstrate some real courage and develop non-threatening environments where students of all races, creeds and ethnic backgrounds can “sit down together at the table of brotherhood”.
Rather than condoning anarchy, college faculties should vigorously protect the rights of free speech for individuals of all political persuasions … while challenging the intellectual integrity of the often wild rhetoric and unsupported claims of extremists speakers and entertainers who visit their campus.
Rather than embracing the potentially destructive notion of creating a hyphenated society made up of White-Americans, African-Americans, Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans Jewish-Americans, Arab-Americans and Any-Other-Grouping-You-Can-Name-Americans … there is an urgent need for a national commitment to build bridges of knowledge and understanding of the historical backgrounds, beliefs and cultural values of the worldwide diversity of peoples who are America. However, such history must be accurate and not simply rewritten as a feel-good exercise, as the latter simply won’t stand up under scrutiny.
This process must begin now! If not, various segments of our society will continue down their separate paths of insulation and isolation, building walls between instead of bridges between themselves and their fellow citizens. Unchecked, this Balkanization of the United States can only lead to suspicion, mistrust and ultimately the decay and
demise of our society as we know it.
Martin Luther King summed it up, “We must learn to live together as brothers of perish together as fools.“
