Is segregation a good thing or a bad thing?

According to the modern Left, it all depends on who is doing the segregation.

If White people are trying to distance themselves from Blacks or other minorities it is a bad thing; the reverse–Blacks or other minorities separating themselves from White people–is a good thing.

"Racists tried to stop segregation that violates civil rights." is a fun one. https://t.co/58cYbtIDmQ

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 3, 2023

You may have read about the controversial playdate for Black, brown, and AAPI students held by Oakland’s Chabot Elementary School late last month. It sparked a firestorm that ultimately resulted in a bomb threat to the school a few days after the event was held. In prior years I would have assumed that the bomb threat had been phoned in by a disgruntled racist, but these days it is generally safer to assume that such threats are hoaxes, since the number of hoaxes seems to outnumber the real threats.

Still, what random cranks do really isn’t the point, although the San Francisco Chronicle wants us to believe that racists were attacking a school for a lovely event meant to bring the community together.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and that racial separatism is now commonly considered to be a positive good is precisely why racial relations have been getting worse by the minute. As the obsession with racial equity has spiked in recent years, both Blacks and Whites have soured on each other as a group rather than becoming more friendly.

The reasoning behind the segregated playdate is that minority kids live in a White Supremacist society and that they need separate spaces in which to thrive.

The equity and inclusion committee at Oakland’s Chabot Elementary School didn’t publish the emails and phone numbers of organizers when advertising its “playdate” for students of color on Aug. 26.

“Something told me not to do it,” said Briana, the co-chair of the committee who is Black, has a child who attends the school and asked that I not use her last name due to safety concerns. “Maybe it was my ancestors talking to me.”

Those ancestors must have known racism is still thriving in the nation. The Bay Area is no exception.

Two days after the playdate, hate mail, racist phone calls and bomb threats were sent to the school and several Oakland residents after extremists online deemed the event an affront to their delusional idea of equality. About 30 students and staff members were safely evacuated from the school before classes began. Parents dropping their kids off for school were told to go home. Police eventually swept the campus with bomb-detecting dogs but turned up nothing suspicious.

“Creating spaces for Black, brown and AAPI kids is seen as some kind of zero-sum game for people who are against it,” said Macheo Payne, a professor of social work at Cal State East Bay. “They ask where the white spaces are, which disregards how those spaces exist by default in society.” [Chabot, by the way, is majority-minority, so Whites are not in fact dominant there–DS]

The problem with this reasoning is obvious: it begins with the assumption that race is and ought to be the dominant characteristic through which our identities are formed. If this were true then the argument against racial separatism under Jim Crow was correct and should have continued.

Even the “justice” arguments–that “separate but equal” was a lie–don’t hold much water. If our loyalties should be driven by racial considerations, why should it matter that other races don’t get a fair shake? We don’t treat strangers and our family members similarly or citizens of other countries as we do fellow Americans. If race is an essential characteristic why shouldn’t the same principle apply?

The answer is simple: racial separatism is unjust because race should be irrelevant to our identity as American citizens. The government should not segregate people by race because we are all equal under the law.

Chabot–a public school–was acting on the principle that this is not true. Black, Brown, and AAPI are not fundamentally different than White people and Oakland is not a “White” space from which the students need protection.

If believing that represents a “delusional” idea of equality then we might as well throw out the Constitution–and in this case that includes the California constitution, which prohibits racial discrimination–and begin again.

That is, of course, what the critical theorists who are the Elite in our society actually want, so thank God we still have a sane Supreme Court.

For now.