Self-Segregation and the Evangelists of Victimhood
I love museums. Historical perspectives enrich our current perspectives…sometimes even change them. Recently, I went to a museum that, literally, touched my soul—Motown Records. I had a little time to explore as I was in Detroit to keynote an event for my nonprofit Radiance Foundation. How could I possibly pass up the opportunity to see where Motown—and so much of the music I love—was birthed back in 1959?
The Motown Museum was a potent reminder that giving up was never an option, for founder Berry Gordy or any of his artists—many of whom would become an inseparable part of Americana. Motown Records’ success hinged on phenomenal musical talent and a multiracial business team in a world that was poisoned by segregation. They created something that powerfully brought people, of any hue, together.
Black and white Americans, including those at Motown, fought for dignity in ways that I will only read about, see in a museum, or be captivated by in stories about hidden yet remarkable figures. The world became a better place because so many challenged real injustices which were fueled by inexplicable ignorance and hatred. They faced racism, undaunted, with dignified determination. As an American who happens to be biracial, I am the beneficiary of their sacrifices. We all are. I cannot let the evangelists of victimhood pretend that those sacrifices were in vain.
You can’t fight racism with racism. Social justice warriors, apparently, haven’t gotten the memo. They want to reinject society with the poison of self-segregation.
Harvard held its first black student graduation this year. If this had been created and implemented by white students/faculty, there would be endless cries of racism. But because it was black-led, it’s merely “pride” to separate by pigmentation. According to The Root: “This is not about segregation. It’s about fellowship and building a community,” explained Harvard graduate Michael Huggins. Wait. What if white Harvard graduates wanted to “fellowship and build community” with a separate white graduation? It would never fly.
Another black student involved in this segregated event, Courtney Woods, explained: “There is a legacy of slavery, epistemic racism and colonization at Harvard, which was an institution founded to train rising imperialist leaders. This is a history that we are reclaiming.” The school was actually established to train missionaries. But let’s not let historical facts get in the way.
Huggins and Woods are Harvard alumni who enjoyed an Ivy League education that few ever get to experience. This isn’t the 1950s. Dr. Mildred Jefferson was the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School (who went on to become the first female surgeon at Boston Medical). It was 1951. And the school didn’t hold a separate ceremony to celebrate all she had to face, in a truly hostile culture, to achieve such a monumental distinction. Currently, Harvard has the highest black graduation rate of any university in America—97%. The white graduation rate is 98%.
Stop being a victim.
I think of so many of our forebears and how they navigated a world rife with racial injustice, but never gave up. Motown’s Stevie Wonder journeyed through a childhood of poverty and blindness, during an era of full of deep-seated racism, to become an incomparable music icon. It’s 2017. American culture has had tectonic shifts. Go make your mark!
Liberals are still in denial about it all. They want to keep waging a race war (the one form of war they can’t seem to get enough of) and don’t seem concerned with the casualties (except for the few lives they’re willing to exploit). Black lives matter? Not the conservative ones. The only voices that are validated (at least by the majority of mainstream media) are those that paint a perpetually and hopelessly racist America, full of “privilege”, devoid of opportunity, and littered with the victims of white patriarchy.
So how do “progressives” solve alleged oppression? Become the oppressors.
Evergreen State College. Mayhem recently broke out in the Pacific (insanely liberal) Northwest because (gasp) white students and faculty wouldn’t exit the campus en masse for a “Day of Absence”. Progressive professor, Bret Weinstein, became a victim of his own ideology pushing back against the effort to create a campus-wide “safe space” for black students.
Let. This. Sink. In.
Can you imagine any university, across this liberally divided country, demanding all black individuals leave campus for a day? Mainstream media would swarm like vultures waiting to pick at the carcasses of racial integration.
Some liberals think the best way to celebrate their version of “diversity” is to celebrate separately. At the same time they blame America for racial discrimination, they’re busy hyphenating and categorizing people into their assigned—and segregated—groups.
Black Lives Matter NYC recently held a BBQ: black folk only. They refused to allow white people to attend, calling it an “exclusively black space”. Tucker Carlson took on #BlackLivesMatter apologist Lisa Durden in an interview that can’t be described any other way than just plain crazy. Tucker’s white, for those who don’t know the Fox News host, and Lisa is black. Her racist diatribes won’t be denounced by so-called “progressives” any time soon. They’re not interested in racial reconciliation or reason.
These SJWs are constantly chanting “no justice, no peace”. They’ve got it all wrong. True justice is the heart of God, and is defined as “conformity to truth, fact or reason”—none of which marks today’s self-proclaimed “Resistance” movement. Nothing will peaceably change when there’s an us versus them mentality. As with any issue, it should always be right versus wrong. We can’t move forward physically segregated and ideologically divided. No just us, no peace.
Not a balanced article. When you talk about abortion, you make sense. Like most conservatives, you’re one-sided on racial issues. However, if you’re so fixated on self-segregation, i look forward to your take on white flight and gentrification, which is whites moving back into cities and pushing African-Americans out.
Excluding people because of skin color is wrong, but what’s more detrimental? White kids missing a graduation, they probably did not want to attend or white families moving to the suburbs in white enclaves and Realtors not even allowing Blacks to see the homes in the same area. That’s the Safe Space you don’t want to talk about
“The world became a better place because so many challenged real injustices which were fueled by inexplicable ignorance and hatred.”
That’s so common in white conservative Christians that want to believe racism is over even though Sunday is still the most segregated day of the week. Just because there are not “Blacks Need Not Apply” signs in windows, there is still racism in hiring and I don’t mean Affirmative Action, which benefited white women more than anyone. I’m talking about identical resumes, but one having a Black sounding name getting fewer calls from employers. I’m talking about whites with criminal backgrounds being on equal footing with black applicants with no criminal history in getting interviews.
I sincerely hope that the children you adopted are white because in no way are you qualified to prepare them for the racism that still exists in this country.
I forgot to mention my former church in Gainesville, Florida. When the demographics in the area changed a.k.a got too brown we moved out to the suburbs. Ironically, the area we left was where another church was planting a church. It’s fine to bash racial segregation, just stop pretending it’s liberals that are the only ones practicing it.
I don’t need to talk about every instance of racism to talk about racism. If you want to talk about gentrification, let’s talk about the predominantly black city councils, predominantly (if not entirely Democrat-controlled urban governments) that encourage the revitalizations. Who is to blame here? You might also want to check the racial/ethnic makeup of those who move into these revitalized areas, too. You obviously miss the point of the article and the fact that I am biracial, which qualifies me to talk about race and the need for reconciliation. I also made no assertion that “racism is over”. For you to make such a ridiculous accusation shows you have no interest in critiquing what was actually written. My children are biracial and black, and they’re being well prepared to deal with a world that is fixated on race and people like you who make excuses for it.
You may be bi-racial, but you sound just like the white people who post on Stormfront, a white nationalist aka white supremacists websites. They can give you a litany of the negative things African-Americans can done, but conveniently ignore that many of the egregious acts are in direct response to mistreatment and neglect by white people. This has gone on for hundreds of years and continues to this day.
Do you think the NAACP, HBCUs, BET, and Miss Black USA are racist and segregationist? If you do, you’re a white apologist, conveniently ignoring that these things only exist because whites would not allow Blacks to integrate.
Harvard has their choice of selecting the most academically gifted students in the country. I’m supposed be impressed that they graduate? FYI, Harvard Law dean Martha Minow said Harvard Law School has a problem with racism and it’s not white students experiencing it.
Apologists such as yourself, blame the victim for their reaction to oppression and give the oppressor a pass.
I’m not a Democrat, but if you want to discuss them go ahead. What exactly do you expect them to do? You have poor people left to their own devices because of white flight. Businesses won’t locate there. Well, liquor stores and convenience stores. No grocery stores providing fresh fruit. With no tax base, the schools are underfunded, etc.
I see you were quick to blame the predominantly Black city council for the problem of gentrification. The multi-million dollar corporations run by whites that scoop in and buy neglected properties, build expensive living areas causing taxes and rent to raise, forcing poor black people to leave. You think Republicans are the answer? They care more about people that died in a war 150 years ago to keep slaves than they do about Black people actually living today.
Reconciliation? Sounds like you want an apology from African-Americans to white Americans for having the audacity to do publicly what whites do privately, segregate by race.
You may be biracial, but you sound like any black kid raised in predominantly white environment and given very little knowledge of how racism is intertwined in the fabric of this country. When you hear a person of color complain of racial injustice, your first instinct
Racial reconciliation will occur when the people most responsible for it and actually started it (Blacks didn’t put themselves in the bottom of those boats) stop being racist.
Haha! Unhinged much? Your rants show you’re out of touch with reality, with who I am and anything I’ve ever written.
Not at all. This is the second article I’ve read by you regarding race. In each you ignored white racism and blamed black people. I don’t know what your non-white ancestry is, but you have obvious problems with it.