Monday, August 24, 2020

The Spirit Of George Wallace Re-Emerges


 George Corley Wallace, America's most infamous segregationist of the 21st century lives.


 

Not literally, of course; because he died over 20 years ago. However, unless publications of the far left and the far right have manufactured this story, the ideas of George Wallace live on in the most unexpected place, New York City, NY.

The World Socialist Web Site maintains "Since late June, the Office of Residential Life and Housing Services at New York University (NYU) has been working closely with a small, student-led task force to make racially segregated housing a reality in undergraduate student dorms."   According to TheFederalist, the first line of a petition submitted at that time to the college began

"We, members of the Black student body, demand that NYU implement Black student housing on campus in the vein of themed engagement floors across first-year and upperclassmen residence halls." The first demand listed on the petition is to create  “floors completely comprised of Black-identifying students with Black Resident Assistants.”

If this group of segregationists has its way, segregation wouldn't be limited to housing because another proposal is "creating a black student lounge on campus" because of the need for "safe spaces."

If these demands are granted, the university will have taken a major step in preventing the "race mixing" segregationists of old vehemently decried.  The irony is the parallel between the black activists and and traditional segregationists. Old school segregationists believed blacks belonged to an inferior race';  the thrust for safe spaces suggests that blacks simply cannot handle being thrown in with whites. Blacks must have a place, proponents believe, where they can avoid non-whites- or as many of us would characterize it, a multi-cultural society.

This approach, which evidently is not unique to NYU, is unlikely to face criticism from either of our major political parties. Republicans will view this as giving their constituents an opportunity to avoid African-Americans.

Neither will Democrats object. In her speech accepting nomination as vice-president, Kamala Harris last week spoke of "structural racism," citing inequities in education, technology, health care, housing, job security, transportation, reproductive and maternal health care, "the excessive use of force by police and in our broader criminal justice system."

She did not speak of segregation, either in its old form or its new form. And when she lamented "there is no vaccine for racism," she cited George Floyd and Breonna Taylor," rather than all victims of excessive police force or the effort of too many whites and many blacks to set one group against another.

The Republican Party is unbothered by the effort of those institutions dominated by whites to discriminate against minorities. Kamala Harris and the Party she is determined to lead in the foreseeable future are troubled by the pervasiveness of oppression of minorities. It is yet to be proven that either is bothered by segregation in American institutions.

George C. Wallace lives on.



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