Is racial integration required?
June 20, 2007
Honestly now, how much is racial integration (work, where you live, social life, etc.) important to you? I ask that because my take is that racial integration in is not vitally important and it would be…(hold your breath) OK if groups more or less kept to themselves while having the freedom to experience different races/cultures. It seriously has to be alright to be with your own sometimes. And for Black people, it pains me when we praise the solidarity of other races/cultures but scoff at the notion of having such solidarity amongst ourselves. Something has to give, can you help me understand?
Stay up fam,
Brandon Q.
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4 Responses to “Is racial integration required?”
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To find the answer to this question, please open your copy of the Autobiography of Brother Malcom and read chapter 14.
Brandon,
Racial Integration is something everyone should strive for, provided that your group has something to bring to the table. This means that we need to develop a cohesiveness from within that we can then present as something of value. Once there is in intrinsic value, integration occurs because everyone will want to make themselves better. (If that makes sense.)There would be no complaints about not being included because you already have something of value and you can distribute it on your own terms, ie, culture, commerce, and political solidarity.
I don’t want to be integrated with anything or anyone that does not bring value or worth to the collective. I believe that I am not alone in this line of thought.
Great topic.
integration required no, freedom to decide whether to integrate ,yes.
Ask yourself, do integrated schools do better than non integrated schools ? Before you rush to judgement, compare the past with the present ! Is racial integration required for a good education, no. And the list goes on. You are, I’am.
After spending much of my life integrating places- i.e., being one of a few token black people in predominantly white settings, I would have to say that integration, while opening doors of communication and friendship in some insntances, really does not yeild the results one would expect. I have come to realize that integration is about a historically disadvantaged group gaining the benefits that the dominant, formerly overtly oppressive group held as an exclusive right. Within this context, there will always be a sense that the dominant group and the sole integrating participant are in a paternalisitic relationship, the integratee walking a fine line between being the sole recipient of the dominant group’s largesse and being an unwelcome gadfly and reminder of former or current social injustice. As such, a chance for real equality is slim. I have gotten some wonderful relationships through integration, but this is usually with some hghly inidividualistic white person who does not consider himself or herself particularly alligned with any group. At this point, I am weary of integration and would like to find a place, geographicallly and socially, wherein I am not a minority. However, having been “integrated” for so many years, the ideal group of like-skinned, like cultured individuals seems elusive as my modes of expression and thought processses are a result of a contant outside in form of existence. That is, being a part of no group I find it difficult to be part of any whose background and roots are firmly established one way or the other.