>> Why is segregation not racist?
It is a pretty natural phenomenon, actually. Societies segregate themselves all the time. Always have.
Why is it that blacks are segregated all over the country, even today? There are nearly a million blacks living in 4 square miles of Harlem. Check out the "Pork-N-Beans" of Miami and tell me how many whites you find there. Or East St. Louis where fully 98% of the population is black (and the rest Hispanic). Oak Cliff & South Dallas, check those out. 5th Street west to 240 from Downtown Memphis. You think New Orleans is the French Quarter Melting Pot, but go check out the Lower 9th Ward.
Your question is why is it not racist. Because groups of people do this. They may or may not choose it for themselves, there may be government incentives (like housing projects) which cause some of it. In the tiny town where I grew up it was "Vinegar Hill." Its still there, although they don't call it that anymore but its still where the black folk live. Long after institutional desegregation, these places persist but not because it is racist. It is home. Pine Bluff, AR is 70% black, and home of UAPB, which is attended almost solely by black students. As is Grambling State University and any number of other predominantly black universities. Why? We have desegregation, after all!
Stealing a phrase from that great orator George W. Bush, there is some "soft bigotry" of government intervention in there, and it is responsible for a lot of it. But government was supposed to be the solution, not the problem. So, you probably won't admit to that.
But the facts are that George Wallace was never shown to have had the requisite intent to be a racist; he lacked the hatred or the violence. He was a segregationist, and that is a different thing from being a racist. He was just doing what he thought was politically expedient AND putting up a fight against the federal government trying to interfere in his state's business. |
