Martin Luther King, Jr. must be turning over in his grave as the grandchildren of those who marched with him in Selma, Alabama and in Washington D.C. to achieve desegregation are turning their backs on what those Civil Rights workers won for them. Hard to believe though it may be, black college students in universities across the nation are demanding and receiving segregation.
The liberal movement in America that has fought so hard for inclusivity, for the rightness of diversity in all areas of our lives, and for the right to express unpopular ideas, has now tumbled over the edge into the exact opposite of that. They now champion exclusivity, divisiveness, and isolation. How could they have gone so wrong? And more importantly, how can they not see what they have done?
It began, in large part, on college campuses across the country as students, reportedly less mature than their counterparts of a decade ago, started to voice their objections to actions or words which they didn’t like, which offended them. Instead of debating ideas that they did not agree with, they ran from them, complaining to their administrations that they were being hurt by “hate speech.” And the administrations, in large part, bowed to their wishes, instituting policies that would have been laughed out of the very same institutions only a few years ago. They created “safe spaces” on campus, where people of color, or a particular sexual orientation could go, knowing that no one different from them could go there to disturb their tranquility. Students, “traumatized” by the failure of Hillary Clinton to win the presidential election, were offered counseling with Play Doh and comfort dogs and sometimes not required to take their exams. Those attending Halloween parties were warned not to wear turbans, sombreros, or Indian headdresses, for to do so was to “appropriate” another’s culture and would be hurtful to those of Arab, Mexican, or Native American descent. When a professor and her husband, also a professor, pointed out the silliness of this warning on one campus, they were hounded from their jobs.
The absurdness of this infantile behavior among college students has only increased over the past few years, culminating in what is now the re-segregation of college campuses. Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Temple and other universities are now holding “black only” commencement ceremonies, and at Harvard, its third commencement ceremony for those of Latin descent. Many of these students may also attend the regular commencement ceremony, but isn’t this the antithesis of inclusion, the very opposite of what Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of in his “I Have a Dream” speech, to separate students according to their ethnicity and to celebrate their difference? King famously said:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that . . . one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
But now, the liberals would have them be “equal, but separate.” But wait, “separate but equal” was the mantra of southern segregationists and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, which stated that establishing different facilities for blacks and whites was valid under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as long as they were equal. It was the legal excuse for separate facilities for blacks and whites— water fountains, waiting rooms, schools — until it was struck down in 1954 by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. And it has been further rejected by the Civil Rights Acts, that recognize that separate is inherently not equal, and therefore racially segregate public facilities, housing, and accommodations violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law.
So what in the world is going on? The re-segregation of America, at least on college campuses. According to the Washington Post, students at the American University in Washington D.C. shut down the tunnel of Bender Arena until the University Provost, Scott Bass, agreed to all of their demands: a safe space on campus for only people of color, a team of “non-biased expert contractors” to investigate racism on the campus, and an extension of final exams for black students. And the reason behind their demands? Someone had hung bananas, yes, individual bananas, from nooses attached to light posts and trees at three places on campus. The black students were so traumatized by this “hate crime,” that they needed a segregated place to feel safe and more time than the other students on campus to take their final exams. Now, should some fool have hung the bananas? Of course not, but it was a pretty weak effort at intimidation. And if they were truly intimidated, then they have lost the fire and the courage of their ancestors. Their great grandparents struggled with burning torches, lynchings, and Jim Crow laws and they persevered. Their grandparents survived the beatings of the police at Selma and the fire hoses in Birmingham and continued to march for the right to go everywhere that white people go. And they won. And now their descendants have won the right to be segregated once more.
Let’s look at more examples. The New York Times reports that a Hampshire College student group disinvited an Afrofunk band because it had been attacked on social media for having too many white musicians.
A “Hurting and Healing” event, a “for People of Color by People of Color” art show was scheduled to take place at Pomona College on December 5. The event’s website states “This show’s intent is to create a space that is pro-POC, pro-black, and anti-white supremacist. While you may want to invite a white friend or ally, to make this a safe and comfortable space for other POC, we ask that you do not.”
College campuses in California are now touting segregated dormitories like UC Irvine’s new Black Scholars Hall for freshman. UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara have similar segregated dorms and “Berkeley’s housing website includes a picture of black students with the quote: ‘I enjoy being around peers who look like me’” (the Orange County Register).
Jessica Sperber writes in a blog, “My first interaction with the concept of segregated housing came in my freshman year from a friend of color on campus. They confided to me once, while discussing the topic of race, ‘Sometimes I wish there was housing just for the students of color…it’d be so nice to just have a place where you could chill with your people.’ I was pretty taken aback with this concept, as the idea of outright segregation was something of the Jim Crow era.”
Was this what Martin Luther King, Jr. had in mind? Was this what thousands of blacks and many white sympathizers marched for across America? Was this what both white and black civil rights activists lost their lives for? No, it was not. Martin Luther King understood that to be truly equal, people of all color— black, white, brown, red, yellow— must be truly integrated. They must lose the idea of being with “their own people.” They must live together, study together, work together, eat together, play together. Together. Not in segregated “safe places.” Segregation for any reason is wrong, totally, unjustifiably wrong. King explained it best when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Sadly, it is many black people themselves who would turn away from that goal.