Leave it to the liberal arts colleges in Massachusetts to come up with the idea of segregating students by race and calling it progressive. Amherst, Wesleyan, and Bates have all established “affinity housing” for their students of color, and now Williams College is angling to do the same. Affinity housing is nothing more than a contemporary term for segregating dormitories. It is “self-segregation” and has all the earmarks of a social justice trend ready to roll down the tracks at high-speed.
Those who have lived long enough know what this nation went through during the forced busing era – and it wasn’t pretty. While the south always seems to take the hit for being the most racist part of the country, it was actually Bean Town where forced desegregation of schools got quite messy. Here’s a brief aide-mémoire worth two minutes of your time for those not old enough to remember these halcyon days in Boston. This is brought to you from the WBZ archives:
Coming Full Circle?
Thus, it seems fitting that selective segregation or self-segregation is now being actively discussed in the Bay State. It’s an idea that leftists support and it is gaining traction. The Williams Record, which is the student newspaper at Williams College, recently penned an editorial supporting segregated housing for black students. Here’s how they are playing it:
“We at the Record wholeheartedly support establishing affinity housing at the College. As a community, we must recognize that the College is a predominantly white institution in which students of color often feel tokenized, both in their residences and more broadly on campus. Establishing affinity housing will not singlehandedly solve this problem, but it will assist in making the College a more welcoming, supportive and safe community for minoritized students.”
The editorial went on to point out that this safe space for minorities would allow them to “express their identities without fear of tokenization or marginalization” and that it will encourage students to “exist more freely in the broader campus community, rather than recede from it.”
In advocating for affinity housing, these students are promoting the tribalization of different races and establishing a desire to emphasize racial differences rather than melding everyone together into one multi-cultural pot. If Donald Trump were to advocate this idea of “segregation as the pathway to integration” he’d be run out of Washington on a rail – after he was tarred and feathered.
Looking back, one cannot help but think this an odd and twisted version of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech:
“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.
With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
One might suppose the freedom to segregate oneself could be listed by Dr. King, but it does seem antithetical to the dream of a colorless society. Perhaps this latest progressive move can be chalked up to the sage words found in Ecclesiastes 1:9:
“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”
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