Thursday, May 31, 2012

You Can Have Diversity Or...

You could have functional large cities where the white people have not been ethnically cleansed by NAMs.
You could have public transit safely usable by white people with children, or you can free blacks from the indignity of having to sit in the back of the bus.
You can have functional communities with shared values, or you can have a society 'Bowling Alone' where NAMs don't have to face the insult of restrictive covenants and Jim Crow official segregation (as opposed to de facto segregation mediated by money).
You can have a society where less than 10% of women are overweight, where official sizes are effectively 4-6 sizes smaller than today's sizes, or you can have one post-segregation, where over half of women are significantly overweight
You can have a society where the artistically inclined can safely take a chance at pursuing long-shot dreams, because they can easily afford to live in a 'safe neighborhood', or you can have a society where everyone who isn't a NAM has to walk on eggshells, with the heart of a Klansman but the tongue of Tim Wise.
You can have a society where gun purchases were cash and carry with no paperwork, even mail order, or you can have a society with over three times the aggravated assault rate, and a comparable homicide rate only because of massive improvements in trauma medicine.
You can have a society where even among NAMs, the legitimacy rate is over 75%, or you can have a society where having both of your biological parents still married to each other at your wedding is unusual.

Would Civil Rights have ever passed if if people recognized the likely outcomes?
Stephen King's new book 11/22/1963 paints a fairly good picture of the late 50s and early 60s.  His picture is pretty congruent to my discussions with my grandparents, who were in their prime in those years, and with my backwards projection from the 70s and 80s, when I was growing up.  I almost think King doth protest too much about the segregation and colored bathrooms---perhaps he is a crypto-reactionary.
Pretty much everything that makes life better today is the result of technology and engineering.  Governance and social organization have worsened markedly.  Looking back to Memorial day, it's pretty easy, through this prism, to see why the soldiers of previous wars were reasonably keen to fight for America.
But the horror of Jim Crow trumps everything...or does it?  When diversity is made a god, it is a far worse devil than any Moloch or Baal ever was.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fuck Tim Wise that traitorous shit stain whose mother should have swallowed him or, later, aborted him.

Anonymous said...

Shit is true, but as all educated people these days - you said it, not me.