• mechoman444@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    “Racial isolation” itself is not a harm; only state-enforced segregation is. After all, if separation itself is a harm, and if integration therefore is the only way that Blacks can receive a proper education, then there must be something inferior about Blacks. Under this theory, segregation injures Blacks because Blacks, when left on their own, cannot achieve. To my way of thinking, that conclusion is the result of a jurisprudence based on a theory of black inferiority,” he said in 2004.

    Says a well educated black man sitting on the supreme Court of the United States only because of brown v. Board.

    I don’t know if calling this man an Uncle Tom is appropriate so I won’t. But man it sure does feel like he is.

    • PixelProf@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I think he’s basically saying that it’s racist to “artificially” integrate communities, because (I think he’s saying) if they need to be integrated, then that’s the same as saying that black folks are necessarily inferior. I don’t think he’s trying to say they’re inferior, but that laws forcing integration are based on that assumption. So he can be well educated and successful because he isn’t inherently inferior, therefore there is no need for forced integration.

      … Which is such a weird stretch of naturalism in a direction I wasn’t ready for. Naturalist BS is usually, “X deserves fewer rights because they are naturally inferior”, whereas this is “We should ignore historical circumstances because X is not naturally inferior”.

      Start a game of monopoly after three other players have already gone around the board 10 times and created lots of rules explicitly preventing you from playing how they did and see how much the argument of “well, to give you any kind of advantage here would just be stating you’re inferior, and we can’t do that.”

      Man probably got angry at his golf handicap making him feel inferior and took things too far. Among other things.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Correct, he’s being an idiot.

        He’s intentionally conflating disenfranchisement with inferiority.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Says a well educated black man sitting on the supreme Court of the United States only because of brown v. Board.

      His point is that the harm of segregation is that it simply blocks Black people from accessing society’s resources, which he experienced directly as a child being forced to use a segregated library until he was 13. What he’s arguing against is the idea that Black children need white children around them in the classroom in order to achieve.

      He was born in a literal shack to a family descended from slaves. The theory that he needed more than just having the door unlocked for him is what is so deeply offensive to him.