The adulation towards voluntary segregation disturbs me. I can't help but explain this queer desire as some sort of side effect of the various "bans" against discrimination. As best I can tell, regardless of circumstance or intent, there is a fundamental hunger for sameness, and the exclusion of otherness.
I don't see that as good or bad, but merely a confusion of ideas counter to everything the world seems to bombard and repeat and echo, on some kind of loop.
I just wish everyone would make up their mind and move on with living.
People never changed their attitudes, they just updated their language and their branding. In every era and in every identity group you have your MLK's and your Malcolm X's.
You know, I'm reminded of a topic that I brought up with some friends of mine just the other day.
I hope this doesn't come off as sounding "preachy" since I've been warned by the mods in the past for "preaching". I think it does fit the topic though:
"Food will not make us acceptable to God. We are not inferior if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat. But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak."
1 Corinthians 8:8-9 (HCSB)
I see it as something to the affect of, no matter what time we look at the world, posturing of some sort, over some reason, carries an inherent risk of: belittling those who do not do as we do, while artificially glorifying our own position, through a means of self-defined terms and metrics. That there is a push to not just to do what is right because it is right, but instead to do what is right because of how it makes us appear.
I think that there is a matter of arrogance, pride, and glory that each of us needs to struggle with on our own terms, to find a means to humble ourselves and show humility to others. Some way of reminding ourselves that our "greatness" (good + extra works) is merely a thing that is defined by some arbitrary, outside force of what is right. Instead, we raise ourselves up because of whatever stick we use to measure by.
I'm not even sure if the people who enact this kind of rhetoric perceive their own actions in the heat of the moment. There is a sort of self-induced high we get through "going the extra mile" by insisting on be not just right, but extra right.
I hope that makes sense. It's hard to really put into words; it sounds kind of pseudo-intelectual. I just mean something like: if a man is sitting in a chair, he is not raised up off the floor just because he pulls upward from the legs of the chair. I think it's a thing we're all prone to doing. It really seems to be a matter of recognizing the risks of that thing, and being able to say "I was wrong" and turn away from it when we finally see the error.
I hope that the sorts who push for this voluntary segregation stuff do see the severe error in it. I guess I just still have some kind of twinge of regret in even holding them accountable for it, because I have absolutely tried to posture myself as better than everyone else many times, for very little reason or incentive - I just had the luck of it not making it to a national/international spotlight.
Freedom of association is a freedom many (most?) people like and practice all the time, by peacefully self-sorting (interests, beliefs, consumption choices, moving to new place). "The Big Sort" etc.
Though it does seem almost schizophrenic that everyone preaches the opposite as the highest virtue, while doing it.
Some groups and even countries do it more than others.
I don't see that as good or bad, but merely a confusion of ideas counter to everything the world seems to bombard and repeat and echo, on some kind of loop.
I just wish everyone would make up their mind and move on with living.