Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, legal segregation is a distant memory. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 forged a new America — a nation that truly fulfills its premise in the Declaration of Independence that all men are born with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even in the Deep South, where white Americans and black Americans used to be deeply divided, black Americans have made great strides in almost every aspect of life as compared to 50 years ago.
For example, data from the Census Bureau show that the voting turnout for black Americans has increased dramatically. In 1965, less than 7 percent of Mississippi’s black citizens were able to vote. In Alabama, it was roughly 19 percent in Alabama. About 32 percent in Louisiana were eligible to vote. In 2012, the share of registered black voters in Mississippi, Louisiana and North Carolina exceeded that of non-Hispanic white voters. Black Americans are also moving forward in other areas, with dramatic increases in their household median incomes and high school graduation rates.
But in the past decade, the engine of this progress has stalled significantly. The shadow of Jim Crow continues to haunt this nation.
Tanner Colby raised an interesting question in his recent CNN column: Why don’t white Americans have black friends? Indeed, an ongoing Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that 40 percent of white Americans have zero non-white friends, and only 20 percent of white Americans said they have five or more non-white friends. People might be shocked when they hear these sad numbers. I wasn’t surprised, though. Even though segregation is no longer rooted in law, it is still hidden deep in people’s hearts.
People tend to be friends with people of the same race, often because they speak the same language, grew up in similar cultures and environments, and share the same ideology and values. This might explain why most Americans have very few friends who are natives of other countries.
But black Americans and white Americans were born in the same country. They speak the same language and share the same spirit of culture. Why has segregation, either explicitly or implicitly, been so deep and so persistent? If people contend that “all men are created equal,” then to treat a race unequally is to say they are not truly “men.”
For much of America’s history, the problem black Americans faced was not that some people didn’t like them or thought them inferior. Instead, it was that the people who disliked them and thought them inferior had the power to write laws making them second-class citizens. The Civil Rights Movement broke this chain of evil. The door that initiates social mobility was opened for black Americans through affirmative action, which promises equal opportunity of education and employment.
On the other hand, black Americans have been fighting for social equality since before the Civil War. But now they are sliding into a dangerous position. The power of the federal government has grown tremendously since 1960 in response to demands of equal rights and equal opportunities. Dr. King’s rhetoric and the voice of the citizens ultimately led the federal government to enforce Civil Rights legislation. At the same time, it has boosted federal bureaucracy as well. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has grown from an agency with fewer than 100 employees and a $2.25 million budget in 1965 to one with 2,346 employees and $360 million budget.
Relying heavily on expanding government power to promote social justice and equal opportunity doesn’t change racism on an individual level. Rather, government policies create barriers to deepen the hidden segregation. Affirmative action may help black Americans gain acceptance to schools that they weren’t allowed to attend in the past, but it doesn’t force white Americans to be friends with them. White Americans can still isolate black Americans if they still think black Americans are inferior. Most government policies end up building walls in society by giving too much privilege to a particular group of people.
