'WHY INTEGRATE WITH THE WORLD'S GREATEST CRIMINALS?'

People often speak of racial integration as a solution in both the United States and Europe. Yet, it has failed due to its inability to transform the system, and, therefore, only meets with the majority’s resistance. Even after granting ‘civil rights,’ government policies and structures continued to disenfranchise Africans in the US and Europe.

For example, in the US, the widely publicised Brown versus Board of Education case (1954) ended segregation in public schools by declaring it unconstitutional. However, Black students still face inequalities, with research showing that our children are worse off now. According to a UCLA Civil Rights Project 2019 report, despite an increasingly diverse US population 65 years after the Supreme Court ruling, segregation is ‘expanding.’

Similarly, European countries have instituted policies that more closely resemble forced assimilation, no education on historically racist structures, and laws like the UK’s stop-and-search that disproportionately affect Black people.

Given how these attempts at integration have played out, it would seem accurate to say that integration with those who have systematically worked to marginalise the oppressed is a mere ‘fantasy’, as psychologist Dr Amos Wilson (1941-1995) said in this clip. He offered we should focus on nation-building, with the question being: What kind of systems should we build, so our people can thrive?

Video credit: TransAtlantic Productions (YouTube)

Sources:

https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/press-releases/press-releases-2019/brown-at-65-no-cause-for-celebration

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-justice-and-the-law/policing/stop-and-search/latest/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBryieHyFeI 

https://www.epi.org/publication/schools-are-still-segregated-and-black-children-are-paying-a-price/