> If you don't support desegregation, you are in favor of segregation.
If I don't support vapes as a tool for quitting smoking, that doesn't mean I support smoking. There's more than two options. Nicotine gum, patches, hypnotherapy, cold turkey, etc.
You're getting caught up in the idea that not supporting "forcibly de-segregating school in the 1960s" is the same as supporting racial separation. "Desegregation" in this context isn't the idea of racial separation, it's a specific event where schools were racially unified over a period of a few years - but also probably caused a significant blowback (white flight) that some believe did more harm to black communities than good.
It's not hard to imagine a scenario where from 1967 to 1977 the schools remained segregated, but black schools were funded as well or better than white schools (emphasizing the equal in "separate but equal"), at which point they were desegregated - but not forcibly and abruptly. The desegregation happened organically over the next 10-20 years. Would we be better off? Have more racial harmony, or less? Would we have prevented white flight, or just delayed it? I don't think exploring these possibilities is racist, illiberal, segregationist, or unproductive. Especially as we search for solutions to the racism that is apparent in america today (unsolvable? maybe... I hope not).
What is the third choice between segregation and desegregation? Bell does not propose any kind of half-segregation or slow re-segregation. He literally just says desegregation was the wrong choice. Some binaries do exist.
> In 1976, Bell said he came to the same conclusion in an article titled Serving Two Masters, which stated, "Our clients' aims for better schooling for their children no longer meshed with integrationist ideals. Civil rights lawyers were misguided in requiring racial balance of each school's student population as the measure of compliance and the guarantee of effective schooling. In short, while the rhetoric of integration promised much, court orders to ensure that black youngsters received the education they needed to progress would have achieved much more."
You're really keen to broaden writing about this single moment in history to apply it to all instances of racial segregation in the US. All he says is that given the choice between racial balance in schools as the target for the supreme court, and effective schooling as the target - he says that he believes the former failed where the latter might have succeeded. That's not "I support segregation" as your binary suggests - that's "desegregation didn't achieve equality, and we had another path available that might have gotten us farther". Nowhere in that is "and we should never desegregate" or "bring back separate water fountains".
> If you don't support desegregation, you are in favor of segregation.
If I don't support vapes as a tool for quitting smoking, that doesn't mean I support smoking. There's more than two options. Nicotine gum, patches, hypnotherapy, cold turkey, etc.
You're getting caught up in the idea that not supporting "forcibly de-segregating school in the 1960s" is the same as supporting racial separation. "Desegregation" in this context isn't the idea of racial separation, it's a specific event where schools were racially unified over a period of a few years - but also probably caused a significant blowback (white flight) that some believe did more harm to black communities than good.
It's not hard to imagine a scenario where from 1967 to 1977 the schools remained segregated, but black schools were funded as well or better than white schools (emphasizing the equal in "separate but equal"), at which point they were desegregated - but not forcibly and abruptly. The desegregation happened organically over the next 10-20 years. Would we be better off? Have more racial harmony, or less? Would we have prevented white flight, or just delayed it? I don't think exploring these possibilities is racist, illiberal, segregationist, or unproductive. Especially as we search for solutions to the racism that is apparent in america today (unsolvable? maybe... I hope not).