The result of the Civil Rights Act

I can only find two positions regarding what the Civil Rights Act has actually accomplished:

1) it achieved the goals of eliminating segregation and helped reduce racism – this is the position held by the vast majority of those who have opined on the subject; and
2) it led immediately to a raced-based preferences system – in other words, it replaced racism against blacks with racism in favor of blacks.

I’d like to offer a different perspective.

In part, a neutral observer has to agree with point 1). However, I see a dark side to this agreement. It’s undeniable that racism has been effectively killed (by legislating morality, as George Will put it). Ending institutionalized racism was good. Opening opportunity for blacks was good. However racism has been killed because it has effectively been made a thought crime. I understand that there’s no law prohibiting a person from saying racist things, but then the real world consequences of saying racist things are probably more harsh than the penalties would be under any reasonable legal prohibition. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

I also think you have to agree with 2). One system of state-sponsored injustice has been replaced with another – if fairness and color-blindness were the goals, the goals have not been achieved. Perhaps this shift was temporarily necessary, however no one seriously believes that race-based preferences are now temporary. One political party depends on the patronage that this system has created – it’s unelectable without near 100% support of blacks. This system of preference has other downsides. For example, if were racist, I would love system, since it guarantees that the black people that white people will in fact be less qualified than white people in that position. I went to college and I now work with black people who had separate, lower standards for acceptance to college and into jobs. They are less qualified by design. This is very bad design, if the goal is to create (even the appearance of) equality.

To these points, I’d also add that segregation is alive and well, it just moved under the surface. The law has also created a society in which everyone is required to believe certain things that are obviously not true. I’ve been reading enough Carlyle to believe that lies on this scale are will not stand on a long time horizon.

I live in a neighborhood that, by any standard, would have to be considered among the most desegregated, diverse, mixed, etc., neighborhoods in the country. Yet, the interaction between blacks and whites is still extremely limited and awkward. Further, in these integrated neighborhoods, the whites are a lot richer than the blacks (In 2008, white households in the District had a median income of about $101,000; for black households, the figure was about $39,000, according to census data). This disparity is necessary because of desegregation and the reality that whites will not send their children to a school with a large black enrollment (no law has changed this reality). Desegregation has meant that poorer whites have been forced to move out of the city (if I wanted to be sarcastic, I’d say that the Civil Rights Act has contributed to global warming by forcing whites to commute long distances to work, heh) while richer whites can live in the city because they can send their children to private schools that develop sophisticated and expensive ways to explain why their not practicing segregation, despite all outward appearances to the contrary.

The Act that created a world of opportunity also created a world lies. Our universities and our press avoid certain subjects as rigorously as any medieval employee of the Church. We’re asked not to see reality – the obvious reality of aggregate, average differences between the races. Mandating the observance of this false reality is not healthy and it cannot stand. Problems don’t go away because they’re ignore and misdiagnosed (for example, a few miles from the popular tourist spots in DC, bus drivers are instructed to wear goggles on their routes because residents throw rocks at buses – this does not happen in any predominantly white neighborhoods and it’s unacceptable to allow this to continue in such a wealthy city – but these problems are studiously ignored).

The end to the injustices of racism is huge net gain. However, it’s time to acknowledge the truth. Blacks and whites are different and in many cases neither group really wants to be integrated. Blacks leave my neighborhood to move to predominantly black neighborhoods at about the same rate whites leave to move to predominantly white neighborhoods – based on my unscientific observation. We are now effectively required to pretend that certain things are true when we know that they are not.

I think one has to view the Civil Rights Act as mixed. Ending institutionalized racism was good. The effects on property rights, the functioning of our government (which now relies on patronage to an extent that would look familiar to the ancient Romans), the imposition of "reverse" racism, and the creation of rigorously enforced taboos are not good. Of course, the latter means that we can’t really have a civilized conversation about the effects of the Civil Rights Act, so I’m writing for nothing beyond helping me to organize my thoughts.