Deja vu Separate but Equal?

News Report:  "In order to help black males graduate, the University of Connecticut is constructing a dorm with a living space only for them. Called the ScHOLA2RS House, the living community for African American males is set to open in 2016. According to UConn’s website, the ScHOLA2RS House is “a scholastic initiative to groom, nurture, and train the next generation of leaders to address grand challenges in society through the promotion of academic success in undergraduate programs at the University of Connecticut and in competitive graduate programs.”

Now we move from affirmative action into reverse discrimination. We have lowered the standards to be admitted, lowered the standards to graduate, and given preferential hiring, what next? New college buildings for only Black men? Will they be paid for by Black men only or your tax dollars? I think you can figure that one out.

When I was in 9th grade my family was living in Georgia. At that time the US was still living under the stigma of what was supposedly separate but equal public facilities. Separate lunch counters, bathrooms etc. Yes it was wrong and Americans changed it. For all of the civil rights marches and protests it was still primarily WHITE politicians who rewrote the laws and corrected the archaic discriminatory practices. My high school in Georgia was right out of the pages of "Gone With The Wind." The only new part was, of course, the gymnasium. The classrooms still had the iron framed bench seat desks with lift up tops and ink wells. This was like living on the set of Little House on the Prairie. The real irony was this school was all white. After we got off the bus the black kids  continued on down the road. They went to a brand new school with all new desks and chairs.

I remember separate lunch counters and bathrooms. I remember the dead freedom riders in a ditch in Alabama or was it Mississippi and the bombed churches. It was an ugly, evil time. Are we ready to repeat it all over by creating a new separate but equal society? Call it Apartheid, Segregation, or "a living community for African American males," it still smells bad.