Balance

As a callow young undergraduate, I cycled through a few majors before ending up in economics. This was in the late 60s (yes, there were years before 2000), and the notion of affirmative action was just beginning to bubble. As it happened, one of my professors took up the idea during a discussion. He structured the argument thus

We have a 100 yard dash with two runners. They both come to the starting line in standard running duds, but before the race is started, Blue must put on a rucksack with 50 pounds of rucks in it. Green does not.

The race starts, and Green sprints ahead. When Blue reaches the 50 yard mark, he is told to drop the rucksack with its 50 pounds of rucks and continue in the race.

To no one's great surprise, Green wins going away.

After the race, Blue understandably complains. But the organizers dismiss his objection, saying that he finished the race in the same condition as Green. It was a fair race at the end.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the hypocrisy of the organizers. To segue to the RRW Supremes' ruling today, we can argue about how long the racial divide can be compensated for, but 50 odd years out of 400 seems a tad short. After all, white folk (cops and not) still seem to get their jollies from shooting Black folk just for the hell of it. Predominantly Black school districts are still widely underfunded compared to white. And so forth. I guess that's ok, since Jesus says, "The poor you will always have with you."

The aftermath of the decision is easy to predict: separate but equal will be Constitutional once again. Not that separate will ever really be equal. Disparities in public education between Black and white will revert to the 1940s and earlier; hell, antebellum would be so much better. White privilege will once again be in control.