School Desegregation
Sadly, the Supreme court has undermined the sincere attempt to mitigate racism in the country through mandated desgregation. The logic for desegregation is simple, and based on a few sociological facts we know.
We know that people tend to prefer to live with individuals who look and think like them. They hire individuals they know; they generally marry within their tribe. Although this isn't universal, it represents a fairly common pattern. I don't begrudge this. It is just the way it is, and in a democracy, this can be dangerous. We know there is a better way to do things.
Desegregation (and affirmative action) open spaces for people to interrupt the natural inclination to become tribal. These methods are, by and large, cheaper than other more productive ways to end racism. An economy that encouraged full employment, for example, would have blacks and whites working together. Right now we make no effort to invest in poor neighborhoods. Guaranteed high-quality education and schooling would lift the disadvantaged, yet industrious and ambitious, out of the ghetto. As it is, a mediocre education guarantees nothing. Further, an end to the drug war and a redirecting of the resources that put more than two million in jail, would probably increase the economy's value and make neighborhoods safer rather than dangerous.
We don't do any of these things. So we offer easier solutions. Desegregation and affirmative action are cheap ways to try to challenge our exclusive sensibilities. As we have chosen NOT to invest in our economy (in part because we are so scared of immoral consequences), we now have nothing, except platitudes that everything is OK.
But for 50 years, however, we have lived in a country that worked to end racism. How sad that we can offer ourselves excuses, pretending that we are instinctively color-blind while hanging out with people who generally look, think, and act like we do.