Integration: An Interpretation

The historian Oscar Handlin noted in 1965 that the “attention [of the Civil Rights Movement] has been so narrowly focused on tactical issues that there has been no time to consider ultimate goals.” He warned that “in the absence of defined goals, it is difficult to estimate the character or pace of change or even to judge its direction.” Unfortunately, Handlin's complaint, now four decades old, remains relevant. One obvious indication is the confusion that shrouds discussion of race relations, including key words that are often used with little attention to the complexities they embody. One such word is integration, which is best understood in relation to two other key words: segregation and desegregation.

When people speak of segregation, they typically refer to policies or practices that separate the races to the detriment (many think) of racial minorities. Under de jure segregation, government officials purposefully keep races apart in settings such as education, housing, employment, and transportation. Such segregation stigmatizes and handicaps the politically vulnerable race by relegating it to facilities that are not only separate but also inferior. Under de facto segregation, government officials (and other influential decision makers) do not purposefully keep the races separate but decline to undo the patterns of separation and inequality that were intentionally established in the past. De facto segregation is perpetuated by the momentum generated by de jure segregation.

Desegregation is a concept still mired in controversy five decades after the Supreme Court concluded in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that de jure segregation is not an innocuous distinction but an impermissible form of oppression. In the aftermath of Brown, some observers concluded that all desegregation required was that officials cease to use race itself as a criterion for dealing with people. Desegregation would be accomplished when, instead of using race to steer students to this or that school, officials used place of residence, test scores, or some other nonracial criterion as the basis for pupil assignment. This view might have triumphed had it not been for obstreperous segregationists who fought even formal changes to the Jim Crow pigmentocracy. In response to them, a second body of opinion emerged on the requirements of desegregation.

This second concept of desegregation demands more of government than the first. It calls for an end to the use of racial criteria by officials, but it also requires them to take steps to uproot the vestiges of de jure segregation. Desegregation, in this view, entails remediation for the past harms caused by segregation. This view is the dominant perspective within the Supreme Court in the early 2000s. Even the most conservative justices say that they adhere to it. There is, however, an important split within this body of opinion.

Conservatives typically define the idea of vestiges of segregation narrowly. They insist on demonstrable evidence tying past wrongdoing to contemporary ills. “The vestiges of segregation that are the concern of the law,” Justice Clarence Thomas writes, “must be so real that they have a causal link to the de jure violation being remedied.” Conservatives also give considerable deference to freedom of choice as an acceptable explanation for racial separation in contexts such as schools and housing. According to Thomas, “the ‘continuing racial isolation’ of schools after de jure segregation has ended may well reflect voluntary housing choices or other private decisions.”

By contrast, liberals define the idea of vestiges of past oppression more broadly. They presume, in the absence of proof to the contrary, that there is notable racial inequity due to past wrongdoings, and that this warrants remedial redress. Liberals also tend to be skeptical of the innocence of free choice when the obvious consequence is racial separation. They believe that such choices are probably tainted by the expectations, fears, and prejudices that were drummed into the hearts and minds of people socialized by an oppressive racial order. That order may now be formally dead, but its long-term impact is still deeply felt.

These differences between conservatives and liberals mark out battle lines that have scarred American society in every major struggle over race policy during the past fifty years. But whatever the arguments about defining the scope of “past wrongs,” there is an implicit consensus that it is morally proper, indeed, it is required to right them. In a sense, then, most of the influential political actors in the United States, conservatives and liberals alike, are desegregationists, at least in theory and rhetoric. The courts may quarrel about what constitutes a vestige of segregation or about the best ways to remedy its wrongs and to desegregate society. But whether one speaks of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on the right or William Brennan and the late Thurgood Marshall on the left, the most influential jurists in the past few decades have been desegregationists, albeit of varying degrees of intensity.

Concepts of Integration

Many people use desegregation and integration as synonyms. That is understandable. In many contexts, vigorous desegregation is virtually indistinguishable in practice from integration. It is useful, though, to distinguish the terms. Desegregation, as the structure of the word suggests, aims principally to undo segregation. Thus another term—integration—is needed to describe nonremedial policies that are aimed, for instance, at creating or sustaining interracial interaction in an institution that never engaged in purposeful segregation, in an institution that seeks to embrace new immigrants of color who have never previously been victimized by racial discrimination in America, or in an institution in which it has been determined that past wrongs have been rectified by a process of desegregation that is now complete.

But various types of integration also exist, and exploring them is worthwhile. One type might be called amalgamation—the literal blending of races through voluntary sexual intimacy, resulting in a new, distinctly American multiracial hybrid. This sort of aspiration has been the object of many sharp attacks, especially by white supremacists, who condemn “mongrelization.” Indeed, the Supreme Court did not bar states from prohibiting interracial marriage until 1967, in the exquisitely titled case Loving v. Virginia. Unsurprisingly, advocates of integration through interracial marriage have articulated their views only sporadically. One such racial egalitarian was Wendell Phillips, who declared in 1863 that he placed his hopes on “that sublime mingling of the races, which is God's own method of civilizing and elevating the world. Not that amalgamation of licentiousness, born of slavery—the ruin of both races—but that gradual and harmonizing union, in honorable marriage, which has mingled all other races.”

Akin to amalgamationism is the brand of integration associated with Martin Luther King, Jr. It does not expressly promote physical union (though it does not discourage it either), but it champions the creation of new communal affiliations in which interracial affections are a positive good. Desegregation, according to King, “is eliminative and negative, for it simply removes … legal and social prohibitions. Integration is creative, and is therefore more profound and far-reaching. …

“Integration is the positive acceptance of desegregation and the welcomed participation of Negroes into the total range of human activities. Integration is genuine intergroup, interpersonal doing.” Pressing on, King observed that “we do not have to look very far to see the pernicious effects of a desegregated society that is not integrated. It leads to physical proximity without spiritual affinity … elbows are together and hearts are apart.” Integration, King implied, means bringing together hearts and minds on the basis of human bonds much more profound than feelings of racial kinship. “I have a dream,” King declared in his most famous speech, “that one day … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.”

A third brand of integration is less focused on inculcating interracial attachments and more concerned with the strategic placement of blacks in influential, power-shaping forums. This approach fosters policies that assure the presence of racial minorities in a wide variety of institutional settings, including universities (in both student and faculty populations), workplaces, juries, governmental commissions, boards of trustees and directors, slates for honorary degrees and other awards, and so on. This might be called diversity integration, and it is currently the most widely practiced and consequential form of racial integration.

Finally, there is a fourth concept of integration that is propounded by many people who would likely resist being labeled as integrationists. I will call this the school of pluralist integration. On the one hand, its proponents want blacks to be full beneficiaries of America's bounty and full participants in its polity. On the other hand, many of them suspect that blacks will always be outsiders in America and that racial inequality will be a permanent feature of its social landscape. In addition, they suspect that any substantial gains by blacks will come from hard bargaining with the white power structure, bargaining backed up by mobilized groups organized around their identity as racial minorities.

Pluralist integrationists resist racial blending or racial mixing as diversions from the more urgent project of inculcating a strong sense of racial kinship among blacks. They do not want to leave America or form a separate state here, but they do want blacks to be a strong, cohesive factor to induce the white majority to cede to black communities their fair share.

Group competition is thus assumed to be a fact of American life; consequently, any group that is not well organized will be hurt in struggles for power. The proponents of this view are the ideological heirs of the Black Power movement. One can see its practical expression today in the numerous racially defined caucuses in the professions—the Congressional Black Caucus, the Black Law Students Association, the National Association of Black Social Workers, the National Black Caucus of Librarians—and in industry. This view is also seen in efforts to press legislatures to create black majority electoral districts.

A wide spectrum of concerns and sentiments animates these overlapping camps. Some integrationists are inspired by an ethos of human solidarity; thus they seek to subvert all arrangements that discourage universalism and divide diverse people. Cross-racial bridges are their response to the racial conflict that they think is so pervasive and destructive in America. Others urge integration to secure the allegiance (or at least cooperation) of alienated outsiders; the assumption is that a diverse society requires diverse perspectives and experiences to produce better education and decision making. For still others, a major rationale for integration is prophylactic. They fear that if white and black people are separate, the white majority will discriminate in favor of itself. Their alternative is to ensure that the races are so thoroughly interwoven that whites cannot discriminate in favor of themselves without simultaneously helping a large number of black people or discriminate against black people without simultaneously harming a large number of whites. So, the best way to guarantee black schoolchildren a good education is to tie their fate to that of white children, and they should all go to the same schools and have the same resources.

Tragic Failure?

Journalist Tom Wicker calls integration the “tragic failure.” Political scientist Gary Orfield speaks of “the loss of the integrationist dream.” Columnist Clarence Page asks, “Who killed integration?” Is it time to write an obituary for integration? I do not think so, but there are good reasons why its advocates should be concerned. For one thing, Affirmative Action is quite visibly under siege, challenged on the grounds that racially defined measures to ensure even a modicum of diversity in public agencies and institutions are unwise, are unfair, and violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Foes of affirmative action find an increasingly sympathetic ear in the federal judiciary. One telling example is the 1996 Court of Appeals decision in Hopwood v. Texas. The University of Texas Law School was ordered to abandon race-positive criteria for admission, whether the aim is classroom diversity or remedying of past discrimination in the state educational system. If the consequence is a radical reduction in the numbers of blacks and Hispanics in the Texas flagship law school, well, that's not to be considered. Another related example is the Supreme Court's invalidation—as a violation of the equal protection clause—of a congressional districting scheme that aimed to create majority-black districts in Shaw v. Reno (1993). These judicial actions have counterparts in administrative decisions, such as that of the California Board of Regents to end racially defined affirmative action in admissions to state-supported colleges and universities. And those who initiated the referendum on affirmative action in California hoped that popular opinion will bring its end.

What fuels this reaction? In part, it is that old nemesis of integration: the ideology and habits of white supremacy. But it is also due to the fears of people—whites—who feel squeezed and insecure and are desperate to maintain their place amid powerful downdrafts of social and economic decline. It is animated too by people who think themselves prointegration but who fret that racially defined affirmative action is as divisive as it is integrative because it entrenches racial consciousness and racial boundaries.

I have, up till now, focused on white opposition to integration. But dissent has come as well from people of color. Emblematic of this dissent is the campaign waged by the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) to stigmatize and stop transracial adoptions. After all, what could be a more vivid example of integration than adults of one race adopting children of another? In the mid-1960s, influenced by the integrationist mood of the times, whites began to adopt children of color in unprecedented numbers. In the late 1960s, pursuant to the teachings of Black Power, the NABSW began to object to this on the spurious grounds that it is bad for the adoptees and threatens minority communities with “cultural genocide.”

Some people of color believe that some forms of integration come with insulting undertones—for instance, that what colored people most want is to rub shoulders, if not genitalia, with whites. Another is that colored people cannot learn or produce anything outstanding on their own.

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton articulated this sentiment in 1967 in Black Power: The Politics of Liberation: “‘Integration’ as a goal today speaks to the problem of blackness not only in an unrealistic way but also in a despicable way. It is based on complete acceptance of the fact that in order to have a decent house or education, black people must move into a white neighborhood or send their children to a white school. This reinforces, among both black and white, the idea that ‘white’ is automatically superior and ‘black’ is by definition inferior. For this reason, ‘integration’ is a subterfuge for the maintenance of white supremacy.”

A quarter-century later, Clarence Thomas echoed these words when he supported the defendant's position in a school desegregation suit, Missouri v. Jenkins (1995), initiated by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Kansas City, Missouri. Justice Thomas, along with a majority of the Supreme Court, concluded that a federal court had no grounds on which to order the maintaining of so-called magnet schools, which sought to attract white students who might otherwise leave the public schools to attend suburban or private schools. “It never ceases to amaze me,” Thomas declared, “that the courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” Rejecting the idea that integrated schooling was constitutionally required or educationally preferable, Thomas suggested that “it may very well be that what has been true for historically black colleges is true for black middle and high schools. Despite their origins in ‘the shameful history of state-enforced segregation,’ these institutions can be ‘both a source of pride to blacks who have attended them and a source of hope to black families who want the benefits of … learning for their children.’ … Because of their ‘distinctive histories and traditions’ … black schools can function as the center and symbol of black communities, and provide examples of independent black leadership, success, and achievement.”

Prospects

Clearly the forces arrayed against integration are many. However, other factors at play allow for at least some optimism. First and foremost is this: across a wide span of the political spectrum—from the editors of Dissent magazine to the leaders of the Republican Party—the absence of people of color (particularly blacks) in their ranks is considered a real problem, even if it is not due to discrimination. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush railed against quotas, but they both had an unspoken quota system that included at least one black in the Cabinet. Bill Clinton, too, denounced quotas, as does George W. Bush, though both included at least one black in their Cabinets. There is a widespread feeling that some minimal black representation is required.

One might balk at calling this integration; tokenism may seem a better word. Such criticism raises a difficult conceptual problem attached to the term integration: how much of an interracial presence is necessary for something to be rightly described as integrated. I cannot answer this satisfactorily, but I do think whatever leads major white politicians to believe that they must have a visible representation of black people in their ranks, it is a marked advance over the sensibility prevailing in, say, 1960. Today white politicians in the highest circles feel compelled to include blacks openly in the governance of the nation, which was not the case when John F. Kennedy was president.

The elevation of Colin Powell as head of the National Security Council under Reagan, and as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush, and as secretary of state under George W. Bush is also noteworthy; there are few positions of more responsibility in the country. Since the Kennedy presidency, blacks have been named to a variety of high-level posts, but none before Powell placed a Negro's finger at the center of the nation's (indeed the world's) very existence. And conservative Republicans elevated Powell. This suggests that however powerful reactionary currents have been over the past fifty years, a forceful countercurrent has also been at work. This countercurrent has quietly eroded white supremacist premises that, even at the height of the Second Reconstruction, would likely have prevented Lyndon Johnson from appointing a black as head of the armed forces as did George Bush three decades later.

Uneven moves toward integration can be seen in many other spheres of American life as well. Among the most influential supporters of affirmative action have been corporate executives and presidents of the most prestigious universities. Of course, a wide range of considerations prompts them. For some, it is merely insurance against racial discrimination suits. For others it is simply public relations. But a good many people in influential positions sincerely prefer the distinctively vibrant ambiance of many interracial communities. And even those who laud diversity for the sake of public relations are evidence of something important: the emergence of a market for racial integration—of, for example, a body of students and parents, white as well as black, who prefer racially diverse to monochromatic schools.

Even those who criticize integration of a certain sort often want integration of another sort. Carmichael and Hamilton denounced integration as despicable but sought “an effective share of the total power of the society.” In other words, beneath a patina of nationalist rhetoric, they were, in the end, pluralist integrationists aiming to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from the American polity. Similarly, black Harvard law students may echo Clarence Thomas on integrationist condescension (though most of them loathe other aspects of his conservative politics), but that does not dissuade them from attending the nation's most elite, predominantly white law school and yearning for positions at elite, predominantly white law firms.

As to foes of racially defined integrative measures, it is true that some are closet white supremacists. But others—both white and black—are committed antiracists who genuinely believe that racially defined measures are destructive and that nonracial means of racial integration offer a better chance for racial justice and harmony in the future. To this extent, it is misguided to see opposition to affirmative action as a general rejection of integration. It is a hopeful sign when some integrationists, such as Glenn Loury and Shelby Steele, oppose racially defined affirmative action while other integrationists fervently support it. This suggests that the formidable energies now being brought to bear on this issue are not entirely retrograde and entail a more complex and not altogether regrettable dimension. And the presence of integrationists on both sides of the struggles over affirmative action and electoral districting also indicates that antiracist sentiments diffuse across ideological boundaries.

In the end, the status of integration is, like most everything involving race, complex and ambiguous. One cannot be happy about the present situation. For one thing, Pat Buchanan's 1996 candidacy and the muted reaction to its racist underbelly vividly demonstrated that old-fashioned white supremacist notions are still frighteningly present, tolerated, and influential. At the same time, to assert that it makes no difference if Plessy v. Ferguson or Brown v. Board of Education is the law of the land or that the country is in the grip of an unchangeable American-style apartheid is simply self-discrediting hyperbole. If one reads An American Dilemma, Gunnar Myrdal's epic portrait of race relations in America in 1945, and compares what it describes with today's situation, one will repeatedly find cause to rejoice in the changes that have come about thanks to the constant, intelligent, and courageous efforts of people, high and low, of all hues, who have tried mightily to move daily practices closer to enlightened ideals. Though many difficult struggles lie in wait, racial integration, already an established part of American aims and expectations, will live and grow as we move farther into the new century.

Originally appeared as “On Racial Integration” in Dissent 43, no. 3 (summer 1996).

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