But despite war's potency, we don't want to pick fights for the sake of racial harmony. The fact is, we don't need to like each other, except in the most formal ways, or in the direct circumstances. America is not and never will be, one community. It is thousands of communities, many of them quite weird to each other. We should worry less about loving strangers and work more on loving our neighbors.
Cultural miscegenation happens all the time.
We need to stand out of each other's way and let people have what they want. Now, poor kids, including black kids, may learn something, and some of it may even be about other Americans. At the end of the story reporting the gift, The New York Times of June 10 quoted Sandra Feldman of the American Federation of Teachers, sniffing that the money hadn t gone to public schools. The integrationist ideal took a big hit in that fight, and some liberals learned how bad diversity merchants can be. But they still have a lot to learn about how a free society works.