David Brooks discusses ideas for bridging America’s racial divide, including socioeconomic mixing in his New York Times op-ed.
“Many people support racial integration in the abstract but don’t want to do the things integration would require. Some see integration as a sentimental notion not connected to immediate concerns. Others have accepted the idea that birds of a feather flock together and always will.
“The big problem with this complacency is that you end up in a racially divided nation with millions of people left in areas of concentrated poverty, falling further behind. Racism is America’s great sin, and if there isn’t continual progress to combat it, the nation becomes ugly to itself.
“The big shift, of course, has to be psychological. Everybody laments how divided America is, but how many of us are part of an organization that lets us meet once a week with others who are very different from ourselves? Integration doesn’t mean losing the essence of what makes each group special; it just means connecting fervently with a fellow American.”
