Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution

Chapter V: Races Mix

Chapter V: Races Mix. 87 88 89 V-7 Integration in terms ot Attitude V-8 90 The achievement of racial integration in Northwest Detroit reflects, to a certain extent, the gradual integration of all of Detroit. People in Detroit have voted on the integration issue with their feet. Detroit is not integrated. Detroit is not segregated. The human landscape of the city consists of three rings: black, mixed, and white. White Americans in the South would never believe how integrated the city really is. Detroit, in turn, is only going the way of many American cities, and, ultimately, the way of the world. Integration is inevitable. In the beginning of the existence of our species, Homo sapiens, we occupied a relatively small area, like all other species at their beginning. The area was probably East Africa. This original family of man was one race and jet black. Subsequent spreading out developed minor species subcharacteristics , such as color differences.But with the invention of a truly ocean-worthy vessel , the races rapidly began to mix themselves back to their original homogeneity. The remixing process is rapidly being consummated. We can avoid becoming a common race once again only through the eradication of our species , only through extinction. Nationhood — and one world-hood — come in degrees short of sovereignty. Today, political power is concentrated among only three powers, with all other nations merely wards, states-in-federation, of these three super powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China. For a geographer particularly, it becomes very easy under these conditions to hope that the world will become completely united: that there will be "One World," free of passports and other barriers. At the same time it would become possible for a world culture to arise. A world culture: perhaps English the language, the metric system the unit of measure, Chinese the food and African the music and dance. All cultures, ultimately , are sophisticated. The American Red Man will yet come to be appreciated for his survival wisdom, for his staying in harmony with nature, even if he did live in huts, as well as for his closeness to nature, particularly in comparison to the machine-happy arrogance of "Western Man." In a world culture, secondary languages and cultures would not die out. We can easily live in two or even three cultures at once, in the world culture and in our own regional culture. "Being different" might be with us forever,even as we all become more similar. A melting pot world culture and non-melting pot, unique, regional cultures could grow and change and coexist stably forever. Cultures of the past would continue to be appreciated, deepening the dominant world culture. Yet today the goal of a world culture and a world political system is very distant. People seem very far from realizing that a racially united world is inevitable. Frequently integration seems to lead not to a joyful mixing between the races, but to fury and dismay. Integration has seemed to mix the powerful with the powerless , and the result has been a certain degree of slavery. The zebras have been put in the same cage with the lions. In Detroit, for example, only thirty percent of the school children are white, but fifty percent of the voters at school meetings are white; thus black parents lose political control of the schools despite the fact that it is their children who fill the schools. So integration has come to seem a curse. Integration demands an intimate acceptance of individual human beings as full equals, as brothers and as brothers-in-law, irrespective of race, but today we do not accept each other in this way. Why not? What barriers are keeping us from total integration? There seem, generally , to be three types of obstacles: economic, biological, and cultural. Black people were not brought to America in order to serve as an object of contempt, in order for white people to have someoneto feel better than, they were brought here as slaves. Slavery is an economic condition, not racial. Racism is the effect, not the cause of slavery. For centuries, the labor of black people was V-9 A relative rarity: total social integration. Two Fitzgerald Community Council members are lost to their racial differences stolen, with no compensation, and whites then, rather than facing the reality of slave labor theft, used the resulting...