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Summary Of Why America Is Self-Segregating By Danah Boyd

749 Words3 Pages

“Why America is Self-Segregating,” is an essay written by Danah Boyd that reveals a thesis as to why America is a self-segregating society. Boyd sees technology as a tool that was supposed to create connections among people, but rather it is polarizing differences between them. Although I agree with the author that America is self-segregating, I do not accept that technology is the main culprit. By focusing on technology as the main cause of self-segregation, Danah overlooks the deeper problem of government and segregation. It is my belief that the government is the elephant in the room. Governmental policies have created and enforced actions that move society toward diversification, and now the long experiment of forced diversity has failed. …show more content…

I disagree since all the institutions discussed in her essay are regulated, mandated, licensed, taxed and follow the polices enforced by the government. Government intervention reduces choice, it picks winners and losers, and eventually erodes capitalist markets. Ultimately, this interventionism leads to division and self-segregation in a society. For example, in his article “Manufacturing Race Conflict,” Walter Williams maintains that the government is the cause of such division by claiming that, “We have chosen to play what amounts to a zero-sum game in the public policy arena.” He further clarifies his statement by continuing with, “The reason government allocation amounts to a zero-sum game is because government does not possess any resources of its very own.” The government does not create any value or resources for society, yet it has the power to dictate which groups of people get them. This zero-sum allocation means someone makes gains on the behalf of someone's loss. We see zero-sum allocation in crop subsidies, bailouts, food stamps and welfare where the government picks the winners (Williams …show more content…

Race preferences in college admissions are mandated by the government. Certain race quotes must be met, or federal funding is reduced. The trend of government mandated quotas does not end there. We now are starting to see forced diversity quota hires/admissions with LGBT persons. In Canada compelled speech is forcibly enforced, so that one must call people by their preferred pronouns, even if they are biologically incorrect. I agree with Walter Williams on the importance of this issue when he writes, “Regardless of their chosen strategy, one can safely predict that they will organize themselves on the basis of that "less-preferred" characteristic, whether it is race, religion, language or region. It is precisely this form of human organization that has given rise to history's most brutal and tragic episodes.” Williams' point is that if the government's allocation of resources is given to selected groups, then these groups gain over the non-selected groups. This will cause division and self-segregation among a society, which always leads to

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