Yesterday, most government workers, schoolteachers and banks took the day off in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. He, and many like him, fought for the Civil Rights, Voting Rights and Fair Housing Acts. Groups like the Freedom Riders peacefully protested segregation despite being beaten, fire-bombed and arrested. This segregation existed locally, too. Blacks were barred from swimming in our local pools. When they did, the pools were drained. Now, despite the valiant efforts of civil rights leaders to bring people together, Allentown is doing its best to drive them apart with absurd "healing sessions" in response to a noose supposedly found on the computer of an employee who has made complaints about discrimination at city hall.
Get this. These "healing sessions," which were conducted on Friday, were divided into two groups. One was for black, the indigenous and persons of color. The other was for whites, even those who call themselves "allies" to persons of color. This initiative imposes the very segregation that civil rights leaders fought against for decades.
A letter to city staff states, "The purpose of these affinity spaces is not to divide AT ALL. We do not want people thinking that we are dividing by ethnicity, to put people on separate sides or ideals."
Whatever the intention, that is precisely what happened. George Wallace would have been proud.
By the way, the "affinity space" for persons of color is a basement.
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