Reflection on King and Allen Pieces - Dara

By

     In his piece "The Ethical Demands for Integration", Dr. King describes integration as "the positive acceptance of desegregation and the welcomed participation of Negroes into the total range of human activities." This is different than desegregation because it aims to connect people personally and spiritually instead of just physically. Instead of being a society forced together because of desegregation laws, integration fosters a community where all people are welcomed and want to be together as one unit. Dr. King then goes on to explain human worth, freedom, and the moral and ethical reasons for integration. These ideas are beautiful and ideal but I struggle to accept them because King provides no concrete path to integration. I think that innately humans are selfish beings who only look out for their own best interest. In the section titled The Worth of Persons, King cites the work of Immanuel Kant, "all men must be treated as ends and never as mere means." While I agree with this idea and its sentiments, when I look at the world, more often than not I see people using others as means and not as ends. King provides no argument for how to change this selfish attitude into the goal expressed by Kant. His argument lacks an explanation of how integration will change the selfish and negative mindset of society in order to achieve a world where all people are welcomed into full participation of human activities. 

    "Integration, Freedom, and the Affirmation of Life" is Allen's attempt at providing a more concrete way of establishing King's idea of integration. She voices a similar concern to mine about King's argument, "the action steps and specific tools that King proposes-will seem limited and insufficient." While I agree with her on this I think her account also fails to propose realistic ways to reach the goals laid out by King within the idea of integration. She offers the idea of non domination and a "well-being" requirement which she displays through an example of a universities mission statement. Although she takes a different route than King I think she has the same problem. How is she going to alter the selfish mindsets of humans and make them take into consideration the well-being of other people if it doesn't also serve themselves? I also think the university mission statement example was weak because even if in writing the community is committed to the well-being and inclusion of all, it does not reflect how the university actually operates. 

    In conclusion, I think both accounts argue for a noble and important goal of integration but fail to provide concrete steps and actions to change the minds of people and reach the goal of inclusive community that integration is aimed at. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Cowen and Anderson are both wrong-George

By
In their dialogue, both Cowen and Anderson fail to address important elements of each other's arguments. Cowen's failure is primarily empirical. He dismisses the significance of labor market monopsony out of hand (109). Although economists disagree about the relevance of employer labor market power, Cowen does not sufficiently address the credible evidence of its role in suppressing compensation. This evidence has only grown in the years since Private Government  was published. One consideration as to the relevance of monopsony is the pay-productivity gap. Although libertarian economists chafe immensely at any implication that workers do not benefit from higher productivity, and the popular understanding of the pay-productivity gap is indeed exaggerated, even the most pro-market economists are forced to admit to a degree of "delinkage" between the growth of labor productivity and the compensation of nonsupervisory employees. Interestingly, there is less evidence of de...
Read more

Responding to Jemma and Aara: Another consideration that Rawls does not discuss--- Luis

By
  Hey Jemma and Aara,   Thank you for the thought-provoking blogs! I definitely felt that Okin made her argument less favorable by structuring her last part of Chapter 6 with a sense of constructing a ladder of what social standing has a greater impact on "one's thinking of justice." I agree with you and Aara in that Okin's critique of the unequal gender-based structure is strong and needed to achieve Rawls's basic structure of a well-ordered society. I also believe that stating that gender is the most prevalent identity that will form an individual's concept of "justice" undermines intersectionality. I wanted to add another layer that is not accounted for by Rawls, which Okin hints on.  After reading both blogs, I initially thought about our seminar where Kat and I argued for what Aara was discussing, a knowledge of the global racial empire, or in other terms, the history of racism and colonialism in the original position. I was sold on that argumen...
Read more

Evaluating Harris Whiteness as Property--- Luis Mendoza

By
      In "Whiteness as Property," Cheryl I. Harris builds her work on the image of her grandmother and her ability to use "passing" in her labor and daily life (1710). The main advantage of passing, as stated by Harris, is that it "[increases] the [possibilities] of controlling critical aspects of one's life rather than being the object of other's domination" (1713). At this moment, I want to focus on her functions of whiteness which comes after her discussion that whiteness is property through its theoretical descriptions. More specifically, I will digest one attribute of whiteness as property: "the rights to transfer or alienability" (1731).              One of Harris's points is that because theories surrounding property state that it must have the aspect of alienability, it makes whiteness as property more difficult to process. The issue is that "whiteness," as Harris states, "is incapable of being trans...
Read more