Michigan Students Demand 'Black-Only' Space

by Tom Knighton: Some students at the University of Michigan aren't happy. They apparently feel that the civil rights movement was horribly misguided and that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a soul who mistakenly believed that people of all colors should stand united.

At least, that's what it sounds like after hearing about what some students at that school are demanding:A student activist group at the University of Michigan is demanding campus officials provide them with “a permanent designated space on central campus for Black students and students of color to organize and do social justice work.”The demand is one of several lodged by “Students4Justice,” who this month ratcheted up campusdemonstrations to pressure administrators to cave, complaining in a newly launched petition that President Mark Schlissel has snubbed their demands.

The clamor for a segregated space for students of color to organize social justice efforts comes even as the public university builds a $10 million center for black students in the center of campus.

In their demands, students explain why the new black student center is not enough, “because we want a space solely dedicated to community organizing and social justice work specifically for people of color.”

“We want documentation of past, current, and future student activism and this should be a permanent space that is staffed, and has resources for students to organize and share resources,” the demand letter states.See that, white social justice warriors? You're considered second-class citizens by your black allies at the University of Michigan. They don't want you in their spaces because of nothing more than the color of your skin.

When people rose up and protested because of segregation, it wasn't because the "colored only" spaces weren't properly staffed, but because free men and women shouldn't be barred from going to places open to the public because of a superficial trait. They believed that all people should be free to sit anywhere on the bus, or use whatever water fountain is convenient, or sit at whatever lunch counter they want.

They didn't campaign for separate spaces. They wanted free access to all spaces for all people.

At the University of Michigan, these students are stomping on that work. They're trying to undo all that effort and sacrifice, and for what? So they can stick it to the white man?

Segregation was supposed to be dead and buried, but it's being resurrected by the same ethnic group that was so devastated by it the first time around. Apparently, they think that this time, with them in control, it'll be better. They'd better be right, because if systemic segregation returns at their behest, they won't like the outcome this time any better than the last.

Let's just hope they see the error of their ways as they finally start to grow up.
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Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, a blogger and PJ Media contributor.

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