Sanctimony or Self-Interest?
March 26, 2010 - by
Having just admitted (below) one mistake I will risk committing another – except this time I am going to say the following is 100% conjecture. It’s all theory. No facts.
The other day I was having lunch with a group of friends and the flap on the Wake County School Board came up and I said, Well, diversity is a sort of sacred cow to liberals – so of course they’re outraged.
Now in every group there’s one cynic and this time he was sitting right next to me. He turned in his chair, stared at me a moment and said, You’ve got that wrong. Or, at least, the liberals aren’t worried about the kind of diversity you’re talking about.
I said, Explain that.
Here’s my cynical friend’s explanation. He said: 1) A lot of the school children being bused in Wake County are African-American children who live inside the Beltline – who’re being bused to schools outside the Beltline; 2) When busing ends and those children are allowed to attend the schools nearest their homes, as a result the racial makeup of schools inside the Beltline will change, gaining a higher ratio of African American students.
All that moral outrage you’re talking about, my friend concluded, is nothing more than good old-fashioned self-interest.
Now, as I said, I have no idea if my friend’s theory is correct – but I’ve reached the age where I’m ready to believe human nature is capable of no end of duplicity. So who knows? If anyone out there has actually studied the facts and figures about who gets bused where in Wake County write in and share the statistics – then, maybe, we can figure out if the brouhaha is about sanctimony or self-interest.
Sanctimony or Self-Interest?
March 26, 2010/
Having just admitted (below) one mistake I will risk committing another – except this time I am going to say the following is 100% conjecture. It’s all theory. No facts.
The other day I was having lunch with a group of friends and the flap on the Wake County School Board came up and I said, Well, diversity is a sort of sacred cow to liberals – so of course they’re outraged.
Now in every group there’s one cynic and this time he was sitting right next to me. He turned in his chair, stared at me a moment and said, You’ve got that wrong. Or, at least, the liberals aren’t worried about the kind of diversity you’re talking about.
I said, Explain that.
Here’s my cynical friend’s explanation. He said: 1) A lot of the school children being bused in Wake County are African-American children who live inside the Beltline – who’re being bused to schools outside the Beltline; 2) When busing ends and those children are allowed to attend the schools nearest their homes, as a result the racial makeup of schools inside the Beltline will change, gaining a higher ratio of African American students.
All that moral outrage you’re talking about, my friend concluded, is nothing more than good old-fashioned self-interest.
Now, as I said, I have no idea if my friend’s theory is correct – but I’ve reached the age where I’m ready to believe human nature is capable of no end of duplicity. So who knows? If anyone out there has actually studied the facts and figures about who gets bused where in Wake County write in and share the statistics – then, maybe, we can figure out if the brouhaha is about sanctimony or self-interest.