{"id":615,"date":"2025-08-10T22:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T22:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=615"},"modified":"2025-08-10T22:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T22:36:08","slug":"integration-was-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=615","title":{"rendered":"Integration Was the Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.” \u2013 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Integration<\/strong> \u2013 the act or process of integrating.
A: Incorporation as equals into society or an organization.
B: Coordination of mental processes into a normal effective personality or with the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assimilation<\/strong> \u2013 the act of assimilating.
A: An act, process, or instance of assimilating.
B: The state of being assimilated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wanted integration. From a mathematical definition, we would be \u201cX\u201d in the equation. But using definition A, we<\/em> were the ones asking to be regarded as equals. The other side never asked for equality. Their entire system was built and perfected to guarantee inequity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desegregation<\/strong> says the system is supposed to remove the legal and socially enforced separation based on race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wanted integration. We wanted to go where white folks go, live where white folks live, and live like white folks do. Our standard refrain when describing access and attainment? \u201cLike white people.\u201d It\u2019s almost like adding \u201cwhile in bed\u201d to every fortune cookie\u2014only here, it\u2019s aspirational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We dreamed of integration. A country where Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics would join hands…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if Dr. King was telling us that integration is the fire<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all know the hypnotic pull of fire\u2014the way flames dance, the satisfaction of watching something burn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integration started with smoke. In this case, the smoke was education<\/em>. We wanted all the smoke, not knowing that Eurocentric education was toxic for everybody. It caused severe amnesia, made us forget where we come from. It caused temporary\u2014and in some cases permanent\u2014blindness so we couldn\u2019t see our erasure in history. It doubled as a smoke screen to block our view of the truth. Integration told us to inhale deeply. \u201cThis smoke is necessary for your survival in the fire.\u201d Graduation was your certificate that you might be fireproof\u2014but it was far from a guarantee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where there\u2019s smoke, there\u2019s fire. Now that you\u2019ve proven your potential to live among the fire dwellers, you\u2019re sent out to gather your own fire-making materials: kindling (job\/money) because the smoke taught you to build a small fire, but your true task is to stoke a corporation\u2019s fire too. You keep adding fuel\u2014houses, cars, material things\u2014to keep your flame alive. And to create a roaring fire, you need logs. Integration promised that you\u2019d get the same materials and resources to build a fire \u201cjust like white folks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they didn\u2019t tell you was that white folks had a 400-year head start\u2014our people harvested the raw materials to build their eternal flame for free<\/em>, on stolen land, with stolen labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Integration tricked us into believing we didn\u2019t want to build our fire out there in the wild, near the \u201cuncivilized,\u201d where our kindling, fuel, and logs might be stolen\u2014likely by people who look like us. Instead, we became the \u201csafe\u201d Negroes, the ones they could use for their children\u2019s diversity essays (well, not anymore…).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White folks benefit from integration too. They get to brag about living in a \u201cdiverse community.\u201d They get to say, \u201cMy Black neighbor.\u201d They hang Black Lives Matter signs but never invite their Black neighbor inside. They benefit from our culture. I dare anybody to name \u201cwhite American culture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full disclosure: I am a product of integration. I accepted its terms and conditions. Every day, I\u2019m trying like hell to break the contract. White folks can\u2019t stand the truth, so I\u2019m just waiting for one of them to tell me to \u201cgo back to Africa.\u201d I was an advocate for full integration and earned my \u201csafe\u201d designation. I wanted to be able to say, \u201cI have white friends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am grateful to my parents\u2014people of the Great Migration\u2014for raising us in an integrated neighborhood in what was, at the time, an overwhelmingly segregated town in the early 50s. I am grateful. But recently I\u2019ve started playing the What If…?<\/em> game. What if it had been Atlanta instead of Evanston? The 5th Ward instead of the 3rd? Maybe my full-blown case of blazing integration wouldn\u2019t have transitioned into acute assimilation\u2014an illness that might be incurable but can be treated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here\u2019s the devil\u2019s trick\u2014the people who never wanted you in the house to begin with have always moved the furniture, stolen your seat, or stuck you at the table in a hard wooden chair to remind you you\u2019re not supposed to get too comfortable. Now they\u2019re taking the furniture out altogether in the name of \u201cDEI\u201d and \u201ctoo woke.\u201d They\u2019ll claim it \u201cdoesn\u2019t fit the d\u00e9cor.\u201d They\u2019ve broken the thermostat (climate change), and they\u2019re about to turn on the stove without the pilot lit. Some would rather see assured mutual destruction<\/em> than you owning the house\u2014or even living in it. Others are already plotting their escape to other planets. Hey, SpaceX!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And some? They\u2019re still dreaming of putting us back in the fields, still clutching the fantasy that the clock can be turned back to the days when we built their empire for free. Make America Great Again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only difference now is they\u2019ve traded the whip for laws, the chains for policies, and the auction block for the ballot box. And they will burn this whole damn house to the ground before they ever let you own the deed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when the ashes settle, they\u2019ll swear the fire never happened<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.” \u2013 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Integration \u2013 the act or process…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blackness","category-politics","category-race"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}