A New Jim Crow Era: Modern Parallels

 New Jim Crow Era (full series)
Blacks Only | Modern Parallels
Segregated Schools

Modern Parallels

Some will object to my comparison of America’s current divisive and hyper-race-focused culture with that of the Deep South almost 100 years ago. But is the comparison that far off? Are not these the same principles today that were alive during the Jim Crow Era? Let’s do a comparison.

Jim Crow laws were a series of state and local statutes enacted in the South, starting in the late 19th century and continuing until the Civil Rights Act of 1968. These laws enforced the racial segregation of African Americans from whites, including public facilities such as schools, hospitals, libraries, and parks. They were often labeled with signs indicating “whites only” and “colored.” There are black people living today who experienced the Jim Crow South with tales of being kicked out of movie theaters and riding in the back of buses. It is a time in our nation’s history that isn’t looked upon with pride. But start thinking through what Jim Crow was and compare it to today, and you may be shocked to realize we are repeating the history of that era.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to say the situation today is exactly the same as the Jim Crow Era of the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but all the same principles at work today. If the seeds of racial segregation are allowed to blossom further, we are not far off from that time.

So-called progressives have resurrected all the elements of the Jim Crow Era. Special privileges and facilities for certain races, division by racial groups, harassment and browbeating of the new racial target (white people) embedded in government policy and school curriculum, rules applying to only one group and overlooked for others as a means to exclude, and so forth—not to mention these policies’ cultural impact, especially on our impressionable youth. We may simply bemoan all these incidents by themselves as backward products of the modern woke movement, but once they are all listed together, the complete picture of this sad mosaic comes into focus. It’s just a reframing of the old Jim Crow Era, with the roles, races, and colors reversed, like a film negative of an old 1920s picture.

In Elk Grove, California, a white teacher is suing his teachers union because he’s not allowed to apply for a board position that is exclusively a “Black, Indigenous, people of color board (BIPOC) member seat.” A Black-owned venture capitalist firm tried to award grants exclusively to Black women entrepreneurs but was blocked by an appellate court. In 2023, the National Educators Association (NEA) protested against the Supreme Court ending some race-based policies in school admissions. Ironically, this same Supreme Court now has a justice whose position was filled partly because of her skin color and gender, Ketanji Brown Jackson. Imagine if the races were reversed and a president declared he would only fill a SCOTUS seat with a white male. One can imagine President Wilson doing something like this, perhaps, during the Jim Crow Era.

Back then in the South, blacks were often assumed guilty until proven innocent. Today, the situation is usually reversed, like during the summer of 2020 when two white students of St Francis High School were expelled for the crime of a picture of them from 2017 resurfacing. It was assumed that the white students were wearing black face, but it turns out they were simply wearing acne masks that were black.

In the Jim Crow Era, racial prejudice and supremacy were baked into the school curriculum and often taught to students in classrooms. Nowadays, white students are being verbally abused by their teachers, like in the case of one father who sued because his son was told in class that he has “white privilege.” He lost his case. White students are discriminated against, especially if they don’t loudly celebrate the new Jim Crow policies of the left, like the student who sued his district after claiming he was discriminated against for wearing a MAGA hat. Among the claims, the student says he was repeatedly called “whitey” by school staff, the principal pulled his earphones out and mockingly asked if he was listening to “Dixie,” and the student-council president made a meme of him wearing a KKK hood. The lawsuit was dismissed. Similar lawsuits are being filed nationwide, which only emphasizes the extent of the problem. How many examples of this discrimination have not been brought to court? The Denver Public Schools system is facing two federal civil rights investigations for discrimination against white students. We don’t have time for all the examples that can be cited.

In the next installment, the teachers unions are often behind modern segregation efforts.