'Woke' America is no beacon of democracy - opinion

• Author: SHERWIN POMERANTZ
• Published date: 29 September 2021

We went a day before we were due to report in order to have some fun before we gave ourselves over to what at best was a less than pleasant military experience. We were eight Jews and eight blacks traveling to the segregated south for the first time in our lives. This was before the Internet and online reservations. So upon arrival, we hailed a few taxis and went to the Bel Air Hotel in Augusta, which we knew had a pool and reasonable rates.

Upon approaching the front desk I asked the clerk if he had rooms. When he said yes, I asked for four rooms for the 16 of us. He looked at me and said, "THEY can't come in here, we don't allow them in this hotel." He meant our black colleagues, although if he knew we were Jewish he probably would not have wanted us there either. All of us were shocked as we had never experienced segregation in the flesh, as it were, and we beat a hasty retreat to the taxis and went to the Holiday Inn, as by then the national chains were no longer segregated.

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But that portion of American history was due to change dramatically, as segregation became superseded by laws that no longer permitted racial or religious separation in schools or any other public places in the United States. While the struggle for equality was a long one – and many would say that it has not yet been fully realized – there was an understanding that for a nation to grow and prosper it had to be "one nation (under God), indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" as America's pledge of allegiance so meaningfully states.

One would think that the population of America – black, white, brown, yellow and all of the miscellaneous shades therein – would have been reveling that acceptance of everyone without regard to religion or race was a realizable goal, and one very much in the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, "We may all have come on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now."

Fast forward 60 years, and where is America now? Some statistics:

42% of American universities have segregated residence halls

46% of American college campuses have segregated orientation programs for incoming students

72% of American universities have segregated graduation ceremonies, one for whites, one for blacks, one for Latinas, etc.

The University of Michigan at Dearborn recently sponsored a "whites only" virtual café...