Equality, Citizenship, and Segregation: A Defense of Separation

Description

There is much evidence to suggest that segregation creates and sustains inequality, and undermines the social trust necessary for shared citizenship. Yet in this highly original study the idea that integration is the only or even the best remedy for these ills is forthrightly challenged. Carefully framing his analysis using the political principles of liberty, equality and citizenship, and attentive to the contextual realities for minority groups on both sides of the Atlantic, Michael Merry challenges many of our most cherished and time-honored beliefs in integration. Defending a circumscribed notion of 'voluntary separation', Merry argues that for many stigmatized groups it is not 'integration' but rather an imaginative, pragmatic and organized response to the terms of one's segregated experience that may facilitate possibilities to pursue important forms of equality and to cultivate civic virtues that promote the good of one's community.