Intimations

by Zadie Smith

This not-so-secret terror is lodged as firmly in blue hearts as in red; it plays a central role in the spread of the contagion. (To fear the contagion of poverty is reasonable. To keep voting for policies that ensure the permanent existence of an underclass is what is meant by “structural racism.”) And it’s a naïve American who at this point thinks that integration—if it were ever to actually occur—would not create some initial losses on either side. A long-preserved privilege dies hard. A long-preserved isolation—even if it has been forced—is painful to emerge from. But I am talking in hypotheticals: the truth is that not enough carriers of this virus have ever been willing to risk the potential loss of any aspect of their social capital to find out what kind of America might lie on the other side of segregation. They are very happy to “blackout” their social media for a day, to read all-black books, and “educate” themselves about black issues—as long as this education does not occur in the form of actual black children attending their actual schools.