Happy Belated Anniversary

I missed this yesterday--too busy, I guess, listening to the Phillies blow a 6-0 lead and waste a great start from Randy Wolf en route to a discouraging 7-6 loss in Colorado--but May 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and, remarkably, was also the first day of legal gay marriage in Massachusetts. I don't normally have much use for Andrew Sullivan, but his New York Times column on this milestone was quite good.

As for Brown, many on the left are focusing on the unfulfilled potential of the decision and how far we still have to go before public schools are truly integrated and of roughly equal quality. I agree (though I think these problems have more to do with class and antiquated notions of federalism than race per se), but I think this line of critique somewhat misses the point: the Brown decision heralded a new dawn in American public life, with the most august branch of government coming out against racial discrimination in the most important area of public life. It's tough to quantify, but I have a hunch that without the Supreme Court's decision, the road to ending Jim Crow in America would have been even longer and bloodier than it actually was. With the Brown decision, racists were stripped of a powerful crutch and a great deal of legitimacy.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't remain focused on redeeming the full promise of Brown: of course we should. But it's not inappropriate to appreciate and even celebrate what has been achieved already, and more to the point what has been made possible.