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I’m so old-fashioned that I still ascribe near-religious importance to the portion of Martin Luther King’s historic speech in which he declared, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

It dismays me that so many people today wish to toss such wisdom down the memory hole. They evidently prefer a Borg Collective model of society in which individuals have no importance or autonomy; only the racial collective, by instruction from its leaders, may dictate its grievances and its goals.

The strident and sometimes vicious reaction a few years ago to some Democratic politicians who innocently said, “Of course Black Lives Matter. All lives matter,” highlights this belief. Their craven apologies for their statements showed how powerful the Borg had already become.

Ms. Pogue made an excellent point when she wrote, “When society as a whole promotes racial solidarity, students who do not attend may be viewed as not trusting their own people or ‘self-hating.’” Outside the school, such an attitude applies to black or gay Republicans, too.

An individual’s refusal to assimilate into the racial or sexual Borg is reason enough, it seems, to reject their basic humanity and, if possible, to deny their very right to exist. Dissent shall never be tolerated.

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