Maybe the cross-cultural prevalence of out-group hostility represents powerful evidence that the purveyors of segregationist policies were right all along. That is, perhaps racial segregation would ultimately serve to minimize conflict. One could argue after all that when like fraternizes only with like, one reason to fight is eliminated. This could be a racist’s definition of “racial harmony.” In my charitable moments, I imagine that Mr. Lott, and the floridly racist portions of his constituency, really do want something more “harmonious” in this way. As a general rule, I am not inclined to think of people as evil, almost no matter what they believe. By contrast, I am happy to believe that some people are stupid, ignorant or emotionally puerile. Such individuals may do very bad things that are ultimately well intentioned. Perhaps Mr. Lott’s past and, one may assume, current racist beliefs are founded on the idea that a segregated society would lead to an increase in the number of smiles within each racially defined border. He did after all say that if Mr. Thurmond had been elected (from a presidential campaign founded on segregationist policies) “we’d have ALL been better off” (emphasis admittedly added). Following from this, and allowing for Mr. Lott’s potential stupidity, ignorance and/or emotional puerility, we may ask whether any evidence suggests that this perspective has merit.

Of course, the argument that racial segregation might mitigate violence would depend on proving that race, per se, is a critical variable in our natural and automatic search for outgroups to hate and fear. Such claims, it turns out, have been made. Indeed, some have argued that there are three primary dimensions along which humans have evolved a capacity to automatically categorize others. They are sex, age and, yes, race. Our brains, some have claimed, are predisposed to identify and store sex, age, and race information about any individual we meet before we know anything else about them. Worse than that, goes the argument, our ancient human nature immediately goes to work setting up perceptual biases along these dimensions such that we seek out confirming evidence for our beliefs about whatever age, sex or race category we are encountering. All of this may set the stage for “racial disharmony,” among other things. As soon as we have categorized an individual according to their race, that individual is dangerously close to qualifying for the role of “outgroup,” toward which we can direct our scorn and violence. Borrowing from this evidence, the argument for segregation is that it literally isn’t natural for people of different races to mix at the workplace, or at the park, or in the neighborhood, and we shouldn’t try to force people to do so. Of course, we’ve all heard this before. My own grandmother lectured me on the topic. “Blue birds,” she often said, “don’t mix with black birds.”