Is Rapid City’s Art Alley Just Another Form of Ghettoizing?

We all remember how the Jews were forced into ghettos during World War II.  Nor can we forget how peasants and minorities have historically been “bottled up” in urban slums, often in alleys.  Better control that way, the ruling elite undoubtedly thought.

    But more and more, ghettoizing has been taken over by progressives who, ironically, prefer to segregate certain protected groups.  Art Alley in Rapid City, South Dakota, is a good example of this cultural force at work.  “Stay in the alley where you belong,” the progressives seem to echo again.  “Don’t even think of raising your standards or expectations.”

      Graffiti becomes the higher standard, not the art found in museums and art galleries.  Swearing might just as well be touted as the new oratory.  “Ebonics is just fine,” liberals assert, and gangsta rap is as good an art form as any other in this new world of moral equivalency.

       Trouble is, there is no higher standard, nothing to shoot for, nothing to measure the good and bad by.  Whatever lot you’ve found yourself in, that’s good enough, the way it should be.  Isn’t Art Alley just another form of ghettoizing?