Around 1969/1970 I had a black English teacher in junior high school. We were about 50 miles north of Detroit, Michigan, in a suburb with as many dirt roads as highways. She was the first black person in our community and had a very difficult time finding a place to live. When people found out her color places suddenly became not available. She didn’t share with us any other difficulties, (and probably wouldn’t have been appropriate, we were 7th graders not college students) but I’ve always remembered this awakening of my social conscience.
It’s still predominantly white up there, but it’s also gotten progressively more expensive there too. I lived there through the transition period when the poorer residents got out-tax-bracketed (and all the dirt roads got paved, and all the homes turned into McMansions.)
Elkhart County, Indiana, the last county where I lived in that state (left in 1995) is listed as 5.23% black. That’s not a high percentage, but when you consider that the city of Elkhart is 14.7% black and the biggest municipality in the county, it becomes easily apparant just how segregated the area still is. Elkhart and Dunlap were the only two towns in the county that didn’t have a sundown ordinance at one point. That legacy lives on.
References: Wikipedia Elkhart, IN and Elkhart County, Indiana
Good try, but you’re wrong. Hows 'bout we let me handle what I’m referring to, k?
Setting aside whether anyone is actually arguing those points as stated, your remarks could be read as saying that schools can’t be the best possible if they happen to have black folk attending them, or maybe that only white folk desire the best possible schools for their kids. I trust that’s not what you meant; I’m just sayin’.
Meanwhile, I note that there seems to be nothing in the article suggesting exactly why the Walthall School Board felt compelled to “…group, or ‘cluster,’ disproportionate numbers of white students into designated classrooms…” and apparently no explanation is available in the public record since they apparently did not bother to file a response in the case. If the school board is disinterested in explaining their actions, and we are left to speculate on what they were trying to accomplish, racism as a motivating factor is certainly at least a possibility.
So w hat are you saying? Because it sounds like to me you’re saying that segregation isn’t this huge evil and we’re all just saying it is because of recreational outrage, not because the prospect of segregation is a frightening, horrific thing.
I love how he quips that you should let him worry about explaining himself and then fails to do so.
The truth is, there is no explanation for what he said that won’t make him sound like a racist, so he won’t provide one. When someone says “Jesus guys, c’mon! It’s just SEGREGATION! It’s not like it’s this horrible thing!” it tends to have only one meaning.
Do it. Let’s hear about the sociological harm caused by desegregation that is not only comparable to the harm caused by institutional stigmatization and underfunding of the academic infrastructure available to blacks from birth into secondary education, but which actually outweighs it. You live in a fantasy world. I’ve heard this all before and it’s the worst kind of flippant, unthinking arrogance there is.
But of course we won’t be able to say what kind yours is until you tell us.
I can understand that. What I am saying is that we’ve been at this long enough to see just how effective it’s been. The goal is more than worthy. The implementation is what I think is the problem.
I have little doubt that parents of all races want the best education for their kids. I strongly suspect that there are distinct differences however between races/cultures as to the priorities that many place on education; not simply black and white, but Asian, Indian etc.
And whether its PC to say it or not, its likely true that forced busing did have at least the potential (if not the plain reality) of lowering academic results, and perhaps standards as a result.
But after a few decades its clear that from graduation rates, to test scores AA students haven’t reached parity with their white counterparts. I think busing was well intentioned, but so was HUD’s urban development in the 60’s; a decade and a half where we bulldozed thousands of AA neighborhoods (and the sense of community that came with it) for concrete jungles like Henry Horner Homes, Stateway Gardens and Cabrini Green. (and this was in city after city, all over the country) We built well intentioned ghettos.
Look at the results. Was this a rousing success? Little Johnny was put on a bus and bussed for 30-45-60 minutes each way to school so he could attend a school with white kids, while his neighborhood school -----which was 5 minutes from his house, and part of his community, remained underfunded and off limits to him. You think little Johnny went over to Biff’s house after school to go over their math homework and watch Power Rangers?
Heck no. Johnny was getting off the bus in the impoverished, segregated neighborhood an hour after Biff was home.
Meanwhile, we assume that Biff’s parents are virulent racists because they refuse to lay their kid at the altar of diversity. There can be no doubt that many white parents are racists, plan and simple, and wouldn’t want AA kids if they were Colin Powell’s kids.
But there are many, many more who simply want the best education for their kids, and aren’t willing to sacrifice their kids if the school isn’t a good one.
Now that we’re 30 years into this experiment, there have been more than a few that have concluded that the current arrangement is far from optimal, and there are better ways to increase diversity.
ETA: I’ve been her long enough to have seen the feel good posts/threads from the lily white, hand wringing, feeling class. As a result, anyone who dares to suggest the the civil rights battle was been won, or that the notion of “institutional racism” is now often fiction, or that forced busing just wasn’t a rousing success, must be a racist. (and the laughable irony is that most haven’t lived in these environments)
Have at it.
I think desegregation is not just laudable, but necessary. I abhor racism, and racists. (white or black…) But I think that while busing is/was necessary it wasn’t done well, and it was treating largely the symptoms, rather than the cause[s]. As a result, there has been many people who have called into question the merit of forced busing in it’s current form and many who have called for it’s end.
Lastly, FWIW, I live in an urban neighborhood, and I have for every day of my whole life. I currently live in the Dayton View Neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio. (and you’re free to Google Map Street View it or look up the demographics) For most of my life I lived in Chicago*; Logan Square, Uptown and Hyde Park. I live in a neighborhood that is almost completely AA, and have 4 bi-racial [school age] children. I don’t post from what I can Google. I have a direct interest in inner city schools, and their successes. (and I’ve been active in them)
I’ve seen the results of forced busing. I’ve read many of the results. I’ve also read many, many ideas from people who think that forced busing in it’s current form has been in many ways a failure.
- That’s Chicago, not Schaumburg.
To begin with, segregation is neither “frightening” or “horrific.” Nor is it a “huge evil.”
It isn’t good, however, and every single effort should be made to gain a fuller appreciation for each other and our respective cultures, to gain diversity of experiences and knowledge, and to foster a culture of tolerance and education.
Busing is one means towards that end. And I didn’t say that busing needed to end. But its long overdue that we take a hard look at busing and and make changes in its implementation.
Not at all. It is bad.
But blindly assuming that the status quo is the answer-----because it makes us feel good about ourselves-----is not the answer.
Being called a racist before you even read my comments, says more about you than me.
Well there’s no defending Mississippi. She does have a way of making all the other states feel good about themselves, comparatively speaking. Which must surely be frustrating to a progressive-minded Mississippian.
One does wonder how many of the tongue-cluckers in the thread attended nice private schools, or lily-white schools in lily-white suburbs. Maybe one will step forward to pat themselves on the back about how there was this one black kid who went to their school, and he was treated just the same as everybody else! Why, he was even elected homecoming king!
So far all you’ve said is “Segregation is bad, don’t get me wrong. But jumping at segregation just because is even worse!” It’s pointless. If you know segregation is bad you should be frothing at the mouth like the rest of us. You should be outraged that this shit is still taking place. But no, instead you’re telling us to cool our heels.
The quoted bit, and the rest of the speech associated with it, doesn’t seem to have much of anything to do with the article linked by the OP. The main issues, again, appear to be a) allowing white students in one area to transfer to a mostly-white school in another area; b) consolidating those students into whites-only classes within that school. I find it hard to see a non-racist rationale for b), at least.
I actually don’t assume that, but that would only be because the article does not provide sufficient information on why the school board chose to implement a) and b) above. OTOH, that lack of information does not eliminate racism as a contributing factor. If you’ve got specific info that demonstrates there were non-racist reasons for the practices to which the desegregation order was applied, have at it.
No. He said that the current method of desegregation isn’t working.
And, no, just because someone does not get as mad about something as you do means absolutely nothing. Unlike you, he knew this sort of shit was already going on. (As did I.) If I got frothing mad about every overarching lack of justice in the world, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else. And that includes actually doing something about it.
No, you just got caught assuming someone was a racist without letting them speak. And now you’re grasping at straws because you were proven wrong.
Oh really?
Heh. Sounds like I was pretty much spot on in my guess about the way in which you think desegregation “caused more harm than good”.
Now you’re moving the goalposts. I don’t think anybody would disagree that “the current arrangement is far from optimal” when it comes to school integration.
But what we were asking you was why you think that desegregation in “many cases” was not only not “optimal”, but actually produced MORE harm than good.
And the only answer you seem to have come up with to that particular question is that “forced busing” sometimes resulted in “lowering academic results”—i.e., for white kids. Which is exactly what I figured you meant.
Sorry, but no.
It’s not? To me it’s a symbol of bigotry and of devaluing one group of people based on skin color to the point where they’re not fit to be associated with. It stands for nothing but hatred to me. I’ve never met anyone who just saw it as “not good” but didn’t think of it as something truly reprehensible. I truly think it’s one of the things we should be most ashamed of as a nation in our history.
Actually, I do think that “in many cases” it causes/caused more harm then good.
Look at the results. Many/most of these kids did----and still----live in impoverished, crime ridden neighborhoods that are highly segregated.
Because we’re supposed to believe any of these well intentioned ideas must be good, we take for granted that they are effective.
Often they are not. The length of time one of these kids rode on the bus should be enough to give us pause, but that’s nothing. Consider that many of these plans (starting with urban development in the 60’s) eviscerated any sense of community for many AA neighborhoods.
Rather than democratizing school funding, or actually investing in the AA community, -----or a dozen other things------ we stuck kids on buses; where they left a highly segregated impoverished neighborhood, and returned home to the same place.
Years after he’s done being a pawn in this whole experiment in diversity, he still lives in the same neighborhood (by and large) and is less likely to test as well, or have a college degree than the white kid he sat next to in school.
So yea, if you’re going to quote me do us both the intellectual favor of quoting me comprehensively. I said that I think desegregation is not just laudable but necessary. I also did not say that busing needed to end. I did say that in its current form it has been -----in many (most?) cases ineffective at best, and harmful at worst.
Oh really. Well here’s something interesting that I read. The Cupertino area of Silicon Valley is upper-middle class and boasts high schools that score 924 out of 1000 on the API index. There are an array of advanced-placement classes, stellar standardized testing scores, and track record of sending graduates to prestigious colleges. And another thing. There are Asians. Lots of them. Cue the white flight.