Let's segregate the races - new liberal solution

Great Debates
1

The new liberal solution to the problems of racial tension in America today is to have third-graders fill out a questionnaire identifying their races and then spend time once a week with people who look just like them.

Because people who look alike also think alike. And let’s face it, you can only really feel comfortable with people who look like you.

at least this is in a private school, right? But that is not really an isolated incident:

An Indiana public school district segregated elementary field trips last week when administrators included only African-Americans on the college introduction tour.

South Bend Community Schools Corporation has planned a series of field trips to three local colleges for black third-graders in seven school districts. The excursions began last week with a trip to Ivy Tech Community College.

or Field trip for black students sparks controversy at Ann Arbor elementary school

While there’s no clear agreement between the two sides about exactly what happened, most of the controversy centers on a field trip taken last week by the Lunch Bunch for African American boys and girls to hear a black rocket engineer talk.

District spokeswoman Liz Margolis said after the trip was over, those who went returned to their fifth-grade class and were greeted by boos by those who didn’t go on the trip. Margolis said Madison, who is black, heard the boos, and went to talk to the class. She said he and the class had a “discussion” about race issues.

“He wasn’t yelling at them. He was very passionate about it,” Margolis said.

Parents have complained he was yelling at the class and belittled a Muslim girl who said she also had experienced racism and discrimination.

What’s next? Separate lunch facilities, where black kids will feel more comfortable with their own peers? Separate buses? And finally, separate schools. It’s a logical progression.

2

If the main examples of this idea come from a $43,000 a year private school and another school in Indiana, are the odds in favor of this being a conservative idea?

3

Just stealing from the conservative playbook.

4

If you read the articles it’s pretty obvious that the answer to your question is “no”.

As for the OP, I’m not seeing a slippery slope here. I’m seeing a few misguided school administrators embarking on isolated incidents.

5

So, Terr, just to be clear, you’re opposed to educational policy proposals that result in greater racial segregation in schools, is that right?

6

And nobody on this liberal board finds it suspicious? That despite headline news in the widely respected NY Post, Hillary has yet to say a word about this?

7

No, I am opposed to deliberate racial segregation. Just as I am opposed to deliberate racial quotas and to all forms of discrimination based on race. How about you?

8

If only we had access to Hillary’s deleted emails, we would know exactly how she’s behind all this.

9

I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the field trip thing, except it should have been done as an extra-curricular activity not associated with the school. Our public schools should not engage in activities that segregate students by race.

10

No it fucking isn’t. Please stop being silly.

But thanks for keeping an eagle eye out for Liberal Hypocrisy ™, the most serious problem affecting our fractured nation today. How will we ever know of this scourge if you’re not there to tell us?

11

I have a problem with kids being segregated racially. I think black kids need to learn the same things that white kids learn, and vice versa.

And not every black person has the same racial politics either. There are some black teachers who will use these opportunities to instill pride and self-esteem in their students. And then there are bozos who will use the time to shame and condescend to them.

I had the latter experience in the 4th grade. I attended an integrated school. More white than black, but I’d say we comprised at least 35% of the population. One day the teacher, a black teacher from the “old school”, called all the black kids out into the hallway. And for the next five minutes, she commenced to giving us a severe tongue-lashing–even though the entire class had been acting up, not just the white kids.

And she admitted as much, that’s the thing! But she wanted us to know she expected better from us. And boy, were we were so disappointing! (And then she held me up as a role model for the other black kids to aspire to. Yeah, thanks so much for that, Ms. T. :dubious:;))

I’m betting a lot of conservatives would love it if black kids got that kind of “singling out”. Especially black conservatives. But the message I learned from that incident is that it doesn’t matter how good of an individual I am, I will have to endure lecturing about “my kind”. I guess that’s a good lesson for any black person to learn at an early age. But I would have preferred to learn it from my parents, at home. Not with a bunch of clueless white kids sitting a few feet away.

12

In the last 50 years, we’ve managed to get America to the point where everyone professes that racism is bad, and most actually believe racism is bad, where racism is defined as treating “someone” differently on the basis of race. To most, racism is some innate and awful thing that humans do, true across time and cultures, and since America happens to be a majority white country, black-skinned folks bore the brunt of this natural human tendency. To overcome this, we educate everyone that skin color isn’t important, and we get rid of any laws and customs that treat people differently on that basis. Voila.

Of course, students of U.S. history know better. While races and racism are found throughout history and in many societies, American White Supremacy is something unique. It’s not just about human biases playing out across society. It is a 400-year-long program deliberately created for the purpose of justifying the brutal differential treatment of black slaves, a social category essentially created by the program of White Supremacy. And then reconstituted to justify Jim Crow. And then reconstituted to justify housing segregation. (And then reconstituted to justify mass incarceration.)

Kudos to the educators concerned with educational success for all students despite crippling racial barriers, who are willing to face criticism from fairy tale tellers who say the problem with racism today is that liberals won’t just ignore race. I don’t know if any of the schools’ ideas have merit. But it’s a shallow and misguided criticism to merely observe that they treat students differently. I hope they continue to focus their efforts on real change instead of cheap faithfulness to “colorblindness” that passes for anti-racism in 2015.

13

To add what was left implicit in that post…

If you’re going to help a population recover from centuries of plunder, to be most effective you’re probably going to have to treat them differently from the population that engaged in the centuries of plunder. Some of that different treatment may create or reinforce problems. But it’s senseless to make that observation and ignore entirely what benefits it might have. If, for example, battling things like stereotype threat or racially differential school discipline or racially disparate preparation for the soft skills of college requires differential treatment by race in educational settings, then sensible people have to grapple with both the benefits and negative consequences of that kind of program.

14

I think this is the likely explanation. Given the number of schools in the country there are bound to be some misguided administrators.

15

That’s not it. This is a new “progressive” thing out there - segregating kids in “affinity groups” by race.

http://www.nais.org/Magazines-Newsletters/ISMagazine/Pages/Identity-Affinity-Reality.aspx

https://www.cds-sf.org/community/diversity/affinity-groups-cds

etc. etc.

16

No. The first article linked in the OP deals with Fieldston school, which like any 43,000$-a-year private school in New York is set up to serve wealthy liberal families. Fieldston tries hard to constantly prove that it’s more progressive than all the others. It’s even on their webpage.

17

I feel a minor amount of curiosity about the long-term effects, if any, rather than reflexive outrage or gloating or other unbecoming emotions.

18

Much more than by race, according to your second link:

Is it your (Terr) position that there should be no such thing as affinity groups, full stop? While this indeed may be some sort of sociological fad with uncertain practical benefit, I completely fail to see how you manage to conclude that this automatically somehow ends in full-blown, full-time segregation. So, how about fleshing out your premise a bit?

19

Casting colorblindness as the ultimate solution to White Supremacy misses the point entirely. The problem of American White Supremacy was not a lack of colorblindness. The problem was the creation of a racial category by one group of people for the purpose of subjugating that race, followed by centuries of successful plunder. Calling that problem a lack of colorblindness is like calling the Salem Witch Trials a problem of lack of due process.

And this error in understanding the nature of White Supremacy is not an accident. Colorblindness is a very useful kind of blindness. It makes it possible to use anti-racism rhetoric to attack both deliberate black mistreatment and deliberate black empowerment equally.

Actual racial justice requires more than colorblind laws instituted after centuries of plunder and mistreatment. It requires that a black daughter be no more negatively affected by that White Supremacy than a white daughter. And to get to *that *side of the mountain, you have to do more than just declare that our policy is to be colorblind going forward, as if the country could be created anew tomorrow independently from its history. Fixing the consequences of that history is almost certainly going to require some race-conscious efforts. Maybe these particular race-conscious efforts aren’t where its at. But those who do care about racial justice need to be prepared to assess such efforts on a case-by-case basis, and not reject them just because they try to fix racial problems in a race-conscious way.

20

Based on race? Correct. No such thing as racial affinity groups, full stop.