The content of their character.

17 thoughts on The content of their character.

1. There was a dumbass in the Washington Monthly comments who actually said, “Well, we fully fund schools for black kids now.” I asked what planet he was from where that happens, because it sure ain’t happening in the United States. De facto segregation of keeping black and brown kids in substandard urban schools with no recourse is no better than official segregation. It’s just that now middle-class white people have a veneer that they can point to: “See, we’re not forbidding black and brown kids from attending our suburban schools — we’re just saying that they need to stay in their own neighborhood. What’s the problem?”

   There’s a reason a lot of parents whose kids are in substandard schools are in favor of vouchers, and it has nothing to do with wanting a free market or whatever libertarian excuse is being used now. It has to do with wanting their kids to have good schools regardless of what neighborhood they live in.

2. Yup. We can’t take race into account when we’re trying to mediate the effects of what’s it now, three centuries? of systematic racism. ’cause that’s racist.

   Trying to wrap all this in Brown v. Board of Education and Dr. King’s speeches is beyond repulsive. I’m appalled, sure. Surprised? Not even a teeny bit.

3. There’s a reason a lot of parents whose kids are in substandard schools are in favor of vouchers, and it has nothing to do with wanting a free market or whatever libertarian excuse is being used now. It has to do with wanting their kids to have good schools regardless of what neighborhood they live in.

   Bingo; I hear that disingenuous argument all of the time, packaged along with “white liberals are the real racists!” Fact is, if that’s the best option available, a lot of parents will support it out of a sense of practicality, not out of ideological sentiment.

4. God, that majority opinion is disgusting. I’m just thankful, in a small way, that Breyer’s dissent will go down in history too. I can’t believe what a huge step this is in blocking attempts to actively desegregate. I mean, affirmative action? People are actually describing school desegregation as affirmative action? In order to do that, they have to admit that no, public schools in a given area do NOT receive equal funding and the students don’t receive equal educations. But I guess some of them wouldn’t be bothered by that either.

   I am a product of the Seattle Public School system, which has tried a lot of different ways of desegregating over the years, and where they taught us that only white people can be racist because racism is prejudice + power (which I happen to still believe). The schools I went to were all on the south side of Seattle, in historically black & immigrant neighborhoods. They were also the schools that the district chose to place their gifted-kids programs in, probably in part because they knew a lot of the kids meeting the academic requirements would be economically and racially privileged. I lived in the area and would have gone to the schools regardless of whether I was in the gifted program, but a lot of my classmates were bused in from all over the area. (And I guess this kind of program might technically survive due to Stevens’ controlling opinion.)

   As a result our schools were pretty damn diverse, and we were proud of that — not just in the sheer metrics of diversity, but in the fact that we had a lot of people from different backgrounds who were good at all sorts of different things, that our schools had complex and multi-faceted reputations. The kids from the suburbs were simultaneously competitive with us over academic performance (and basketball, and music) but would also ask us if we were scared to go to a school where the cops would show up and where people got shot in drive-bys once in a while. I guess that might spark fear in some middle-class parents, but it was mostly exaggerated.

   Desegregating attendance was really only the beginning, and didn’t solve issues of segregation within the school. In my schools, for instance, there was still heavy class and race segregation between the honors / AP classes and the regular courses; although it was a barrier that a few kids were able to get over, it was mostly perceived as impassable. Stilll, I can’t imagine what it would have been like if there had been no attempt to desegregate at all. Probably a key adjective, in that case, would be “invisible,” since we never would have been aware of a lot of what was going on until later in our lives.

5. Invisible is exactly right, Holly. I went to a high school that was over 99% white and “Christian”, and I really had no clue what diversity or racism were until college. (Which was a whole other can of worms, as my college’s student body had a huge percentage of people of color – every color but black, that is.)

6. Actually, MLK wasn’t killed while protesting in support of desegregation, he was killed while protesting in support of striking sanitation workers. But yes, point taken.

7. Desegregating attendance was really only the beginning, and didn’t solve issues of segregation within the school. In my schools, for instance, there was still heavy class and race segregation between the honors / AP classes and the regular courses; although it was a barrier that a few kids were able to get over, it was mostly perceived as impassable. Stilll, I can’t imagine what it would have been like if there had been no attempt to desegregate at all.

   That’s actually an argument that “crunchy conservative” Rod Dreher made recently. Because, of course, there’s no reason at all why minorities would feel they need to band together in a society that’s still geared towards white people. No, sirree.

8. Arguments for a ‘colorblind’ society are by far the most crystal clear example of white privilege I’ve ever seen.

9. Here’s a thought: whom does desegregation actually serve? Is the issue predominantly economic rather than racial?

10. Pingback: Feministe » Facebook for the preps, Myspace for the weird kids?

11. They’ve spun a logic trap, along the lines of “Can you lend me fifty cents? But only give me a quarter. Then I’ll owe you a quarter and you’ll owe me a quarter, so we’re even.”

    It’s all about the process with these people, and never about the results—who gives a shit if it’s useless, who gives a shit if it’s counterproductive, it’s outwardly in line with what is desired, and conveniently ignores the complex reality that is not solved by a simple and straightforward ban on (equally conveniently) the only race-considering action that helps overcome racial inequity and bias.

    Conveniently again, their worries about injustice and commitment against using race to determine anything come out in a case that only addresses simple, deliberate human actions and does not touch the far-more-damaging economic disparities and their myriad disadvantageous effects. If the Roberts Court gave a damn about racial justice they’d mind the effects a bit more—but like the same conservatives do with the abortion/contraception debate, they see their goals* on the other side of the river and drive their SUVs and tanks right into the water rather than tolerate delaying long enough to find a bridge.

    *if that is in fact their real goal, and they’re not using feigned overzealousness to disguise sabotage.

12. Has busing helped black students improve their scores in school? Or are they just pawns in assuaging white guilt.

13. Hear this “color-blind” argument all the time from classmates and co-workers. This does not make sense to me as I grew up in an urban working-class Latino/White dominated neighborhood where crack vials and discarded needles littered the parks, most parents and teachers had diminished expectations for their children, and violent bullying was such that my classmates and I had to be constantly on guard. One of my closest childhood friends was killed by cross-fire from two rival gangs of drug dealers as he was walking home from school one day.

    AA is needed to prevent the disparity of educational opportunities exacerbated by “White flight” and the lack of political will in funding and fixing our largely broken educational system.

    In additional to racial and class factors, my observations are that this lack of will is also symptomatic of a deep American cultural tendency to devalue education and intellectualism if there is little to no direct connection to practical applications that can turn a profit of some kind.

    Alexis de Tocqueville makes references to this in the Democracy In America chapter entitled Why The Americans Are More Addicted To Practical Than To Theoretical Science. This is made worse by American pop and school culture which denigrates intellectuals with terms such as “nerd”, “egghead” and “geek”. The international students at my undergrad and grad institutions were often taken aback at this phenomenon. Back in their home countries, the most intellectual in their class were often admired and the core of the “in crowd”, not social outcasts who are subjected to scorn from everyone else.

    In short, in conjunction with AA, much needs to be done to change this aspect of American culture if the American education system’s promise to educate every child is to be fulfilled. Relying on tests a la “No Child Left Behind” does nothing to help in this regard.

14. Pingback: Feministe » Recapin’ Your Ass

15. This is a great web site. I have some great web pages myself if you are interested to share. But I should not go on about my site too much, that is not fair, right?

16. I’ve always felt (and feel even more strongly now) that one of the big problems in all the discussions of this very complex issue is the convenient blurring of the goal and the current state of things.

    Having a color-blind society, at least in the sense people say that they mean it, one where it truly is not an issue in the slightest what one’s ethnicity is, makes a very worthy goal, especially if we can ever work out how to do that without forcing everyone into a one-size-first-all-mediocracy.

    Similarly, people of conscience and intelligence can say, today, that ethnicity (or its shorthand, skin color) is already not, and never has been, a valid measure of a person’s worth, and they’d be right.

    But blurring the two and coming up with this, “since there shouldn’t BE a difference, we will announce that there ISN’T a difference” BS, is just plain wrong, since it twists what is good about the above two things into yet another way of oppressing people.

    Of course, we still haven’t gotten any real consensus about what any partway goals are. I have an ongoing disagreement with a friend that highlights it for me.

    Even if we agree that the end goal is race making no difference, what is/are the interim goals? If the focus is on individuals and equality of opportunity, then other things like economic status need to figure into things, so we don’t have a working definition that has the child of a white Appalachian coal miner being classed as “advantaged” while the child of a black Beverly Hills lawyer or US Senator is classed as “disadvantaged.”

    On the other hand, if the interim goal is having all levels of society reflect society’s ethnic mix, so that, say, 20% of all doctors are black, then giving scholarships to academically gifted middle- and upper-class black kids is definitely the more successful road to that goal, since it will be reached far faster than constantly focusing on the poor.

    The latter idea pretty much flabbergasted me, but she was and is serious. There is a lot to be said for role models and shaking up the patriarchy and good ol boy networks, but there is also a lot to be said for the idea that rich black kids are as out of touch with poor black kids (and as potentially unconcerned about them) as rich white kids are about poor white kids.

    Realistically, I think the best answer is a two-pronged approach, but I have no idea how to write laws to support such a thing. My friend thinks that writing the laws to assist the poor, while leaving the loopholes to allow advantaged minority members to make use of such assistance too probably comes the closest to achieving both goals at once.

17. I’m appalled, sure. Surprised? Not even a teeny bit.

    ayup.

Comments are currently closed.