Chester Darling has been fighting desegregation plans for decades. The Massachusetts attorney hailed this year’s Supreme Court ruling and says he knows what he would like to do about school systems that still use race to decide who attends a particular school.
“I would go after every single one of them,” Darling announces. “It’s wrong. You just don’t sort kids by color and deny benefits to them because of the color of their skin.”
Desegregation is still a touchy issue around Boston, the scene of violent protests over school busing in the 1970s. Supporters of desegregation plans now worry the pendulum has swung back to those bad old days.
“We’re taking a step back toward resegregation,” says Jeff Young, superintendent of schools in Newton, Mass. “I don’t know how you can think much besides that.”
I’m neutral on desegregation but certainly think that all children should get a good education (which is very difficult in ANY public school). But I do detest the idea that some idiot school program cost me over 2,000 hours of my life in a school bus. What a detestable proposition! Multiply that by however many children ride a school bus for an hour every school day, year after year after year.
I am also reminded just now of all the evil and bad manners that I was exposed to and/or picked up in those hours.
“Bussing” is an idea directly from Hell.
Segregation, which is outlawed and rightly so, is the separating of children into schools based on their skin color. It used to be that children with dark skin were bused past perfectly good schools to attend “their” school at a distance. “Resegregation” would mean a return to the forced separation of children by race. This is not what’s going on. Rather, neighborhoods which are not integrated require the shifting of large numbers of children out of their neighborhoods so that schools will be “balanced.” It requires the (in my mind offensive) assumption that black children won’t or can’t learn unless they sit near white children in school. How about taking money out of fuel for buses and putting it into top-notch facilities and instructors in schools near where children live?
There is enough real integration of neighborhoods and vocations going on that the prospect of large numbers of white and black children growing up without ever knowing someone from the “other” group is growing smaller. My own neighborhood school in a desirable suburban area in the South is integrated because the neighborhood is.
I’m fully in favor of desegregation, even if it means busing. I don’t think it’s really healthy for children to be separated into pools all alike – it wasn’t for me in my childhood years. I learned a lot about being an adult and learned a lot about life from being in desegregated schools as a teenager. Segregation, however achieved, fosters an inbred view of the world and makes it harder for growing youngsters to realize that the way they and their friends and neighbors live is not the way everybody lives. I have never regretted the blinkers that came off when I was in school. Katherine, the “neighborhoods” argument was used in the 1960s and 1970s, too.
It’s alway been ironic to me that in the South (even in my rural school district) this issue was largely settled in the 1960s, while the riots continued in Boston into the 1970s – yet racism is only a southern phenomenon. Right.
Sherri, my daughters both participated in this experiment in the Wake County, NC (Raleigh) schools. The vast majority of the kids bused were black kids riding long hours on buses to suburban schools. When they got there, they did not mix with the kids who lived nearer the school. They hung out with kids from their own neighborhood who rode the bus with them. I don’t see how this really benefited anyone, certainly not these kids. If the school in their neighborhood was substandard, I would have voted in a moment to pour extra tax funds into making it better. The other kids riding the buses are suburban (mostly white) kids going to magnet schools in inner city neighborhoods. Once again, the number of children living in the neighborhood who qualified for the magnet programs was low, so the suburban kids mostly attend classes with and socialize with the kids with whom they ride the buses. What’s the point of all this shuffling? I am all in favor of mixed neighborhoods and mixed schools. I just think it’s the kids, all kids, who suffer from being bused long distances.
Sherii,
You are confusing intergration with desegregation – they are two very different terms. One is to remedy harmful past act by the government against its citenrenry based upon their race. Integration by the state based upon race is merely the imposition of a different policy preference – one which Brown v. Board of Education would suggest is unlawful – the rationale of Brown was that race was not a proper consideration by the state in its treatment of its citizens. The exception is desegreation which is to remedy the past segregation – however once a school district has been certified as having been desegregated – the harm casued by the state acton has been eliminated. Katherine’s point is a good summary of Clarence Thomas’ concurance in the Lexington and Seattle cases. Remember Catherine a majority of citizens in many places in democratic prefered the policy preference of Segregation – if this country is to move forward on race – we need to stop focusing on it and remove race based policy preferences entirely – the recent Supreme Court case came very close to doing so.
Sherri,
One additional point – the neighborhood argument was tainted in the 1960’s because their was also discrimination by the state in housing. We are now nearly 30 years on from the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
Justice Roberts made one of the most sensible comments I’ve heard from the bench in many years when he remarked that the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is … to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
Wherever they are allowed, most people are going to locate to neighborhoods and school districts where they are in the ethnic majority. The choices of private citizens concerning with whom they will associate is simply none of the government’s business.
the neighborhood argument was tainted in the 1960’s because their was also discrimination by the state in housing. We are now nearly 30 years on from the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
And our neighborhoods and often our work places continue to be predominately black or white. I don’t think the harm caused by the state has been eliminated. I’m sorry, but I believe that we all benefit from knowing the people we share our corner of the planet with, from sharing some time and space together. It’s too easy to believe other races are “another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
Sherri,
Your beliefs you are entitled to – we all benefit from knowing different folks. The difference is that you are wanting the State to impose your and its views on a free citienry on the basis of an immutable characteristic which in the 1960’s society determined was not a relevant consideration. Your view undermines the moral pinnings of Brown by suggesting that race is relevant in the relationship between the citizen and the state. Because of bussing and other “remedies” many school districts like Houston ISD and Dallas ISD have next to no white kids left – diversity is no longer achievable in such a situation.
And now the trend is to resegregate — according to race, according to sex, according to religion, even according to sexual preference with proponents saying things like “kids learn better when they are surrounded by others like themselves”. ::roll::
So much for progress.
And if they do, in fact, “learn better when they are surrounded by others like themselves”, Jim?
As a thirty year old African American male, I really do not have a problem with the failure of desegregation efforts. I believe parents need to take responsibility for the education of their children, not leave it up to the “social engineers.†Personally, I’m in favor of home schooling or private schools over public school education.
My father was a high ranking non-commissioned army solider and my mother was a school teacher. For the first eight years of my life, we lived in a predominantly black middle class neighbor in Columbia, South Carolina. Many of the residents were postal workers, teachers, army soldiers, small business owners and religious leaders. My maternal grandparents’ neighborhood, further in the city, was also predominately black and populated with funeral home owners, doctors, lawyers, statehouse politicians and business owners. There were a few white families in my parents’ neighborhood; most were elderly couples whose children had long left the nest. There weren’t any white families in my grandparents’ neighborhood that I can recall. I attended a black Lutheran private school in my grandparents’ neighborhood before my parents transitioned me to the local elementary school. Most of my friends in both neighborhoods went to the local elementary school and the local high school which were predominately black. After the 3rd grade, my family was stationed in Maryland, Germany and Georgia, before returning home to South Carolina eight years later. We moved to a predominately white upper – middle class neighborhood in the suburbs where I finished my last two years of high school before going to Charleston for college.
Most of my friends that remained in the neighborhoods I grew up in have become engineers, lawyers, political activists, business owners and chemists. They had very little contact with white children growing up. I’m very thankful that my early formative years were in a near all black environment. It provided a very good foundation for me. My father is a bit of a history buff, so he would have me to read a lot of books on African and African American history. He knew that my education in predominately white schools would be lacking of cultural development for me, so he supplemented my public school. Again, I so thankful for my upbringing, especially since college I have been living in predominantly white environments.
The very idea that black children have to learn next to children of other races to help alleviate racism is ludicrous. None of my friends from the old neighborhood are racists. When they went to college, they fit right in with the college population. Parents black or white should never let the social planners manipulate and control the education of children. The races should integrate, however it should not be forced integration. That isn’t helpful for anyone.
-Vincent
Cabbages,
If true, then we have done our nation’s children a great disservice by forcing desegregation upon them.
Vincent,
Those are wonderful comments. Bottom line, if you want to guarantee that people won’t get along, have the government make it mandatory for people to get along. These misguided policies actually breed social conflict by taking away everyone’s safe harbors.
The real problem with desegregation is that it was forced, not voluntary. This is much like going to Iraq to make Iraqis accept democracy, or teaching kids to read when they are not reading-ready. But if towns and systems will not volutarily integrate – for integrate and desegregate come to the same place by different definitions – should we not force them? Surely, multiculturalism and inclusiveness and diversity are so very very good that some force to make them occur is acceptable?
But this really doesn’t work, does it? Blacks and whites and greens tend to gather together because they share values and experiences and we are supposed to be permitted to chose our own friends.
BUt then, what to do about black schools tht were wretched and were not getting the money to do anything about it? Is driving the kids to white schools the answer, or will this simply cause white flight? Actually the answer is really simple to say and east to do if we choose to do it: The government funds such schools and the system finds administrators to turn such finds to the right end. Is separate but equal therefore permissable? Of course it is, as long as the equal is a reality. The left couldn’t see that then and probably can’t see that now. If a black school – let us say rather a minority school – is sound and solid, the students will succeed in proportion, and the parents will be pleased. If the minority school is not merely good but academically first rate, other students will be attracted, regardless of minority status. If MIT were all black and Hispanic, would whites be clarmoring to get in? I rather think they would and the school would integrate itself. Public schools are no different, only we have never tried.
There is, however, a difficulty that no one dares speak about (except The Bell Curve), namely, thqt black students are, statistically less well equiped (read, “not as bright”)than white and asian students to succeed academically. Is this true? I cannot say, but the possibility exists. Nevertheless, academic achievement is not limited to the very bright only (although all America thinks that this is so) and excellence in character is open to everyone, regardless of skin color. I conclude that a top of the line school, both academically and in character training, is readily conceivable if we are ready to take the trouble to bring it to term and birth. LM
Larry,
The bias in public education seems to be that all students should be on a college prep track. This presents problems for both blacks and whites in lower socio-economic classes. It’s a “Yale-or-jail” dichotomy that is very damaging.
Thanks for your perspective, Vincent Lerins. Are those middle-class and professional black neighborhoods still in existence? An impression I’ve had is that these neighborhoods have declined in recent decades, professional folks having moved out into the larger society (like the families in my neighborhood). Is this true?
Katherine:
For the most part, you are right. We still own the house in my old neighborhood and it is still a good neighborhood. Most of the people living there are in their 60’s and 70’s. Their children are living in the suburbs; gentrified urban neighborhoods or they live in other states. As for my grandparents’ neighborhood, it hasn’t fared as well. The old guard have all died off and their children (my parents age) live in the suburbs or other cities. Generally, when their parents died, if a descendant doesn’t move in, they rent out the house to younger families. Many of those families don’t have the sense of pride and community as the previous families. However, there are some fabulous all black neighborhoods in Atlanta, LA, Houston and in the surrounding counties of DC that are exclusive gated communities.
-Vincent
Thanks, Vincent. My view of the schools and neighborhoods has been that I have no objection at all to people living in an environment of their choice and worshipping in a church of their choice so long as it is genuinely a choice, not imposed from outside. But I had wondered if at least part of the deterioration of the old black neighborhoods might be traced to the educated and traditionally-married families moving out, thus leaving no role models for what are increasingly single-mother households; an unintended consequence of the end of forced segregation, certainly. The loss of the sense of pride and community you mention is tragic.
Bottom line, if you want to guarantee that people won’t get along, have the government make it mandatory for people to get along.
Another bottom line – if you want to make sure that people never understand each other and remain in ignorance, make it easy for them to stay with people who are just like them.
Sherri, where you and I differ is that I don’t think it’s the government’s business to force people to live or study or worship where they don’t choose to. The benefits to me of knowing people who don’t completely reflect my own background are great, but I don’t think it’s right to force someone else to know me because it’s good for me. My question is rather, is it good for them? — and aren’t they, and in this case, the parents of children, the best judges of that?
I don’t know about you, Katherine, but my parents would never have sent me to school with black children unless the government had made them. It was an education for them, too, and not one they regretted. What happens as we resegregate, too, is that we again have well funded white schools and impoverished minority ones. Isn’t this the case in most cities now? How is this different from the situation that existed before integration/desegregation?
My parents would never have deliberately refused contacts with blacks, Sherri, but I wasn’t raised in the South. It was a different generation and a different time. I don’t think times are the same today. Black families today can live where they wish and can afford to, as my Southern suburban neighborhood testifies. The bad old days of complete racial separation are gone, and good riddance. What remains a problem in many large cities is the existence of a poorly-educated black underclass. Families like Vincent Lerins’ aren’t there any more, as he testifies. As to what to do about the pathologies of this underclass, I don’t know. I wish I did. I’ve seen the results of the continued busing and I don’t think it’s helping kids from disadvantaged homes in general. Perhaps one of my neighbors, who runs a black-to-black motivational foundation, has a better idea. I hope so.
Now Sherri,
The money argument is silly regarding cities. The city tax base includes business and high dollar homes. In Dallas you have Dallas Independent School District (inner city) which in the late 1990’s was spending $1000 more per pupil then the very weathly and white Highland Park School District. Inner city schools aren’t suffering from a shortage of funds compared to surburban schools.
Chips, you’ll have to explain that to my friends who teach in inner-city schools.
All schools want more money – I just don’t think there is a disparity in money per pupil between inner city and surburban because suburbs to not have the buisness tax base (also many of the middle class kids are in private schools) I think Houston Independent School District pays more than my kindergartan teaching wife’s surburban school district. The most affluent districts per pupil in Texas are small rural districts with power plants located in the county.
The problem is not whether a state spends $X per student, the problem is how much of that money ACTUALLY goes to the classroom, and how much goes to administrative costs?
Actually, #21, you are in error here. An in-group can be as diverse as one might imagine, but if it is an in-group, then it will resent the invasion of an out-group member. It is not homogeneity that causes the problem, it is belonging to a group whose identity and integrity the members feel are under attack from the outside. So the Anglican church sees itself under attack by an invading force whose presence will fundamentally alter the Anglican identity. What would you have? An enforced acceptance of the invader? LM