The Supreme Court decision today on two school segregation cases is a crazy retreat from the national policy of desegregation set in place by Brown vs Board of Ed in 1954. Given the altered balance of the Court over the past decade, though, it is a retreat that is both totally shocking and not surprising. What we have is de facto segregation. Are we really ready to get back to an era of legal segregation as well?
There’s a twistedness about the justification for the ruling, where dismantling Brown is seen as a hopeful move that positively reflects the hard-earned progress we’ve made as a society toward colorblindness. The thinking goes something like: “We don’t need to desegregate the schools anymore because we’re not racists anymore! Any inequality based on race in America is a fading artifact of the sins of our past. We’re just not like that anymore. Inequality no longer really has anything to do with race. So let’s not continue to introduce skin color into the curriculum of our schools. The young people, they’re not like that today. Lets let the kids be kids.”
But, ladies and gentlemen of the court, your honors, oh that it were so! It is not so! Have y’all been down to the Ninth Ward lately? Anyone?
Some of the best most accessible and nearly realtime coverage and analysis of the decision can be found at Slate, written as an email roundtable by the site’s legal analysts Dahlia Lithwick and Walter Dellinger. In anticipating today’s ruling, Dellinger related his experience as a white junior-high student in Charlotte, North Carolina:
“It was just past midday when a knock on the classroom door aroused me from my post-lunch slumber. The assistant principal, standing just outside the partially open door, carried on a whispered conversation with our fourth-period teacher. At conversation’s end, our teacher closed the door and turned (in my mind’s eye, in slow motion) to face the class. Our distracted chatter dropped to a hush as we noted his ashen face. I believe I remember, 40 years later, his exact words:
‘Children,’ he said slowly and deliberately, ‘the Supreme Court has ruled. Next year you will go to school with colored children.’”
He concludes that email by underlining the insane logic of basing an argument for segregation on Brown, which is how it turned out today:
“Looking at today’s cases from the vantage point of the Brown decision, the idea that the Supreme Court would condemn the valiant efforts of the Louisville community is extraordinary. The people of Louisville want a community that is not separated by race, beginning with a school system in which white and black children learn to know one another.
“Brown condemned a system of Southern racial apartheid, a system of racial domination and subordination. It is the worst form of literalism to believe that the cases now before the court can be decided by the fact that the phrase “classifying by race” can be used to cover two radically different notions. Only by blinding oneself to history and common sense can one assume that the use of race to maintain the monstrosity of the Jim Crow regime of the South and the use of race to achieve an integrated society in Louisville are one and the same.
A couple years ago Michael E Ross wrote a good primer on Brown to mark the 50th anniversary of the decision.
Tags: brown v board, desegregation, jefferson county kentucky, seattle
Crazy retreat from a national policy of desegregation? Christ, give me a break! You’re talking about a ruling made 50 years ago when there was state-approve — if not state-sponsored — segregation. Nobody is saying that there is NOT racism in America (although you create a straw man saying just that!) but if you think that the kind of racism that exists today is the same is in the ‘50s your powers of observation are clearly lacking. It astounds me that there are people like you who think that the best way to fix the kind of racism that exists in America today is through a 1950’s policy of forced integration? Yet anybody who opposes this outdated, counterproductive method of “fixing†racism is labeled as either a racist or some clueless suburbanite who thinks racism doesn’t exist anymore. (Again, note the straw man you created!) You absurdly imply that without a policy of forced integration we are heading towards legal segregation. You should be ashamed of this scare mongering!
It’s this kind of lazy, mind-numbingly stale thinking that has led to some of the worst public policy in terms of its adverse effects on minorities and, in particular, the black family. It’s one thing to force integration to right the wrong of a recent forced segregation; it’s quite another to impose a fascist policy of forced integration several generations later because Big Brother knows best. And yes, it is Big Brother trying to impose its will on the people. Dellinger laughably states that “The people of Louisville want a community that is not separated by race, beginning with a school system in which white and black children learn to know one another.†If this were so the school board would not need to impose forced integration. They would not have to worry about white flight. White parent would try to fit their child into a school that is well integrated. The fact that the school board needs to force integration proves the exact opposite of what Dellinger asserts. Wake up and address the real problems, not the surface crap that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside but does little good and perhaps more harm.
CV, apologies. You’re right that P+P played fast and loose with the ruling and set up a straw man of an interpretation with which to have our way. That was, um, lame. But it was merely our impresionistic reading of the thought behind the ruling and an impression we were set to revisit in a more thorough way this week. So thanks for your comments. Yet the “real problems,” you refer to, about our divided society. I think, are still class amd race based, the mixture of the two as potent as ever as it was in the 1950s. White kids get the hell out of not-white schools. Private education is soaring. This is a product and an engine of racist classicsm. How will our nation address that problem? It tried with Brown v Board. Is eroding the power of Brown now with these kinds of rulings really the answer? Or is this just another way to support the people with power and money in America at the expense of those with not a lot of either?
Thanks for you reply, John, and for focusing attention on the problem and not a symptom. While I’m not smart enough to know all the answers, I feel strongly that the key to the solution (and it’s a long-term, generational solution, not a quick fix) is truly equal educational opportunities for ALL children in America. As you probably surmised from my first post, this doe NOT mean shuffling kids around to arrive at the perfect blend of white, black, yellow, etc… in the classroom as if they were some coffee beans in a special house blend. This forced integration is a canard that overlooks the real problem: crappy public schools at the primary and secondary level and the lack of resolve — especially on the left — to really make them better.
Yeah, white kids are leaving public schools and private education is soaring but I’ve seen no evidence to indicate that this is primarily the result of racism or classism. The real reason, I believe, is simply that these schools really suck and those with the means to get their kids out do so. (Wouldn’t you!) Look at UC Berkeley. This is clearly not a “white†school (in fact whites are underrepresented there based on the percentage of whites in the state) and yet whites – and Asians – are clamoring to get in because it’s a great school. Schools like Harvard also have aggressive admissions policies that over-represent minorities, yet you don’t see whites passing up a chance to go there either. There’s no reason to believe that the vast majority of white parents would not also send their kids to integrated primary and secondary schools if these schools were great – or even just good – or maybe even not terrible.
Now comes the tricky part: how to make great primary and secondary public schools? Hmm… here’s a crazy thought: why not try what is working so well with public universities in America. What’s that you say? Well, simply have the money follow the student and give parents the choice to send their kids to any accredited school they feel is best for them. Rich parents already do this so I’m talking about the government providing money to the poor kids so they can do it too.
Oh, but hold on you say, that would mean the end of public schools as we know them. While I doubt that would happen, considering the sorry shape of public schools I can hardly argue in good conscience that this would be a bad thing. Sure, some public schools are going to go under, as well they should, and if the teacher’s union won’t change their ways and allow bad teachers to be fired then there might be even more public schools to go under – as well they should too! Public schools have a huge business advantage over private schools in terms of their existing infrastructure and tax breaks so they have no excuse for not being able to compete with private schools.
Think of it: poor kids choosing what schools they can go to, just like rich kids! Wow, now that would be a great equalizer. More minority kids would be able to compete for spots at great universities without needing the admissions system rigged in their favor. White kids would no longer be thinking that every minority in their great university is there only because the admission system was rigged. There would be respect. There could be excellence. More and more minorities would have the chance to do great things. Man, this could really bring society closer together.
Oh, but there’s that fearsome teacher’s union to deal with, and God knows that so many incompetent teachers will get sacked. Oh, we can’t fire teachers! There are no bad teachers, after all! No! No! And then there’s the issue of using some public money for religious schools. No, we can’t have that either! Sigh… this is too much trouble. No, on second thought it’s better to sacrifice the poor kids to the lions den of crappy schools. But how to sleep at night? There’s the rub. Aha! Simple! Forced integration! Let’s make sure that we throw some white kids in there too. Yes, we can all sleep at night knowing that it’s not just the black kids that we’re sacrificing. We’re screwing some white kids too, and that’s something that should make us all feel better. Mmmmm… I’m all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it.
[...] of blogosphere blowback, not least here at Pop and Politics. On the day of the decision, P+P characterized it as a crazy retreat from the iconic 1954 ruling in Brown v Board of Education and asked, “Are we [...]