Integration Through Busing
After listening to the podcast, “The Myth that Busing Failed”, I was intrigued by the idea of busing. Not once in my life had I ever heard about this concept to try and desegregate African American and white students. The myth that Hannah-Jones challenges is that busing failed. When in reality as she goes on to clarify, we as a society failed busing. It is important to tell the Northern and the Southern stories. Before busing was established, Brown v Board of Education had been ruled that, “racial segregation in publicly supported schools to be unconstitutional, declaring that it denied equal opportunity” (Archived Recording). This confused many people since racial segregation was all they knew. The South did not appreciate this ruling and decided to establish a policy of Massive Resistance. Because of this ruling in Brown v Board of Education, “schools [were] being bombed, buses [were] being bombed” (Hannah-Jones). As this was all happening in the South, the North had, “initially applaud[ed] the Brown v Board of Education ruling” (Hannah-Jones). The North believed that the ruling in Brown v Board of Education simply did not apply to them. In regards to the recent boycotting of schools and protesting that was done, the New York City public schools responded by, “deciding to implement a very small, very limited bussing program for desegregation between 30 black and Puerto Rican schools and 30 white schools” (Hannah-Jones). The white parents did not respond appropriately to this and instead decided that it was “inconvenient” for their children to have to go farther away for education when there is a school much closer to them. After more protests, the Supreme Court addresses the racial desegregation in Swann v Mecklenburg County. Following this, the South began to desegregate schools. “Within eight years, you had the majority of black children attending desegregated schools” (Hannah-Jones). But in the North it was a different story. The bussing laws that were passed meant that to bus a student to a different school, the student had to remain within the county line. Many school districts though were populated solely with African Americans or solely with whites. When bussing was ordered within a school district, white families would just pack all their things and move to another area. It is important to demonstrate both sides of the country’s stories because they are different. The South complied with bussing white the North did not. The North found loopholes and tried to get out of bussing to public schools.
In the podcast, “The Problem We All Live With”, an interesting topic to me was the struggle of desegregation that the young girl Mah’Ria Pruitt-Martin faced in her town. Although she received great grades and was a good student, she still struggled to thrive in school due to poor funding and teachers in the Normandy School District. What baffled me the most was the comments people were making at the school board meeting. How if the Normandy kids were allowed into the Francis Howell school, that parents wanted “metal detectors…we are talking about the violent behavior that is coming in…” (Cirami). Along with this comment made previously; “Once Normandy comes in here, will that lower our accreditation?…So I’m hoping that their discipline records come with them, like their health records come with them” (Woman). To me, this comment is so rude and completley an issue of racial segregation. Many of the parents would claim that it was not but in my opinion it really is. These parents do not know the students at Normandy to be making accusations such as these. It is very disrespectful and harsh. I can not imagine what Mah’Ria and her mother felt after hearing all of these people shame them and put them down. It amazed me that these parents didn’t even consider the point that Mah’Ria had wanted to tell these parents: what if it was them in her shoes? What if their children went to an underfunded school and this was their opportunity to change that? Wouldn’t those parents take the leap of faith just as Mah’Ria and her fellow students were? But since she did not go up and speak on the microphone, I don’t think many of these Francis Howell parents even considered this. But after this school board meeting, on Mah’Ria’s first day at Francis Howell, I thought it was extremely powerful how the entire student body made a welcoming assembly of the sorts to help the students from Normandy feel more welcome. The students and teachers had heard what was said at the school board meeting and were shocked. The kindess of the students at Francis Howell demonstrated to me how kind humans can be. But especially since all of these students are children of the parents that were at that meeting who were saying harsh words. These students are the new generation and with this new generation comes change and new opinions.
These two stories are relatable to Canal Alliance because the people who are a part of Canal Alliance are a part of the minority in Marin County. The minority in both of the podcasts were African Americans. The main focus was racial segregation in schools and how their schools are underfunded. If there were integration acts between Hispanics and whites in schools in Marin County I feel like the parents would also find reasons to be upset about it. Yet this is inappropriate because it is not the students fault for where they live. Where the student lives then determines where they can go to school and if the schools in that area are inadequate then how is this the students fault? If the student is unable to go to a better school then the student would fall behind and the cycle and community would just continue to get worse and suffer. This is shown through the podcast, “The Problem We All Live With.” Elisa Crouch, a reporter, decided to shadow a student, Cameron Hensley, for a day at his school. It was shocking to see that the student was not mentally challenged for the majority of his day, even though he is an honors student. Most of the teachers were not fit to teach the classes they were even teaching. One question I would ask the students at Canal Alliance is if they feel they are being challenged enough mentally? If they are not then they should either be moved up to more difficult classes or maybe there is a general problem with the curriculum. I would also ask the students if they know if their teachers should be allowed to teach particular classes. For example, if the teachers have received the proper higher education necessary to teach particular subjects in certain areas of schooling.
