Separate is Inherently Unequal
Nikole Hannah-Jones addresses and challenges the myth that busing is ineffective and creates a problem. With the insight that white schools harbor all the best resources (qualified teachers, courses, facilities, etc), it is concluded that black students benefit from being given the same resources, not by associating with white students. In 1954 the US Supreme Court declared that it was unconstitutional to segregate public schools on a basis of children’s race. Black children slowly began integrating into white schools by busing, meaning they had to wake up in the early hours to catch a bus that would take them miles out of their community into white neighborhoods often with armed protection. Their parents routinely drove behind the school bus just to ensure that their child arrived at school safely and promptly. These children as young as 6 years old, posing no threat, were met with unscrupulous violence and temperament. Southerners were especially enraged by the imposed change to their dastardly principles. Their response to the Supreme Court decision was to create a manifesto condemning it, which was backed by many legislatures, and responded violently, most appallingly by bombing schools and buses. Some school districts responded by closing their schools for 5 years and giving white students vouchers to then attend private schools while black students were not given that option. Meanwhile, in the North, northerners had little resistance to the change, not because they were accepting and impartial by heart, but because the decision did not impose on the system they implemented to “equally separate” blacks and whites. Northerners had already been gerrymandering school districts to disadvantage blacks and other marginalized groups. Students demonstrated by participating in a walk out consisting of 460,000 students. A minor busing plan was then put in place which sparked rage in northern white parents. Learning from the failure of the southern parents’ movement, northerners modeled civil rights tactics in their defiance. Using the racial neutral concept of busing, these parents argued that simply because it was an inconvenience it should not be enacted and gained states-wide recognition. The history of the north’s participation in civil rights must not be misconstrued as one of valiance and directness because if it actually was our nation would be at a better place today.
Busing a common and effective practice of desegregation during the civil rights movement throughout the 1950–60s has seemingly prevailed in the modern education system 66 years after the monumental Brown vs Board of Education decision by the United States Supreme court which declared that the “racial caste system that was implemented by law was no longer constitutional.” Hannah-Jones, who grew up in the busing system, tells the story of the children of the Normandy school district in Missouri. Normandy, where Michael Brown was educated and graduated from, is infamous for being the worst school district in Missouri. In 2013, when the schools of Normandy were stripped of their accreditation, a transfer law was implemented to allow students to freely transfer to other districts, but only ordered Normandy to provide transportation to one district of their choosing. They chose Francis Howl, a school with students being 85% white, that was 30 miles away, while one of the top tier districts was only 5 miles away. Despite that challenge, over 1000 students left Normandy. Like the white northerners during desegregation, the white parents of Francis Howl riled against the change. Expressing their concern the parents said they hoped the children’s “disciplinary records come with them like their health records.” An uproar was caused when a school representative said that “those students scores will become our scores.” Other parents hope that the school will implement metal detectors and drug sniffing dogs. Another defended their outrage as impartial “her prejudice calling me a racist because my skin is white.” The mother of a Normandy child responded to the anger by stating, “my child may be the doctor that saves your life one day. My child may be the lawyer that defends your child one day.”
The concept of identifying marginalized groups as inherent criminals, thieves, drug dealers, and so on is really disgusting. Listening to these podcasts and hearing about how these young students, as recently as 2013, were stripped of their humanity and seen as threats, is really difficult to grasp. I know that this institutionalized racism still exists, but as an Asian American I feel that I cannot completely understand the imposed obstacles and disincentives that dark-skinned children, specifically black and hispanic, in the United States. The children that I work with at Canal Alliance UP! are mainly of Latin American descent and are first generation students, some with English as their second language. In the two times I’ve been there the students have communicated their concern with the typical high school troubles such as early mornings, AP classes, and too much homework. I think that may face the difficulties that we have discussed in class, but they may see it as a day to day issue that they have no control over such as restrained resources and prejudice treatment, but I have not heard of anything. From the student that I mainly help she has just expressed how she is unable to get homework help from her parents and she has a lot of expectations from her family since her elder sibling decided not to go to college and she’s next in line. I see more of the want to break the cycle of living on less than $30,000 and wanting to have a better future. “I want to buy my parents a house” which is a saying I have heard from students which I really relate with. I think that when growing up and seeing your parents work day and night, fighting to see you finish your education and have the best life possible makes people more humble and appreciative of their opportunities.
