Looking at the Racial Root of Education Inequality
In 1954, there was a monumental action that seemingly pushed forward the Civil Rights movement in America. This was the supreme court case of Brown v. Board of education, the ruling that cam the verdict that we would stop desegregation in all American schools. Despite the growth of racial equality this ruling achieved, there is also a less shown regression of enforcement and an increase in opposition from the white population. Nicole Hannah-Jones explains how though many white communities supported the theoretical idea of integrated schools there was a significant amount of backlash when these new policies were applied in their neighborhood.
“While it is true that close-by schools may be convenient, white Americans’ veneration of neighborhood schools has never outweighed their desire to maintain racially homogeneous environments for their children”(2).
I see this in the community of Marin through the seemingly strategic location of the canal being isolated from the rest of San Rafael. The economic disparity of areas just miles from each other is astounding. According to Portrait of Marin San Rafael Canal District which is mainly Latinx average income is only 21,272, while the San Rafael Del Gonoda area which is mostly white average income is 47,005(Portrait of Marin, 2012). This means the students I work with have lower funds for updated books, teachers, and curriculum compared to miles up the street. There is a connection between the number of funds a school has access to and the racial ethnicity of their students. This connect illustrates just how separated schools are of racial ethnicity. No, there is no laws preventing a certain race from attending a specific school but education by region has been purposely shaped to exclude others of different socioeconomic class, thus along with their race.
The resistance against desegregation in the south was pandemic events of hate from white southerners. This was seen by bombings, protest and violent attacks of black children in what the supremacist consider “Segregated schools”. In an interview with the New York Times, Nikole Hannah-Jones explains how some schools were closed. In Prince Edwards county Virginia schools in the district closed for a whole five years, a half-decade before they accepted the new law. During this time Hannah-Jones explains how white children were given vouchers to attend private schools while black children went without schooling. This is an example of a misuse of power to directly harm a subordinate community. Despite the ruling,the exerb below explains one of many ways the racial disparity in education continued.
“Few remember that Oliver Brown, a petitioner in Brown v. Board of Education, sued for the right of his daughter, Linda, to attend her neighborhood school. Kansas’ state law allowed school systems to segregate at the behest of white parents, and so the Topeka school board bused Linda and other black children past white schools to preserve segregation”(3).
The focus of Joe Biden’s response to his previous dismissal of the issue of bruising during the democratic primary is a red flag into the unresolved issue of modern forms of segregation in our education system. The word “busing” is a euphemism that centers around the issue of white Americans opposing the idea of any racial integration in the classroom. I was aware of the problem of education inequity both nationally and in Marin, but I had not fully dived into the effect of how race is directly intertwined with our educational system.
When talking about the actions we must take to combat years of ingrained educational and societal segregation Hannah-Jones explains “desegregation required an arsenal of tools”(7). The very same methods the schools, politicians and white families used to support segregation can be flipped, and change purpose to fight for desegregation.
So what can we do to create effective policies to fight this deeply rooted racism in our schools and society? The first thing we must do is not remain silent, which will only feed the broken system. As the civil rights activist explained we must speak, no matter how afraid, she states “When I dare to be powerful — to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid”(8). We need our voice if we are to form clear and forward-moving plans that both address the central issue and how to go about igniting change.
