Thing is, that cartoon is false. Today's neighborhoods and schools are as segregated as they've ever been in the past forty years, it's just that different methods were devised to segregate the schools -- for example, in Houston the all-white neighborhoods split off from the city school district and formed their own all-white school districts, leaving the main school district overwhelmingly minority. Even segregated schools, the whites don't "mix" with the blacks -- they sit at separate tables in the cafeteria, they attend separate classes (the whites attend the classes for the college-bound, the blacks attend the "dummy classes"), the blacks and the whites separate out into different groups at gym when playing basketball, and so forth (yes, I know this from personal experience as a teacher). About the only time blacks and whites mix in today's schools are when they play on sports teams, where there is no color, only talent and hard work.
In short, white people and black people just don't seem to do much mixing today, with relatively rare exceptions such as the few black kids whose parents moved into formerly all-white neighborhoods (but by keeping blacks poor and in the ghetto, that's a fairly small number). As for MLK's holiday, hah! I, like most Americans, had to work today. Because it might be a *government* holiday, but those of us working for businesses don't get the day off. MLK is at the back of the bus where holidays are concerned, alas.
BT- You are right. We are not there yet, and a lot of hard work remains before we do get there. However, I believe that this is the kind of memorial Dr. King would have wanted.
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Thing is, that cartoon is false. Today's neighborhoods and schools are as segregated as they've ever been in the past forty years, it's just that different methods were devised to segregate the schools -- for example, in Houston the all-white neighborhoods split off from the city school district and formed their own all-white school districts, leaving the main school district overwhelmingly minority. Even segregated schools, the whites don't "mix" with the blacks -- they sit at separate tables in the cafeteria, they attend separate classes (the whites attend the classes for the college-bound, the blacks attend the "dummy classes"), the blacks and the whites separate out into different groups at gym when playing basketball, and so forth (yes, I know this from personal experience as a teacher). About the only time blacks and whites mix in today's schools are when they play on sports teams, where there is no color, only talent and hard work.
ReplyDeleteIn short, white people and black people just don't seem to do much mixing today, with relatively rare exceptions such as the few black kids whose parents moved into formerly all-white neighborhoods (but by keeping blacks poor and in the ghetto, that's a fairly small number). As for MLK's holiday, hah! I, like most Americans, had to work today. Because it might be a *government* holiday, but those of us working for businesses don't get the day off. MLK is at the back of the bus where holidays are concerned, alas.
- Badtux the Pessimistic Penguin
BT-
ReplyDeleteYou are right. We are not there yet, and a lot of hard work remains before we do get there.
However, I believe that this is the kind of memorial Dr. King would have wanted.