Wor(l)ds Apart

Heard on the World Service (and there's an article up, too), and read at The Guardian, while the U.S. media slowly begins another news cycle:

US schools returning to segregation

American schools are now becoming increasingly segregated by race, according to a new study. Nearly half a century after the famous battles to integrate the school system, classrooms have become "re-segregated" and more race-based, according to the survey.

The report by the civil rights project at Harvard University confirms what activists have increasingly claimed that despite the many changes in US society, de facto segregation still exists in many parts of the country. Legal challenges to affirmative action policies have also had an effect on the levels of integration.

According to the study, integration between whites and blacks is either decreasing or unchanged in all but a few of the country's largest school districts over the past 14 years.

I expect the right-wingers, if they don't ignore this altogether, will relate charming tales of how there was one black family in the otherwise lily-white suburb they grew up in, and they went to school with one of the children. If we're really lucky, they'll tell us that the single, solitary black kid was their best friend growing up.

Think I'd prefer if they ignore the issue.

That's out in the real world. On the 'net, race doesn't exist. Unless, y'know, you're dumb enough to mention it in the domain name of your site. And you still get boundaries.

On the other side of that one street that everybody knows and nobody talks about openly, the one you don't cross unless you're looking for trouble, there was another discussion of race going on at Protein Wisdom. Which seems to have gone down again. It was mostly theory again though, more "what is race?" and "how should we deal with this?" rather than "here's how this affects the lives of actual people." There may have been a comment to the effect that affirmative action (not thrilled with the thing meself, before somebody gets started. . .) exacerbates the problem, but I'm going by memory and could be horribly, utterly wrong.

I keep meaning to point out that white is a race, rather than a state of transcendence, and not directly experiencing racism is, in fact, directly experiencing racism,

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.

Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in Women's Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "Having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"

After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious.

but that tends to make people uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable people tend to get defensive. And then there's the accusations and the name-calling and the utter breakdown of communication. Not fun.

And I'm all about mega super happy fun these days.

Update: There's a line at the end of the Guardian article, "after the election of President Reagan in 1980, federal funds for desegregation were reduced and resegregation began."

No comment. I always get yelled at for suggesting that (all the) black people (I know) hated Reagan's senile fucking guts.

Also, plugged "segregation" into Google News search, and got this as a result.

Miami Herald | Stamp honors Thurgood Marshall

In 1954, Marshall and his legal team prevailed in the landmark Supreme Court case, "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas," that struck down segregation in public schools.

I always use Alanis' "Ironic" as a throwaway line. Does "Thank U" work?

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

Nah. Luckily, Brunching Shuttlecocks still lets you make your own.

Update 8/11: In case you'd not noticed, I'm quite rude at times.

kd and Jason did the Trackback thang, and do I reciprocate? No.

I suck.