Segregation Alive Today
Most
people think that segregation in school ended with the Brown vs. Board of
Education, but it is still prevalent in schools today. The desegregation of
schools was proved to be a hard law to enforce, especially in the South. The
riots and violence that came with desegregating these schools had to have been
scary for the first children to go through.
No school is more noted for the violence that
came with integration than with the Little Rock high school in Arkansas. The
school board picked nine African-American students to be enrolled into Little
Rock Central High. As soon as these students got out of the car by the school
they were ambushed by an angry mob trying to stop them from going inside. They
even had their own escort to walk them into school and to and from class to
keep them safe. Even with that, they still experienced racist comments and
stuff being thrown at them when their escorts were not there. Out of all nine
kids, only one was able to graduate that year and the rest were set to graduate
the following years, but they were forced to go back to their other schools.
That part of history may seem like
so far in the past, but schools are still segregated and no other place is
worse than New York City. New York City has one of the most economically and
racially segregated education systems and it reflects the cities segregated
communities like the ones we talked about in the book. Next year the department
of education wants to implement a new pilot system that will try to diversify
the schools in that area. Some people have said that this system might be too
little too late to change anything, but I think this can still help.
Another store of segregation comes
from San Diego. In 1977 it was revealed that the San Diego Unified Schools were
so racially isolated that it was almost impossible for African Americans and
Latinos to get a equal education. Forty years later, all except one of the
schools are still segregated. Some of the schools are so bad that the
co-director of the civil rights at UCLA said that they were like apartheid
schools. The Vision 2020 project is trying to build quality schools in the
neighborhoods so that these children do not have to leave their neighborhoods
to go to good schools. The only problem with this is that the San Diego
neighborhoods are racially segregated, so if they go through with this plan the
schools will still be segregated because the neighborhoods are.
Many people have “plans” to try and
intergrate these schools, but since the cities are so segregated I think they
have to do a little more than just build more schools. I personally do not know
how I would fix this problem in the school, but I think it starts with the
neighborhoods in these areas and diversifying them. Anyone could have the
answer to this issue so I guess the question is, What would you do?
Raven, I loved this blog post. I think it's very informational, and I like the fact that you have information that some people may be familiar with, and information that is newer. I like the connection to segregation in schools today, and I liked how you explained the outcome of the Little Rock Nine. One thing that I think would have been a good idea to include would be the story of Ruby Bridges, the young African American girl who integrated a school in New Orleans. Besides that idea, I think you did a really good job here.
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