The neoliberal left

This is a really good interview about educational segregation in the United States:

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...ining-public-schools/548084/?utm_source=atlfb

My favorite bit so far:

I am only writing and speaking to liberals at this point. I'm trying to get people who say they believe in equality and integration but act in ways that maintain inequality and segregation to live their own values. The most segregated parts of the country are all in the progressive North. If you could just get white liberals to live their values, you could have a significant amount of integration.
 
This is a really good interview about educational segregation in the United States:

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...ining-public-schools/548084/?utm_source=atlfb

My favorite bit so far:
YES!

When I lived in North Carolina, forced busing was still very much alive and kicking. And it worked! It didn't create a utopia by any means but going to school with people of different social, economic and racial backgrounds than yourself was a good experience and it taught people to not fear the other.

I moved to the Midwest and everything was horribly segregated. People in St Louis county would fight tooth and nail to keep poor black kids out of their schools when the poor schools literally collapsed from corruption, mismanagement and under funding. They would call these poor kids thugs and hood rats and then would shout down the parents of the black kids when they pointed out how racist they were acting. They would go so far as to call the black parents racist in response. It was a very Trumpian moment.

Desegregation in schools needs to be brought back in a big way. I have listened to podcasts that claimed the evidence supports the notion that in states where desegregation was not allowed to be undone in the 80's, the level of inequality between communities has improved. Whereas everywhere desegregation was aggressively rolled back (the northeast and midwest), inequality shot up.

@Cutlass - even the liberals in the cities still support de facto segregration.
 
To follow up - and this is more anecdote so yeah -

North Carolina was far less overtly racist than the Midwest as well. I really think the segregation and smaller minority population served to distance whites in the Midwest from other people such that they saw them as the dangerous 'other' rather than 'neighbor'.

There's also a saying that in the South, white people don't mind black people living near them as long as they don't rise too far. In the North, they don't care how far black people rise so long as they don't liver near them. I find some truth in that statement.

And of course covert racism is prevalent from coast to coast.
 
St. Louis and South is the South.
 
Nope. I'd say that it is trending toward the south culturally but that's actually pretty recent. I'm not saying the region hasn't leaned southern since forever but there was definitely a difference - and the cultural trend has accelerated pretty dramatically in the last two decades.

It will be the South soon enough and maybe it has crossed that threshold but if so it's very recent in my opinion.

And when it comes to policies regarding segregation in schools, the St. Louis region is dramatically different from the south and has been since the government (at all levels) stopped pushing integration policies outside of the actual south. St. Louis was very quick to re-segregate as soon as the Feds let up on them.
 
That article made me realize that my own school had exactly the demographics described here:

White Americans, in general, are willing to accept about the ratio of black Americans at large: 10 to 15 percent.

Goldberg: But you get into the 20s...

Hannah-Jones: When you get into the 20s, white folks start to exaggerate how large the percentage is. So in New York City, one of the most segregated school systems in the country, if you’re a white parent in the public schools, you don’t want all-white schools.

Goldberg: Because you’re a liberal?

Hannah-Jones: Yeah. But what you want is a majority-white school with a small number of black kids and a good number of Latino, a good number of Asian. That makes you feel very good about yourself because you feel like your child is getting this beautiful integrated experience. The problem is that the public schools in New York City are 70 percent black and Latino. So, for you to have your beautiful diversity, that means that most black and Latino kids get absolutely none.

The tolerance for increasing particularly the percentage of black kids is very low, and even lower if those black kids are poor. No white parents in New York City mind having my kid in their school because they feel like I’m on their level. But if you get too many of kids like mine who are black but poor, there’s very little tolerance.

I had a few white friends that I made in elementary school, whose parents had withdrawn them to private/charter schools in middle and high school (also some who started out in private schools and entered the public school system later). I think it is interesting that Hannah-Jones and I arrived at the same ideal solution of banning private education in the United States.
 
Nope. I'd say that it is trending toward the south culturally but that's actually pretty recent. I'm not saying the region hasn't leaned southern since forever but there was definitely a difference - and the cultural trend has accelerated pretty dramatically in the last two decades.

It will be the South soon enough and maybe it has crossed that threshold but if so it's very recent in my opinion.

And when it comes to policies regarding segregation in schools, the St. Louis region is dramatically different from the south and has been since the government (at all levels) stopped pushing integration policies outside of the actual south. St. Louis was very quick to re-segregate as soon as the Feds let up on them.

You get down past Forgotonia, which is really it's own thing, and you're in the South. I don't care if you head due east and stay in state, it's still not the North. It's also not the genteel South of the Carolinas.
 
Forgotonia? Never heard of it. The most I can say about Southern Illinois and St Louis is that some people there did their best at imitating the south but that doesn't make it southern.

LOL
Yeah I know what you mean by genteel but Fayettenam is anything but.
 
There's lots of souths, like there's lots of norths. Though the shift you describe feels like bunches of pockets conglomerating. Can't say I'm terribly fond of some of the hybrids.

Either way, it's pop, you southern/coastal heathen.
 
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Ooooh, you deeper down there than I thought!
 
This is a really good interview about educational segregation in the United States:

https://www.theatlantic.com/educati...ining-public-schools/548084/?utm_source=atlfb

My favorite bit so far:

I wonder if the (forum) participants in this discussion have children. From the posts, I'd venture not.

What the quote describes is very common. Parents are perfectly happy to mouth platitudes about the 'benefits of diversity' until the moment their child(ren) reach school age; then they look at the quality of those 'diverse' schools, and send their child(ren) elsewhere.

An interesting bit in the interview is where the interviewer asks how school 'diversity' benefits white people, and the interviewee really struggles to name a single one, except for saying how much it benefits black people. So it's hardly surprising that white parents don't want it! People ask, 'how will this benefit my child(ren)?' and if there isn't a real answer to that, beyond some vague and woolly statements about making them a 'better person', then why would they change their behavior?
 
I wonder if the (forum) participants in this discussion have children. From the posts, I'd venture not.

What the quote describes is very common. Parents are perfectly happy to mouth platitudes about the 'benefits of diversity' until the moment their child(ren) reach school age; then they look at the quality of those 'diverse' schools, and send their child(ren) elsewhere.

An interesting bit in the interview is where the interviewer asks how school 'diversity' benefits white people, and the interviewee really struggles to name a single one, except for saying how much it benefits black people. So it's hardly surprising that white parents don't want it! People ask, 'how will this benefit my child(ren)?' and if there isn't a real answer to that, beyond some vague and woolly statements about making them a 'better person', then why would they change their behavior?


Because their children will be paying their entire lives for the Black children not getting an education.
 
Because their children will be paying their entire lives for the Black children not getting an education.

But that sounds rather abstract, though, doesn't it, when compared to tests scores, college admissions, etc.
 
An interesting bit in the interview is where the interviewer asks how school 'diversity' benefits white people, and the interviewee really struggles to name a single one, except for saying how much it benefits black people. So it's hardly surprising that white parents don't want it! People ask, 'how will this benefit my child(ren)?' and if there isn't a real answer to that, beyond some vague and woolly statements about making them a 'better person', then why would they change their behavior?

:lol: You obviously didn't actually read the piece. Because they don' really "struggle" to name the benefits of integrated schools for white children. The benefits are just, as they remark, somewhat intangible when compared to these badges of capitalist merit:

tests scores, college admissions, etc.

Your characterization as "woolly statements about making them a better person" is interesting, because of course there's nothing woolly about them - you're just responding in exactly the way they say most white people respond to this issue. Which isn't surprising given your more-or-less explicit endorsement of scientific racism upthread.

And they do also point out that the benefits of segregation for white children are much more immediately tangible.

Because their children will be paying their entire lives for the Black children not getting an education.

Even more basic than that, it is a moral stain on this nation and no American should be able to hold their head up until it is fixed.

But that sounds rather abstract, though, doesn't it,

Not really. It costs far more to incarcerate someone than to give them a decent primary education. And that's reckoning without the fact that educated people can then become highly productive members of society who pay taxes. The United States has been shifting resources quite consciously from educating African-Americans to incarcerating them for thirty plus years.
 
:lol: You obviously didn't actually read the piece. Because they don' really "struggle" to name the benefits of integrated schools for white children. The benefits are just, as they remark, somewhat intangible when compared to these badges of capitalist merit:

One of us certainly didn't.

Goldberg: How does it benefit white families, though, in a practical way?

Hannah-Jones: In a practical way, because you get to hoard resources. You get the best of everything. Even in a community where the schools pretty much suck, if there’s a school with black kids, it’s going to suck worse.

What you describe as 'capitalist merit badges' are actually important to most people, which is why they make the decisions they do.

Your characterization as "woolly statements about making them a better person" is interesting, because of course there's nothing woolly about them - you're just responding in exactly the way they say most white people respond to this issue. Which isn't surprising given your more-or-less explicit endorsement of scientific racism upthread.

It's a question of perception. It sounds woolly and vague to me; you take a different view. I've interacted with more non-whites than my grandmother did: does make me a better person? That's just odd. It sounds like the sort of thing one says when one can't think of anything else.

I expect white people think in diverse ways. But what's telling here is that you seem to equate white with bad, which is not surprising I suppose given all the anti-white things you like to post.

And they do also point out that the benefits of segregation for white children are much more immediately tangible.

Yes, and parents make decisions based on what is best for their children.

When I was in Brazil I remember seeing a school at the bottom of slum. To my surprise, I discovered it was a private school. All the pupils were kids from the slum. There was another, state run, school farther up the hill. Some of parents told me that the private school was much better than the other, and so the better-off residents of the slum sent their children there. Obviously, this made the state school worse, since its pupils were from the poorest families. But the parents at the private school, like parents everywhere, were motivated primarily by what was best for their children.

Not really. It costs far more to incarcerate someone than to give them a decent primary education. And that's reckoning without the fact that educated people can then become highly productive members of society who pay taxes. The United States has been shifting resources quite consciously from educating African-Americans to incarcerating them for thirty plus years.

Yes, but whites are already, as Cutlass put it, paying for black children not getting a better education. It's a known factor for them. They also know that for their children to have a good future, to get their 'capitalist merit badges', they need to go to a good school.
 
It's a question of perception. It sounds woolly and vague to me; you take a different view. I've interacted with more non-whites than my grandmother did: does make me a better person? That's just odd. It sounds like the sort of thing one says when one can't think of anything else.

I expect white people think in diverse ways. But what's telling here is that you seem to equate white with bad, which is not surprising I suppose given all the anti-white things you like to post.

Yes, I am anti-white, because whiteness is a completely harmful social construct. It needs to be gotten rid of.

Yes, and parents make decisions based on what is best for their children.

When I was in Brazil I remember seeing a school at the bottom of slum. To my surprise, I discovered it was a private school. All the pupils were kids from the slum. There was another, state run, school farther up the hill. Some of parents told me that the private school was much better than the other, and so the better-off residents of the slum sent their children there. Obviously, this made the state school worse, since its pupils were from the poorest families. But the parents at the private school, like parents everywhere, were motivated primarily by what was best for their children.

Right, and the policy solution to this problem is to abolish private schools and force all the parents to be invested in the public school system.

Incidentally, thanks for repeatedly telling me that the capitalist badges of merit and getting a good education for their kids is important to parents, I never would have guessed otherwise ;)
 
Yes, I am anti-white, because whiteness is a completely harmful social construct. It needs to be gotten rid of.

That seems incompatible with your constant cries of 'racism'.

I'd say that the kind of bigotry you espouse is what needs to go.

Incidentally, thanks for repeatedly telling me that the capitalist badges of merit and getting a good education for their kids is important to parents, I never would have guessed otherwise ;)

Glad I could help. Perhaps that will make you realize, then, that what you propose will never happen, that you have no realistic solutions, but somehow I doubt it.
 
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