What is the relationship between the historical issues you see in the website on Brown v. Board of Education and the contemporary issues of race that Bob Herbert and Tim Wise raise here?
The relationship between the topics above is that the issue of racial discrimination is still a problem in today's society. Tim Wise states that after the election of President Obama as our first black President we are " no where near a post racial America". Tim Wise is the author of Between Barack and a Hard Place and he feels that "the evidence of racism and discrimination against average everyday folks of color is still very much in evidence". This country will not be a truly equal opportunity society until the racial discrimination in housing, education, jobs and criminal justice is eliminated.
It has taken many historical events such as Rosa Parks refusing to get up on a bus, Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech, the 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment (1868) extended equal protection of the law to all citizens, the 15th Amendment (1870) guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. Electing Barack Obama as the president of the United States of America is yet another step closer to equality between the races.
The Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954 for Brown v. Board of Education made equal opportunity in education the law of the land. As stated in HERBERT's article Brown v. Board of Education , “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal". If the less fortunate, poorer population is confined to the same areas where they live, they will not receive the same education as students in middle to upper class school systems. Herbert states "long years of evidence show that poor kids of all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school with their more affluent — that is, middle class — peers."
I agree with Herbert's statement that "Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality." I believe that racial discrimination is prominent in our public schools today represented by income level. Until legislation and education reform is passed to disperse low income student bodies among more affluent community schools racial disparity will continue in full force in our modern day society. All students deserve an opportunity to be educated to their full potential.
I could not agree with you more in regards to the schooling by location. At the same time, I think it is important to connect these racial/economic forms of discrimination with the government's general stance on education. If schools are unable to perform at the proper level (according to standardized tests) the government wants to cut funding to those schools. The problem is that these schools are MOST LIKELY the ones where funding is too low for them to make any progress. Its a difficult cycle that we face.
ReplyDeleteExcellent breakdown of sources we had to examine. I agree that the whole idea of discrimination being extinguished is a joke. this can be viewed in housing projects all over the country, and while our president is not white, many people often still discriminate based on color of skin. Due to this discrimination, I agree with the sources, that there is an inequality of public education due to the different types of communities that the schools are in. This is something that needs to change.
ReplyDeleteI love your post this week. Everything you stated is awfully true. It sucks that this is what things come down to, but i hope it all gets better as our president is still in office and cares a lot about the people who lack all the sources that will help them.
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