Brown vs. Board of Education

Quotes:

While exploring the website Brown vs. the Board of Education and reading the article Separate and Unequal by Bob Herbert, the culture of power has never seemed so prevalent in history and in life today. Before Brown vs. the Board of Education the states in the south "created a dual educational system based on race. These separate schools were anything but equal." After Brown vs. the Board of Education students were able to get the same education in the same classroom. In the video Between Barack and a Hard Place with Tim Wise, he talks about how "we are no where near a post racial America" and this can be seen in the classroom. Herbert wrote, "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." In my elementary school most of the students were white and most elementary schools in Coventry were dominantly white. At Kennedy Elementary school, where I volunteer, most of the students are not white and are of a different race or ethnicity. In Providence, a lot of schools are this way, and it seems like these schools are still segregated because of the "economic disparities" that households experience. 

Jackie Robinson integrated into MLB in 1947

The fight that allowed all students to learn together took many years and now today students are not as integrated as they should be. In Hebert's article, he mentioned a student that "showed that low-income students who happened to be enrolled in affluent elementary schools did much better than similarly low-income students in higher-poverty schools in the county." Diverse students who learn together tend to do better because the students who live in higher income families tend to have parents who work with them as young children. The students who don't have that connection tend to do better if they are with students who do. Tim Wise mentions in his video that some black students feel that in order to succeed they need to "excel in basketball and hip hop." We need to change society so that everyone has an equal opportunity. These students shouldn't have to feel they have to identify with that stereotype in order to succeed. I think Johnson's piece of saying the words applies here because most people still believe in stereotypes. Whites generally classify blacks as "less intelligent, more aggressive, prone to criminality, less hardworking and just want to live on welfare and not work." We need to realize that we are part of the problem of segregation that is still prevalent today, and we also need to see that we are the solution to fix it. 

Wise also mentions that because the United States has a black president, we feel that we are heading towards a better place where segregation and racism don't exist. Racism is "still evident" in today's society. He brought up a point that I never realized before and it was the fact that white people are asked if is racism still present and their answers were generally no. They are not part of the ones

being targeted. The people who feel they are the victims should be asked that question and he mentions that "people still remain ignorant." Brown vs. Board of Education, the Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights Act, all took a lot of work to pass and there is "still so much work that needs to be done. Denial about the problems hasn't changed."

It seems like today we are falling back into segregated schools and it is one big circle. There needs to be a change that allow a racially diverse population in every school. If there is no change or no action are we ever going to be anywhere near a post racial America?

Point to Share: I didn't know much about Brown vs. Board of Education and for a while I thought about schools being diverse because I had black, Hispanic and Asian students in my schools. After going to Kennedy Elementary school and reading Hebert's article, I can now see that schools are anything but diverse.