The Racial Mis-education of America's Youth
A new study by the Pew Hispanic Center finds that enrollment in suburban schools by minority students has seen explosive growth.
The study authored by Richard Fry reports that "the student population of America's suburban public schools has shot up by 3.4 million in the past decade." Ninety-nine percent of that increase was driven solely by Latino, black and Asian students. In 1993-94 the student population of suburban schools was 28% non-white. In 2006-2007 it stood at 41.4%.
But... And there's a BIG but -- at the same time the study found that while the overall number of minority students in suburban schools rose, diversity WITHIN individual schools was stagnant.
From the survey:
In 2006-07, the typical white suburban student attended a school whose student body was 75% white; in 1993-94, this same figure had been 83%. So at a time when the white share of student enrollment in suburban school districts was falling by 13 percentage points (from 72% in 1993-94 to 59% in 2006-07), the exposure of the typical white suburban student to minority students in his or her own school was growing by a little more than half that much, or 8 percentage points.
Which means, although more minorities are now enjoying suburban life, part of that life still includes segregation.
This is the world in which our children are being raised. Forty-one years on from the Kerner Commission's "two societies" declaration we are traveling from "separate and unequal" to equal but separated. In a time when so many willingly accept a black man as president, it is still unlikely that they would have a black or Hispanic or Asian as a neighbor.
And we wonder why the likes of Miley Cyrus or Joe Jonas don't understand the wrongness of going around making "Chinese eyes."
That fact is while many were offended when Attorney General Eric Holder chastised us for being "a nation of cowards" when it comes to having discussions on race, when we head home at night there's rarely anyone except people like us to have these discussions with.
More than just a fact of life, diversity is an attribute of our nation. For children diversity needs to be real, and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo. It means talking to and spending time with kids not like them so that they may discover those kids are in fact just like them.
But our kids aren't the ones who pick neighborhoods or buy houses. The life is theirs, but the choice is ours.
For more perspective please visit That Minority Thing.com
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Will we ever get past thinking in races?
we may not as individuals, but our institutions can't continue to be racist. That will be the downfall of this nation.
Forced assimilation hurts every race/culture involved.
If people choose (by their own freewill) to "not" live with people of another race/culture this should be respected. To force them to do otherwise is unnatural and inhumane.
Some blacks segregate themselves by choice. This should be OK.
Some asians segregate themselves by choice. This should be OK.
Some hispanics segregate themselves by choice. This should be OK.
Some whites segregate themselves by choice. For some reason this is not OK?
Why? Why are caucasians singles out for ridicule?
Studies have concluded, people naturally feel comfortable with members of their own race.
This is not racism, it is comfort through association.
With different races also come different cultural traits. A cultural bond is natural.
To prefer your own race/culture is not racist, it is natural.
To hate someone because they are a certain race is racism.
The only race/culture made to feel guilty about not wanting to assimilate are caucasians (whites).
Forced assimilation is unnatural and only causes problems, which makes one wonder if this has been the plan all along?
Planned, intentional racial strife through forced assimilation.
We need to give each other some slack and quit buying into the media race baiters.
Right on!
"to prefer your own race/culture is not racist, it is natural...
. Only in a racist society in which human curiousity and compassion are punished by death , torture and ostracism.
Choice? Is there really a choice when people are segregated by law and custom? When they created Levittown in the wake of WWll and made it whites only, were they extending a "choice" to people who were not white? What choice did Black victims of violence from their suburban "neighbors" have?
Whites have always had the choice and have exercised the choice at every turn. Whites have chosen not to live with others not like them, and have exercised their choice with violence against those they have chosen to be unworthy. I have no idea where you get this notion of "forced assimilati
I would dare say that if you asked Blacks, Asians, Latins about living with whites, most would not, really. But in a nation that professes that the choice exists, they certainly do not wish to have their choices negated by the lies that white citizens make themselves comfortable with. And be for real, for once, flip. Whites have not a shred of guilt about not wanting to live with others. There is nothing that you can point to, nothing at all that suggests that.
My mother is white, she is one of the loveliest and smartest people that I've even encountered. But I'm a black man and I prefer to live in a majority black neighborhood. I don't like living around a lot of white people because of their complete and total cluelessness. One of the smartest decisions my parents made was to raise their children in Harlem and not in the hostile white NYC neighborhood where my mother grew up.
I have no interest in having my children attend highly integrated schools because too many of the administrators, teachers and students are ignorant and bigoted. I like equal but separated.
"equal but separated" is the same as "separate but equal".
Do you like Jim Crow laws as well?
My great-grandmother and grandmother were both born raised in the Jim Crow south. My great-uncle was beaten unconscious when he attempted to vote. His brother was threatened by the klan and the entire family was forced to leave Alabama in the middle of the night....l
There was no CHOICE in the segregated southern USA. The legal apartheid system was brutal and dehumanizing.
Where I CHOOSE to live, where I CHOOSE to send my children to school, and who I CHOOSE to live near is based on my personal experiences of being a black man in America and what my wife and I think is best for the mental, physical and emotional well-being of our children.
"No w hite person knows, really knows, how it is to grow up as a Ne gro boy in the south. The taboo of the w hite w oman eats into the psyche, erodes away significant portions of boyhood se xual development, alters the total concept of masc ulinity, and creates in the Ne gro male a hidden ambivalence towards all w oman, b lack as well as wh ite... Even in the North, as I shall show in more detail later, the Ne gro's fear of the consequences of being familiar with a white woman is not unusual. Because he must act like a eun uch when it comes to wh ite women, there arises within the Ne gro an undefined sense of dread and self-mutilation. Psychologically he experiences himself as castra ted."
I can understand if this is to hard for YOU to talk about, but there is more than this and your stagnant manipulation of language is NOT helping.
""I can't hardly sit by a Ne gro w oman," said a w hite man who served as an informant for this book. "I can't be comfortable in their presence. I mean I get excited. They don't even have to be good-looking. I can't help but get erec t no matter what kind of looking Ne gro she is.""
This man's repression is part of a sad predicament of sexu al dominace and submission. I would submit that this man facing impunity from consequence of both carnal and moral nature has bolstered his ego as well as accepted his position of dominace (based on his preceived stature melded to his impunity) entranced in his own sexual authority
Bl ack males today seem trapped in a repression (or expression of past repression) reciprocal to the above statement that has twisted the implications on each level of compadibility.
""I can't hardly sit by a Ne gro w oman," said a w hite man who served as an informant for this book. "I can't be comfortable in their presence. I mean I get excited. They don't even have to be good-looking. I can't help but get erec t no matter what kind of looking Ne gro she is.""
This man's repression is part of a sad predicament of sexu al dominace and submission. I would submit that this man facing impunity from consequence of both carnal and moral nature has bolstered his ego as well as accepted his position of dominace (based on his preceived stature melded to his impunity) entranced in his own sexu al authority
Bl ack males today seem trapped in a repression (or expression of past repression) reciprocal to the above statement that has twisted the implications on each level of compadibility.
there is no way this is applicable to the people that would be going through this supposed repression today. bring up the past just pulls everyone down
:|=
Black children constitute 17% of all students, but comprise 41% of all special education placements, primarily educable mentally retarded and behavior disorders. Black boys disproportionately are 85% of the Blacks in special education (Grant, 1992).
Not only is testing a bias culprit of misdiagnosis and overrepresentation, but the ignorance of cultural differences is also a factor in the process. Various explanations have been offered as to why this disproportionate and overrepresentation of Black students in particular types of special education classrooms occurs (Sewatka, et al. 1986). In the area of cultural differences, writers have pointed out that professionals view cultural differences among Black students as an indicator of deficiencies (Hilliard, 1980). This perception can lead to a student being identified as being below normal or abnormal on measures of adaptive behaviors. Gilbert and Gay (1985) suggest that Black students who are misdiagnosed and misplaced are often having difficulty in the regular classroom because this education environment is not set up to meet the needs of culturally different students. Placement is special education classes do little is anything to solve the original problem. This is because special education classrooms are likewise not set up to meet the needs of students with cultural differences. Thus, the Black student who is placed in special education classrooms, because of displayed cultural differences, eventually will begin to display the characteristics of a disabled student (Serwatka, et al. 1985).
you have to incude that these statistics representations of corrobarative problems with them we can see into the problem, but a wholistic perspective is yet to be illuminated as may be concluded from the weak references to the multifaceted dimesions of said problem(s) and resolutions of those.
On point.
It isn't all culture. Black kids aren't just testing poorly because the white man designed the test to put them down. Black kids test poorly in large part because boys from households with lower income and education levels tend to test poorly, and on average, largely due to a history of bigotry and discrimination, blacks tend to have lower income and education than whites. We need to deal with the material underpinnings of this problem before we have the luxury of looking at culture.
Everything in life is culture.
yes, see my post above on social justice.
as an educator of twenty five years in this part of the field, the overdiagnosis and referal of students of color is astounding. Eliminate social justice issues from their lives and you have no learning issue.
what do you mean social justice issues?
One thing that Mr Ridley does not say is that some blacks want to live in black neighborhoods and send their kids to predominately black schools including predominately black colleges. It is not only some whites who want to live in seperate neighborhoods from blacks and other minorities.
You do realize that there are Black colleges because white colleges would not admit Blacks.
And you do realize that if we perpetuate race-based institutions and capitalize Black over White, we continue to create a world of Us against Them.
If we want equality we need to walk the walk.
That's not the point. It is not solely the responsibility of white students to reach out and interact with minority students.
That's why they were founded. That's not why they exist now! Do you have any idea how intensely schools fight over minority students?
This is the problem of with education -too many people focus on issues like race and self esteem instead of reading, writing and math. If you can't do the basics it doesn't matter what race you are.
The issue of race is just a means for race baters to keep on making a living and to keep making a mess of this country.
I can tell you have never worked in education, as you would know that self esteem is directly related to ones ability to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. A smart student with low self esteem is likely to have as much trouble learning in school as a student with high self esteem, but is not quite as smart. I saw that over and over again when I was a mentor in the Oakland Unified School system. Sometimes the student with high self esteem was better at learning than the smart student with low self esteem.
No. I am a white person, and my mother grew up in Washington DC, which was (largely) segregated. (It was in transition, as this was the late 1950s and early 1960s.) Whenever we drive by Union Station, she tells me about how in the summer, when she was a child, the fountain out front would be full of black children in their underwear, trying to cool off, because there was no other way to do so. Like now, a huge percentage of the city's black population lived in incredible poverty. Unlike now, they were denied entrance to pools not only based on poverty, but on color. Even upper-middle class white families rarely had air conditioning then. If my mother remembers that, someone else's mother remembers being that child in their underwear. The world didn't just magically change. Even if (and I don't believe this) racism were completely eradicated in our culture today, the economic legacy of racism's history would not go away. Nor would the gap in cultural capital. If you don't know what that is, look up Pierre Bourdieu. Racial inequality is a very real problem. So are many other inequalities, some of which I expect you suffer from or you might be less defensive. One inequality doesn't invalidate another.
Unfortunately as long as people believe race is an issue - then it is, at least to them. Read the posts, lots of personal indicators that there are plenty of unresolved issues, and lots of anger still out there. Denial of an issue doesn't make it go away. I find it discouraging that 45 years after the major civil rights legislation that there is still so much race driven hatred. As to self esteem, self worth, confidence in self - if you don't have it you will not BELIEVE that you can learn or achieve anything. During the 16 years I taught in inner city schools poor self esteem and dysfunctional behaviour arising from it were obstacles that often had to be overcome before you could attend to teaching skills.
I don't get the message of this post. I am white, middle class. When I look for a neighborhood to move into I look for the most affordable one I can find with a good, safe school system that is convenient to work. I suppose in order to provide a diverse experience for my children I should be looking to move into poorer, unsafe neighborhood with deteriorating schools? At least my kids will be meeting "others"? That makes no sense at all.
Fist, I do not know why YOUR kids would have to go to school in a "poor" neighborhood to meet "Others", Do you not have any DIVERSITY in you city? If not, why not? The point to this blog, is to point out that while we are saying that we are becoming more diverse, we really aren't. To me that would say that more people of different Back grounds really need to meet and mingle, that is the only way to understanding.
How does one go about finding out the diversity of a neighborhood before one moves into it? Am I to knock on doors? Am I to ask my realtor?
I think the point of the article and the point of the study may actually be two different arguments.
If anything the study shows that one cannot engineer social change.
Mr. Ridley,
All of us are free to raise ourselves up out of our social and economic situation, and buy a home or rent in a better school district for our children. It's done hundreds of times a day in America.
Blacks moved out of the South, to factory jobs in the industrial North, for a better life for themselves and their children. Not the government, not the states doing it for them-they did it themselves.
Literally, there is nothing stopping any of us, beyond the belief that it can't be done, from changing our economic situation, and moving our kids to a better school district.
Naturally, that's always left unsaid in your blogs, where you often posit that it is society's responsibility to make crappy schools, where crappy parents send the kids they don't care much about, to be taught by equally crappy teachers..
It's the whole reason we've spent trillions on the Dept. of Education, since 1978, only to see test scores that are lower than in 1978!
what about the fact that there is not enough jobs for everyone let alone blacks to have some respectable amount of upward mobility.
There are plenty of jobs, for the motivated. Read what I said about black migration to industrial cities.
Why the hell would 12 million Hispanics be here, if there were "no jobs" as you say?
I could care less what kind of job I worked, if it got my kid out of a crappy school district.
Aside from the fact that Repugs have TRASHED our public education system, I seem to find myself insulted by your post. You obviously did not grow up in a culturally diverse background, My EXPERIENCE has been, that the schools do not teach the skills needed to attain said "Good" jobs. You say that it is parents "Responsibility" to "Get a Better job and then move" COME ON, How should the parents "Pull themselves up by their boot straps" if they do not have any boots to begin with? Try spending some time in a disadvantaged school district for awhile, maybe you will see. By THE WAY teachers try hard EVERYWHERE, just cause you watched some movie where inner city life was portrayed, does not mean you have ANY inkling of what it is like.
How in the world have Republicans trashed the school system? The Democrats have had the teachers unions in their back pocket (or vice versa) forever!
Yes, of course you would be insulted. Tell me, what sort of "background" did I grow up in?
I agree with hippie chucker- to an extent. This is yet another of Ripley's blogs where whites are once again to blame-
"We keep putting minority students in the schools but those r.ac.ist wh.ite kids won't mingle with them", to paraphrase.
Let's just say I grew up poor enough to have eaten government cheese.
So don't try to tell me I don't know what it's like to be poor, and disadvantaged.
Mexican illegals come here, work 80 hour weeks, and PROVIDE for their families-they see America for the opportunity that 75% of inner city folks don't.
Like I said, the only thing stopping someone with average intelligence from making enough to send their kids to a good school district is willpower. Nothing more, nothing less.
And where is America in this post? The explanation of the writer is that Anglo America must change yet others must change America. That is un-assimilation leads to where we are headed. Down the tubes. I desirer NOT to be European, NOT to be French, NOT to be Latino, I prefer to choose the anglo driven manifest destination that created our great nation which is now under attack by every demonic driven social ill of destruction that can be promoted by outside entities who's desirer is the end of America and the free world! People need to remember why they came or what life would be like in Africa or Cuba or Spain.
I read the comments here and most of them are from people who think they are not rac ist yet have no clue how rac ist they are.
I know its not your fault. The blind cant lead the blind. How can you teach your children to be fair and friendly to everyone when you have you own hangups about race that were taught to you by YOUR parents?
I'm black and I have had all races of friends since I was very little. I'm from the ghetto and I ha te the ghetto because its not diverse enough for me. When you concentrate people of the same race together, kids grow up unworldly and small minded. You do a disservice to your children by relegating them to a homogeneous world where nobody exists but people who look like them. They grow up to be offensive and visibly uncomfortable around "others". That's embarrassing for everyone, white, black and otherwise.
I live in Cleveland, the most segregated city besides Chicago and the blacks and whites here are astoundingly ignorant of each other. I see the rest of the country is not so different. I really can't stand America, yet I love what its SUPPOSED to be, so I can't let go and give up yet.
I agree with most of what you say until the last paragraph.
When you say that you "really can't stand America, but you love what it's supposed to be" aren't you really saying that you like the concept of America, but you can't stand the people?
Not to put words into his mouth, but isn't Ohioan saying that he loves what America is supposed to be, but America as it isn't so often fails to live up to that standard. That has been expressed by so many people over the years - that the America that should be is often perverted, as by the Bush Administration who clearly saw no need for anything like affirmative action because they had Colin Powell and Condi Rice.
America does often fail, and we have to struggle until hearts and minds have been changed and we no longer have a "color line." The largest part of that struggle is not with the government, but within ourselves and against our own attitudes.
Probably typically, you missed the most important part of the phrase, where he says "so I can't let go and give up yet".
No, Seth, I'm just very disappointed in people.
It hurts me to hear black people accuse ALL white people of secretly hat ing them when they don't even know any white people. It is very possible to live in Cleveland, next door to white people and not know them at all.
It also hurts me when I hang around unfamiliar white people and they don't know that I'm black (because I'm on the high yellow/straight hair end of the AA color spectrum) and they think its safe to "n" because they dont think any black people are around. "Excuse me, what did you say?" And then the profuse, red-faced apologies ensue. "I--I didnt know you were black!" Hmmmm....
I get to be a fly on the wall and know how everybody REALLY thinks and I must say, I am severely disappointed and I make it my mission to teach my children better than that.
Excellent post. Shutting yourself off from people not like you is not a way to live. It is important for us as Americans to accept the differences in each other, and that start by exposing our children to people who don't have the same hue of skin, to see different perspectives.
Ohioan730 speaks excellent words. This reminds me of the Chris Rock monologue in one of his specials. In it he said "America to black folk was like the uncle who paid their way through school but molested you."
As hard as it is, I hate to say it, but he is right. It hard exuding pride in a country that fails short on its on promises and potential. Our goodness and what we can be is thwarted by our narrow-mindedness and lack of wanting more on all fronts.
However, with all the bad when it comes to race, I am not giving up. We have to move toward a new tomorrow where we not only interact with each other at work and school, but also at home during personal time. That is the only way we can finally be one race, the human race.
Interesting comparison, and a brilliant line from Mr. Rock, but the fact is, America isn't a person, it's 300million people, some of whom "paid your way through college" and some of whom "mollested you" and some of whom are you.
I know we like to think of America as a concept, but but that's just a part of it. America is also not the American govt., but that's just a part of it too. America is us, the people, some of whom embody the best of that concept and and some of whom reject it, some of whom recognize that we play a role in deciding what and who we are, and some of whom can't get past the mistaken notion that America is some big "them" whose actions can only be lamented.
The only reason DC doesn't count as more segregated than either of those cities is that there aren't enough white people within the city limits to count. Add in the suburbs they aren't legally allowed to annex because they aren't a state and then tell me what city is the most segregated. It's kind of insane.
Natural segregation and racism are two different things. You are asking Cristians to pray in a Mosque. The fact that you can not appreciate the DIVERSITY of others, and insist that all types must be integrated is ignorance and racism on your part. The differences in people should be celebrated - not berated as seems to be your tendancy. We need to appreciate one another. We need to make effort to understand one another. We need to live peacefully side by side - but we don't have to live in the same house.
Nice post. Sadly the point is missed on many.
very well said.
Excellent post. Well stated, to the point. Ridley seems to be saying that 'racial integration," once seen as the holy grail in American society, as the THE ticket to social and legal equality and as well as the bringer-of-racial harmony, has not delivered the latter because of the persistence of attitudes (conscious and unconscious ), that work against true racial harmony. There are lots of contributing factors. Ridley is not blaming self-segration for any minority group's failure to thrive or to make the most of life, as some of comments above seem to infer. He's saying that while suburban children of differing racial backgrounds may attend school together in greater numbers than ever before, they are not getting to know each other personally with proportionate frequency. Close contact has not resulted in a skyrocketing amount of personal contact, awareness of "the other" and interpersonal understanding among American youth. In many cases, this is true.
Some things can't be forced, just have to happen naturally. My niece is in college and has a united nations group of friends after being raised in white only rural south. Stop with the social engineering, it does more harm than good.
This is more than just a black/white issue. Are Hispanic, Asian and Native Americans to be included in the discussion as well? I think an examination of social justice issues will reveal that socio-economic class and the opportunities it does or doesn't provide has a larger influence on the relative success of a person or a community.
I agree with this article, but there is something very specific missing here.....
Many minority cultures, black, asian, hispanic, and even the gay population, enjoy living in communities with people like themselves. So, yes, it is a fact that the parents pick where the families live, but many people would rather live in an area where they feel comfortable and have something in common with their neighbors, that to be somewhere else. I think that the average white american has gone in the opposite direction - most of them really do not even want to see or know the names of their neighbors.
That being said - this post is entirely correct. I grew up in a very diverse area (22% black and 14% asian) and I seen to have such a different view and perspective than most of the people I now know. It makes a big difference and until the people of this country stop with the all about me and my benefit attitude, none of this will ever change.
People do tend to drift toward people who try understand them. The pity is that this often means people from only the same ethnic background, and that is a huge loss for all of us.
Only where cultures really connect and rub together do you have any progress in science, technology, and society in general. Isolated communities tend to slide into oblivion or irrelevance.
What is missing here is that this notion of choosing to live has never really been a factor. If you are Black, that you might have a choice, historically, to live where you want in this country, has never really been a factor, now has it?
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