I can’t watch this debate anymore. So I’m digging into @DerekWBlack’s new book, and thinking about race, schools, and America.
A short little thread on that theme.
1/
People often interpret racial segregation in our schools as a matter of personal choice and individual prejudice.
2/
But as Derek points out, whites in the South worked immediately after Reconstruction to segregate their tax dollars.
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In essence, they were attempting to segregate formerly enslaved people from public life by denying them access to public dollars.
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Prejudice no doubt played a role. But this was coordinated exclusion from a system designed to promote democratic equality.
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Modern segregated schools are no different. They are not the result of personal prejudice. They are the product of racial privatization. Segregation is a strategy to keep public dollars from being truly public.
Forgot number/
That’s why, for members of the Black community, as well as for other POC, school integration has often been about resources (not about “feelings of inferiority”).
7/
It has also been about affirming dignity—giving up good (if underfunded) Black schools in the process.
8 (I think)/
But at the end of the day, it was not lost on marginalized people that those with racial and economic privilege were working to create a state-within-a-state.
9/
So go on and watch your debate. But when you’re ready to get down to real politics, let’s have a chat about what “public” means.
10/10
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