Thread by @VABVOX

THREAD 📌📌📌
So we couldn't have a debate about #ClimateChange, but apparently the next debate is going to be about #segregation and #busing. In 2019. So here is some data.
1/

This issue was decided by the US Supreme Court in 1954 in Brown v. Topeka Board of Ed, which desegregated the schools. But since white people still refused to integrate the schools, we needed another #SCOTUS ruling.
2/

In 1971 the #SCOTUS ruled--UNANIMOUSLY, in an opinion written by conservative Chief Justice Warren Burger-- in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Ed that busing was essential to speeding up the process of desegregation mandated in 1954 by Brown.
3/

So when folks claim that busing wasn't needed and was irrelevant, that is many layers of false.
4/

Many historians blame "white flight" on busing. White people would do anything to avoid having what Biden described as "black kids getting close to my blonde kids."
Biden wanted a constitutional amendment against busing.
5/

My personal history is that my parents were Civil Rights workers of Biden & Bernie's generation. I grew up in a black neighborhood & currently live in a black neighborhood. #Segregation of the public schools should be fixed, but racism dominates any remedies. Busing did work.
6/

I ran a mentoring program for middle-grade kids from the two elementary schools near my house for close to a decade. I began that program because the school where I voted had no library. Kids need access to books, especially when there are none in their homes.
7/

So witnessing segregation first hand and having been in school during integration via busing, I know how critical desegregation programs were (and remain).
Biden should be saying he got it wrong in the 70s, not doubling down on his anti-Brown/anti-Swann policy.
8/

The fact that we are still discussing this and that #Biden has derailed all other discourse in the primary with this issue from the 70s highlights both his intransigence and his inability to project a vision for the future, because he keeps relying on the past.
9/

Biden's quotes here are pretty stunning. He actually got a pass from Harris, if you read this piece which has numerous citations from the period.

salon.com/2019/06/29/yes…

10/