Thread by @Edu_Historian

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.

3/

In essence, they were attempting to segregate formerly enslaved people from public life by denying them access to public dollars.

4/

Prejudice no doubt played a role. But this was coordinated exclusion from a system designed to promote democratic equality.

5/

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