Difference:

Spotlight on the Current State of Race in Public Schools

Differences are the definition of each
And without those subtle and overt changes
We are mere clones of one entity--
Boring and without value...
There's nothing wrong here.
This makes me, me and you, you
So what is it that drives us apart
Consciously and subconsciously--
Is this a remnant of old traditions
Buried deep in our culture
And rooted in intangible filth
We can't seem to clean?
A scientific wiring of our brains
Or a Biblical curse we can't escape?
Yet some are comfortable anywhere...
And you wonder, what happened there?
Our differences, so subtle and small
Why do they control us so?
Will it ever change,
Will we ever just get along?

Segregated Schools

2014 marks the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education; though in my hometown, desegregation didn't begin until 1968. That's 14 years after the landmark ruling, and I wondered "When was the last school in the US desegregated? Has the last school in the US been desegregated?" A timeline of events concerning Brown v. Board of Education says that laws to prevent work arounds (such as private/religious schools discriminating) had to be made even in the early '80s. Shortly after, in 1986, the Supreme Court declared that once a school meets the Green factors it could be released from its desegregation plan and control could be restored to local authorities. Just 2 years later, the "peak" of desegregation--described as 45% of blacks attending a majority white school--occurred (I personally would considered a school desegregated as blacks, whites, and any other ethnicity/races attending it regardless of the make up). The '90s would see the end of most desegregation plans and in 2002, The Harvard Civil Rights Project concluded that US schools are re-segregating [1]. One reason given for this is the fact that Brown v. Board of Education prevents schools from banning a student based on race within his/her school district; yet, 60 years later and many cities are in fact still made up of segregated communities (see America's 10 most segregated cities here) [2]. The right that was fought for was the opportunity to coexist and not to be banned from this or that neighborhood or school because of skin color. From here, the question is not if this segregation is a problem (there should be nothing wrong with a black person living by a black person, a white person living by a white person, or a black person living by a white person), but what will be the ramifications of this segregation? How will it effect our society going further?

References

1. "BROWN V. BOARD: Timeline of School Integration in the U.S.". Teaching Tolerance. 2004
2. Anthony B. Bradley. "Harvard's Civil Rights Project misses the mark". Acton Institute. August 21, 2002
3. "The Green Decision of 1968". Virginia Historical Society; visited February 26, 2014
4. Erica Frankenberg and Chungmei Lee. "Race In American Public Schools: Rapidly Resegregating School Districts". The Civil Rights Project Harvard University. August 2002
5. Harry Bradford. "America's 10 Most Segregated Cities". Huffington Post. June 7, 2011