In comments below, JzB asked what my source for that data was. Well, the source is a U. Cal. study published in late 2009, which Project Censored notes as one of their top censored stories of 2010.
The primary reason why schools are segregated today is housing segregation, combined with the "independent school districts" in Texas and the West. That is why school segregation is worse in Texas and the West than in the South -- in the South, school districts are principally county-based, with the school district lines being the county lines. In Texas and the west, by contrast, it's possible to create "independent school districts" that encompass only the white neighborhoods and not the neighborhoods inhabited by brown-skinned people.
Thus for example in San Mateo County California, if all students in the county were in the same school district, the school district would be 51% white, 22% Asian, 22% Hispanic, and roughly 5% African-American and other. Instead, Palo Alto Unified School District, which excludes primarily-Hispanic East Palo Alto, had these demographics in 2005-2006: White, 52.2; Asian 25.1; Hispanic 7.9; African-American and other, 4.7%.
Meanwhile, just across the US101 freeway in East Palo Alto, the Ravenswood ISD has these demographics: Hispanic 70%, African-American 20%, Pacific Islander 9%, and other (including white) 1%. Note that Ravenswood is a K-8 district, East Palo Alto's high school students attend Sequoia Union high schools in Redwood City -- despite the fact that Palo Alto's high schools are closer. But wouldn't want *those* people in the very exclusive Palo Alto schools, right?
So anyhow, that's how it goes. We pretend that America is a racism-free land where everybody of every origin goes around hand in hand singing kumbaya... but the reality on the ground is anything but.
-- Badtux the Racism-smellin' Penguin
I lived in a mixed neigborhood one time. I liked it.
ReplyDeleteThe neighborhoods I've lived in here in the Sillycone Valley have been mostly Indian or East Asian. I'm living in Koreatown right now. But the thing to remember is that those aren't really minorities here in the Sillycone Valley -- they comprise the majority of tech workers.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have many blacks here in the South Bay, there used to be a black community in East Palo Alto but they largely migrated to Oakland over the past 30 years due to the Hispanics migrating into East Palo Alto. I've lived in majority-Hispanic neighborhoods a couple of times. One of the things that was most interesting to me was that in many ways, these people were more American than Americans. They worked hard, they were family men, they went to the park on the weekend and had picnics with their families... and many of them are descended from Mexicans who were brought in so that racist farmers wouldn't have to hire blacks, there being, apparently, various gradations of race where Mexicans are somehow less "icky" than blacks because the color of their skin isn't quite as dark or something.
And that, in the end, is the tragedy of racism in America -- that it ends up setting people against people based on nonsense, ignoring the very real things they have in common. Of course, there's some who believe that's actually the plan...
- Badtux the Thoughtful Penguin
Damned straight it's a plan. Divide and conquer is the Rethug way.
ReplyDeleteJzB