How the Systemic Segregation of Schools is Maintained by ‘Individual Choices’
This article outlines an interview originally featured on Fresh Air with journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, an investigative reporter who often covers civil rights issues. In the interview, Hannah-Jones discusses the decision to send her daughter, Najya, to their local public school in Brooklyn rather than a private school. She explains how private choice in schools is perpetuating segregation of race and of resources. She cites this as a “moral issue” saying that “It is important to understand that the inequality we see, school segregation, is both structural, it is systemic, but it’s also upheld by individual choices. As long as individual parents continue to make choices that only benefit their own children…we’re not going to see a change.” By having her daughter in an economically and racially diverse classroom, Hannah-Jones says that it is making Najya “a good citizen.” Hannah-Jones delves into the Brown v. Board of Education decision and how the resistance to the decision was very strong. She explains how racial segregation and racial inequality were perpetuated through resources. Despite this, the government is not showing an equal response now to allocating resources to “fixing” the problems caused by segregation and inequality in the school system. This makes individual response to the integration of school much more dynamic and influential.
I find this interesting because I think if you would ask many middle-class Americans if school segregation still existed, they would respond "no" however this article draws attention to the matter and pointing out that through individual choice, parents are still choosing segregation. This just shows how segregation is still a systematic problem but many people are so blind to the actual existence of the problem.
ReplyDeleteThis article is so interesting and I appreciate the commentary on denial. A major issue I see here is not just the segregation in schools and resources disparities to receive quality education, but also the cyclical potential for propagation of racist beliefs. Contact theory tells us that interactions with diverse groups promotes tolerance, making individuals question their stereotypes about other groups of people. It is possible that the reverse is also true - that by minimizing opportunities to interact with diverse populations early in life, students are likely to be less tolerant and rely more heavily on stereotypes of other groups. Schools provide a structure environment to interact with people from different races and backgrounds, and I feel that this aligns Hannah-Jones' explanation of her decision to send her daughter to their local public school instead of a private school, even though she had the means to do so.
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ReplyDeleteI will never forget when I first learned that school systems across the country remain under desegregation orders, or that many of them are not, as we might expect in the South, but in the Northeast. The addition of school choice and vouchers doesn't improve upon that problem but rather further exacerbates it. I remember being struck by the fact that in the last season of The West Wing, the President-elect and his wife choose to send their children to a D.C. public school instead of one of the ritzier, more exclusive private schools that have been the choice of nearly all of our modern presidents. It was an award-winning school, yes, but it was also in a diverse neighborhood and had a diverse student body. It was the school they thought would best serve the interests of their children not just as students but as people and as a citizens of the world. It is not wrong for a parent to want the best for their child nor is it surprising that given the option, a parent is going to choose the best school that they are able to access. It is morally wrong though that this choice gives middle-class (and generally white) families more options because they have greater ease of accessibility in transporting their children. Greater resources are then invested in those schools and the vicious cycle continues. It is segregation by another name and it is not ok. Something must be done about the fact that education is still a crapshoot for minorities in this country and that "choice" so often means the exact opposite.
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