Lamentations

The recent Supreme Court ruling on Michigan's proposition to ban affirmative action there have been a lot of commentary, drug up from 1954 that is at it's heart both anti-black and anti-HBCU. The recent anniversary of the Brown V. Board of Ed had none other than First Lady Michelle Obama go on the record with an anti-HBCU message that apparently bothered very few people.

TOPEKA, Kan. — Sixty years after the Supreme Court outlawed “separate but equal” schools for blacks and whites, civil rights advocates say American schools are becoming increasingly segregated, while the first lady, Michelle Obama, lamented that “many young people are going to schools with kids who look just like them.”

“Lamented”? Why does this bother Mrs. Obama? Why does this bother anyone for that matter? For millenia human beings have been raised and educated with people who “look just like them”. In small villages around the world, children grow up and are educated with people who look just like them, Why does this bother anyone? In China, Japan, Singapore, India, to name but a few countries, millions (and billions) of people grow up without seeing anyone else that looks different from them. Yet it has no impact whatsoever on their education. Given that there is ZERO evidence that what the person sitting next to you looks like has anything at all to do with whether one is able to learn and WHAT one is able to learn, why is this canard still being trotted out? And why is the wife of the President making such a statement to the nation?

Furthermore if it is “lamentable” that young people go to schools with kids who look just like them, then what does that say about those of us who attend HBCU's ? It says what is a general sentiment in the African-American community, particularly in the north and along the west coast, HBCU's are not the real world and it is better to go to a “white school”. This is, of course, pure and unadulterated self hate speech. Never mind that HBCU's have historically produced more black professionals than anywhere else, but there are millions of HBCU grads out there in the world working and creating jobs.

“Today, by some measures, our schools are as segregated as they were back when Dr. King gave his final speech,” Mrs. Obama told 1,200 graduating high school seniors Friday here in the city that gave rise to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

That signals a few things:

1) People have a right to live wherever they choose and therefore send their kids to whatever school they see fit (and can afford to send them to). 2) The utter failure of attempting to remedy academic performance of certain kids (cause of course the people in question are not being named) by trying to force them upon others.

, Mrs. Obama said that Brown’s advances were being reversed. “Many districts in this country have actually pulled back on efforts to integrate their schools, and many communities have become less diverse,” she said, leading to schools that are less diverse.

“And too often,” Mrs. Obama said, “those schools aren’t equal, especially ones attended by students of color which too often lag behind.”

Well, the fact is that bussing, aka forcing people to send their kids out of district was found unconstitutional. Failing that, unless you force people to live in neighborhoods against their will, there is no chance that you're going to get a diverse student body in any location. And that assumes that a “diverse” student body is needed. Remember the purpose of school is education, first and foremost. If it is true that education, the learning of facts and of critical thinking, is the antidote to discrimination, then it should not and does not matter what the student body looks like.

I am not one of those persons distratced by the “diversity” party. I certainly object to playing ambassador with my children so that folks can feel better about themselves (see! My kid plays with the black kid over there). I have been “the spot” in school. It does NOTHING at all for academic performance. Academic performance improves ONLY when there are high expectations set out by schools and parents. Period.

Today about four in 10 black and Latino students attend intensely segregated schools, the federal Department of Education reported on its official blog on Friday, adding that only 14 percent of white students attend schools that could be considered multicultural.

And we should care about that particular fact because? Again. Who they are sitting next to has no bearing on their academic performance. 99% of students at Tuskegee will be in a class without a single white person. How is that a problem? Why is that a problem?

Tuskegee Students. Apparently being robbed of the experience of sitting next to white people at school.

Hampton Students tragically missing out on white folks in the classroom.

Here in Kansas, there is intense debate over whether the state is living up to Brown’s promise. An alliance of school districts has sued the state, contending that current financing for schools is inadequate and is disproportionately hurting schools in low-income, minority districts.

Ahh a ray of sunshine. The financial issue is strong. Clearly a good school needs good funding to pay decent salaries to teachers and to have facilities that are modern (enough) to teach. Books are here or there due to technology and the fact that there is less and less a need to have a physical book, where a cheap tablet can hold many many many books in a far smaller package.

The financial argument is a sound one. Currently schools are financed via local property taxes. Clearly if you live in a poorer neighborhood then the school has less financing. The solution to this is not bussing. It is not “desegregation” or other “diversity” hat tricks. The solution to this is a fundamental change in how schools are financed. There should a flat county, city and/or statewide tax on all residents to pay for the education of all students. The money is then divided primarily by population. The more students a school serves the more money it gets. Secondly would be state of the school. That is, those schools in most need of repair, expansion, etc. gets access to money first.

This would not prevent any local town or resident from “gifting” to a local (or not local) school, But at the state level where it has a mandate to educate all children under it's authority, the equitable distribution of resources should be the law.

The State Supreme Court recently ordered the Legislature to restore special aid for poor districts. Gov. Sam Brownback said in a brief interview on Friday that he agreed with the court’s decision. “It needs to be fixed,” he said.

But Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington, said Friday that funding systems like that in Kansas “are relegating millions of primarily black and brown children into schools that are separate, unequal and inadequate.”

what was ordered by the judge is in line with what I suggested. The problem is that here it is called “special aid”. It should not be “special aid” but equitable and repairative (not a word) funding based on what was discussed above. And Wade Henderson should be quiet and have a seat. The purpose is the quality of academics not who these kids sit next to every day.

Wade and his ilk who are fixated on white people like that UCSB shooter was fixated on blondes, need therapy to get over their psychological problems.

“It’s our first African-American president, something that many people involved in Brown didn’t think they would live to see,” Mrs. Brown Henderson said in an interview this week, calling the visit “a manifestation of what they worked for.”

Worked for a president? OK.

I'm aware that most of the people who make these "diversity" statements don't actually realize that they are actually making derogatory statements in regards to black people. Matter of fact it is commonplace and done at a subconscious level. It is simply normal to say these things. It doesn't register until the full weight of the commentary is brought to the attention of the speaker. We need to face these silly outburst of self hate head on. No one should be excused for these comments, not even FLOTUS.