The failure of desegregation
This New Yorker article by Jelani Cobb manages to discuss the failure of desegregation laws in the US without acknowledging some of the underlying reasons behind it:
And so, sixty years after Brown, it is clear that the notion of segregation as a discrete phenomenon, an evil that could be flipped, like a switch, from on to off, by judicial edict, was deeply naé¯ve. The intervening decades have shown, in large measure, the limits of what political efforts directed at desegregation alone could achieve, and the crumbling of both elements of “separate but equal” has left us at an ambivalent juncture. To the extent that desegregation becomes, once again, a pressing concern””and even that may be too grand a hope””it will have to involve the tax code, the minimum wage, and other efforts to redress income inequality. For the tragedy of this moment is not that black students still go to overwhelmingly black schools, long after segregation was banished by law, but that they do so for so many of the same reasons as in the days before Brown.
There isn’t a hint in the article of the fact that many of the reasons are in fact quite different. Does the black community have no responsibility for what has happened to it in the intervening years, for its growing tendency to view education as something to mock rather than to pursue, and for its increasing violence and rampant illegitimacy? White flight from urban public schools in recent years has been much less about mindless and racist prejudice against blacks and much more about protecting one’s children from exposure to danger, and trying to ensure that they are schooled in an atmosphere that respects and values learning.
We can argue about how many of the problems black schools and black culture have faced in recent years have been a result of prejudice and how much a result of something going wrong within the community itself. Perhaps the latter is even a result of attempts to help through an ever-expanding welfare state and the fostering of dependence and entitlement. But there’s little question that we’re not just talking about something imposed from the outside that can be fixed by fiddling with the tax code and the minimum wage.
I was previously unfamiliar with Cobb’s work, and his essay is fairly short, but when I looked him up I found a personal history that seemed relevant to me:
William Jelani Cobb was born in Queens, New York, on September 22, 1967, the youngest of four children. Literacy and education were valued highly in the Cobb household. Both of Cobb’s parents had migrated from the South, where they did not have access to high-quality schools. As a result, they were determined to give reading and learning important places in their family life. Cobb counted being taught to write at an early age by his father, Willie Lee Cobb””an electrician with a third-grade education””among his earliest memories. On his website, Cobb described his father’s “huge hand engulfing mine as he showed me how to scrawl the alphabet.”
Interesting, no? That’s a stellar example of the importance of a family environment that treasures learning, one that I submit was probably vital in allowing Cobb to take advantage of whatever educational opportunities were offered him. As he writes in his essay, he graduated from Queens’ Jamaica High School in 1987, back when it was far more diverse (and probably a lot more learning-friendly) than it is today. Cobb later received his undergraduate degree from Howard, an all-black institution that I would guess he purposely chose.
[NOTE: The occasion for Cobb’s article is the impending 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education on May 17th. Relevant to the discussion is also the history of forced busing, about which I’ve previously written in this lengthy post.
It’s also interesting to ask what the purpose of desegregation may have been. Was it to have a certain representative percentage of whites and blacks in all schools? If so, it failed, and was always doomed to fail. Was it to remove the de jure barriers in the South that established separate but equal as an official state and/or community policy? If so, it succeeded.]
Not only has it, truly, failed blacks one way, it has failed them another way, and another. Any minor gains that may have been made are about to end, extremely harshly. It won’t just be the ghetto hoods that these things fostered and foisted, it will be Cobb too. I am sort of guessing here, that he is black. I tried to look it up, but with the restrictions I couldn’t find a photo. The world doesn’t, anymore, care if blacks are the extremely rare type who got an education (if there is always the question of just how well they got it, or how fairly they obtained it).
They have been given it soft at every end of the stick to our detriment. They have been allowed to be criminal, they have been allowed to live on our taxes, and they have been allowed to the head of lines they, as a culture, and usually quite personally, neither care about nor deserve. Obama is a prime example.
At this point, there isn’t going to be much leniency. I am calling for complete resegregation, and, honestly, I don’t even care about separate but equal. I don’t think they even deserve that. At this point their culture is an infection. If separation doesn’t cure it, exile will be the next step. Apartheid isn’t worth the effort and I don’t think they can rise to other, at this point, if they ever could.
It may not be their fault. But I am not willing, at all, anymore, to pay any price for their native inferiority. I am not alone.
I have not read the Cobb article in the New Yorker. But there was another article today in the WSJ that touched on many of the same issues, “A Black Conservative’s War on Poverty” (apparently behind the online firewall for now). In it Robert Woodson sharply criticizes the “poverty industry” and also expresses his opposition to the turn the civil rights movement took when it supported forced busing to end de facto (as opposed to de jure) segregation.
New Yorker link is wrong.
Neo poses a key question, what the purpose(s) of desegregation might have been. A question I have never seen seriously asked, since the answer was always understood to be, “Separate isn’t equal.” Truth be told, I never really understood why that is so. What about Palestinians and Israelis- they can’t be equal if separate? The Palis shouldn’t try even a little bit to do better for themselves?
We have come, I think, to view black culture as a recent, post-integration development. But that is not necessarily so. States’ Rights, and Southern whites’ objections to being told what to do and not do, may not sufficiently explain the sudden and massive Southern resistance to the SCOTUS edict.
I think it legitimate to postulate Southern resistance was based in part on an understanding that black culture existed, was different, and was largely undeserving of parity with the white cultural model as then commonly practised. Northern resistance occurred later, and was cloaked in more oblique excuses, but there’s no denying it occurred. I use “postulate” advisedly, as food for thought, not as proof or assertion of truth. Which brings me back to the Palestinian/Israeli separate v. equal standoff.
”ask what the purpose of desegregation may have been”
Answer: to induce white flight leaving a majority black constituency with few demands beyond wardship and by which political urban power could be wrested making possible the likes of Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Compton, etc.
As the black pundit said when Harold Washington was elected mayor of Chicago “it’s our turn” (re enrichment through political graft). What had not seemed to register on the prospective nouveau riche was that the people of Chicago had not got into a snit over rampant corruption because the corrupt were well aware of the concept ‘quid pro quo’. The people would not look under the table at the quids changing hands in return for a city ‘that worked’ — unlike strike and crime infested New York City (at the time).
It seems the black community, at whichever level, has it in mind that something for nothing counts either as reparations or a new hitherto unknown law of economics.
Yo, Doom, can a US-born male with first name Jelani be anything other than black? Maybe one chance in a thousand. Cultcha, bro, doncha know!
vanderleun:
Thanks. Link fixed.
Doom:
It’s easy to find a photo for almost anyone if you search on Google images for that person’s name.
Yes, Cobb is black.
And Don Carlos: Cobb’s given name was William. He chose Jelani later, as his Wiki entry states:
All began with the rise of the Democrats in the old South before 1860.
http://neoneocon.com/2013/08/10/sherman-on-kinder-gentler-war/
Conveniently talked about in the comments there.
The old Democrat part of the Old South is not much different from the modern Democrats we see today, including Feinstein, Hussein, Holder, or PillowC.
I think it is important to note that “white flight” is somewhat misleading. Middle class blacks try to avoid black schools if possible (e.g., Obama). Also, what happens is less flight and more unwillingness to move into an area that feeds into black schools.
If you look at the pattern of segregation in schools you’ll note that schools tend to be less than 40% black or more than 70% black. A school can work if the black population is under 40% because the white culture is dominant. Once you go over 40% black the school moves fairly quickly to 70%. Then all sorts of problems emerge as the black culture becomes totally dominant.
The most segregated schools in America are in the Northeast and Midwest where legal segregation never existed. The South is the least segregated.
Any territory controlled by the Democrats ultimately begin to subscribe to the same caste system as the Democrats. A belief that there is no meritocracy, that only where and how you are born affects your status and chance in life.
The old South believed in the concept of romantic knights and the benefits of aristocracy. They believed black slaves were the happiest people on the Earth, merely because they had their survival needs taken care of without the need for them to think of anything stressful.
The Jim Crow Democrats believed in the concept that blacks were still inferior and could not be equal to whites, no matter what happens. That is an injustice against blacks and whites. If a white decided he wanted to treat blacks better, an individual or meritocracy based system would allow it. The Democrats however… they could not tolerate people’s dissent from the party line. The social consensus back then was that blacks were inferior sub humans and whites were superior, thus social conventions demanded that the two be kept apart. No white person could merely “decide” to treat blacks better, for else it would set a bad example to other white aristocrats and black animals. Laws on desegregation and voting… that didn’t change the culture and didn’t change the Democrat control of culture, society, or philosophy in their territory.
Democrats were beginning to lose control of the Old South for some mysterious reasons leading up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Democrats like KKK Robert Byrd, however, were still kicking around and lynching blacks. Or paying for the lynching of blacks, same thing.
By the time Reagan came around, the Old South became the New South, a bunch of Democrats that were willing to vote for a Republican and publicly admit it. That is extremely hard. People who live in California right now, should know how hard that is. However, the destruction of the black community was still achieved using economic warfare, welfare, and social destabilization (PP).
So the Democrats lost the South, but gained blacks to the 95 percentile.
Neo: Jelani=black.
Q.E.D.
The AA interest in Swahili is itself interesting. Swahilis are not West African, from which most US slaves originated. Swahilis in Africa have long been at least semi-Muslim due to their proximity to Arabia. It is alleged most Swahili slaves went to Brazil, probably due to Portuguese East African colonization, e.g. Mozambique.
What has happened over the last 50 years to a majority of the black community is sad and damages all of society. In the final analysis they are to blame for the deterioration of ethics and morals that now dooms such a large percentage of blacks to lives of ignorance and violence. The only way this will change is through the actions of black conservatives to set an example that extolls the virtues of education, hard work, and individual responsibility. Blacks must choose the path of Frederick Douglas and shun the path of Al Sharpton or remain for generations on the welfare plantation.
I think Parker summed it up pretty well.
From what Parker said, to God’s ear. I’m about tired out of all patience with the (mostly) self-inflicted woes of the black community as represented by the the professional woe-mongers. I am also especially tired with hearing wealthy and successful figures of color (Oprah, Jay-Zee, Hank Aaron, et all) whine about racism.
No, really … I’m just tired of it all. Especially the ones who have got more money than God from appealing to a statistically largely white audience. Or those- like Michelle Obama, the professional vacationist – who basically got a free ride to a top university because of ‘diversity’ and all. There are persons of color whom I like and respect – but they are the ones who are not whining.
There are no chains which bind and weigh you down quite as much as the ones that you hang on yourself.
There’s one other thing that no one is mentioning: what if The Bell Curve is right? and the IQ tests are accurate? We could have a situation that’s analogous to trying to shoehorn a majority of white players into the NBA, and you know how that would go down. IIRC, the culturally neutral tests in Africa returned an average IQ of 68 – 70; the ones in America returned an average of ~85.
So now what does one do?
Well, that’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it?
IQ is over rated in the actual performance of jobs such as engineering or tradecraft.
Most of the problems with the black community are similar to the problems in the white Southern community under 1840 Democrat rule.
Any person that wanted to change or improve the system, was shouted down and socially destroyed in a manner Eich would have found more emotionally disturbing compared to Eich’s own treatment. Eich, after all, was a Democrat and Hussein supporter. He was part of the circle, but that didn’t stop the circle from punishing him.
In the environment where whites or blacks that want to change the modern Democrat dominated black communities, are socially destroyed in the same fashion as black Justices and certain professors of Stanford, there can be little to no productive work or social improvement.
This is the Democrat legacy and method of control, and it is not a political technique in and of itself. It merely produces political fruits.
No black in today’s era can speak the truth without consequence, because he would be destroyed. So he stays quiet and votes Democrat, even though a lot of them are starting to protest “white liberals” in Detroit. Any white Southerner that wanted to talk about ending or reforming slavery in 1840 was treated to a higher level of condemnation and social punishment, given the greater social power people had back then with their social and religious consensus. Priests, teachers, politicians, land owners were all in agreement. And unlike global warming, this agreement was about the superior status of the white land owning caste.
Remove the Democrat from the problem, and the problem can solve itself. Remove the Leftist alliance from America, and most of America’s problems will solve themselves. Ah, but removing such a powerful organization is not so easy.
There is only one answer, it is fairly obvious, and the only reason it’s worth $64,000 is that no one wants to go there.
Carlos, why don’t you sign up as your Democrat pals and then you can go there.
The issue Beverly raises is real. There used to be lots of jobs in America for men of all races with a weak mind and a strong back. Those days are gone forever. Finding useful employment that pays well for the left side of the bell curve is challenging. Meanwhile, all Americans want lots of stuff. Democrats will give it to those who vote right (left).
In 1982, more than 200 frustrated black parents formed the Black Parent Committee to petition Garrity to substitute a school-choice plan for busing. As newspapers reported at the time, these concerned parents complained about the injustice of “asking children to get up at 6 a.m. to ride a bus to a hostile environment where they are not going to get a good education.” Plaintiff Richard Yarde insisted that most blacks “never thought busing was the way to resolve inequality in the schools.” Like their white counterparts across town, black parents resented government usurpation of their “natural authority.” A 1982 Boston Globe poll found that 79 percent of black parents with children in the public schools favored an open-enrollment plan over forced busing. In fact, 42 percent of those polled said they did not even favor busing in 1974.
The Boston chapter of the NAACP, however, moved quickly to scuttle the Black Parent Committee’s attempt to dismantle forced busing.
I suspect the Leftist influence on the NAACP had already gotten to the point where they were engineering a racial war for their own reasons.
The NAACP acting against local black interests reminds me of Al Sharpton in Detroit, causing riots and race wars everywhere he goes, and unions inviting in cheap Mexican labor and then complaining about management not giving enough of a salary increase to union workers.
The Communists that were seen in 1930s to 1960s, such as the ones Bella Dodd worked with or the ones McCarthy found, were already working with black organizations like Nation of Islam to disrupt America’s internal harmony. Forced and engineered catastrophe is as good a policy as anything else.
The hard and primary data is difficult to acquire, because it would involve spying on the motives of judges and others that are long dead. Although who ever thought they should obey a Judge, a lawyer in a higher ranking, is difficult to justify.
There used to be lots of jobs in America for men of all races with a weak mind and a strong back. Those days are gone forever.
They aren’t gone. Check where Mexicans are working.
How to explain Samoan culture being so identical to ex-slaves?
How can all of the ills of slavery still afflict a race that ran its own show — right on through to the present? (Samoans)
&&&
The human animal has to be acknowledged.
It may well be that the only way to reverse the crime of slavery and forced embarkation is to repatriate Black Americans back to Africa.
1) Eliminate AA.
2) Unhappy Blacks, et. al. are given a free (state sponsored) start in the old homeland.
3) With the proviso that it’s a one-way, one-time deal.
4) Perpetual race support is acknowledged to be a government sanctioned (tax) slavery in its own right.
5) America stops importing poverty as a cure for global poverty. On the numbers, it can NEVER work. Too many living, too few Americans.
See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE
Six minutes of eye-popping statistics. ^^^^
6) There is a general failure to appreciate that MOST of humanity CAN’T STAND northern latitudes — even if they can be kept warm.
It’s the L O N G Winter nights.
They make people clinically depressed.
It’s bad enough for Whites, it’s ruinous for Africans.
This phenomenon is UNEXAMINED.
It should be.
An additional thought:
We’re harvesting the Top Fraction from the Third World.
Thus they — those cultures — are bereft of EXACTLY the talent and leadership that’s required for them to make any headway.
We need to stop the brain drain.
This bleeding has far more impact than anything the Peace Corps or all of the world’s NGOs can do to lift of the the Third World.
Giving their best and brightest a way out — is screwing over every other member of their race/ nation/ tribe/ clan or family.
Adolf killed off the smartest Europeans.
It’s never recovered.
Just look at the Nobel standings.
Being high minded does not stop the dynamic.
Interesting comments. Some are more candid than one would expect in today’s environment.
Segregation in the South under force of law was obviously intended to maintain a separation between profound cultural differences. Just as obviously it had to end, and end by fiat. Still, it was naé¯ve to believe that changing the law would erase the de facto cultural divides in the South; or in the North.
There has certainly been improvement for many Blacks. Some would argue that Whites and Blacks paid a pretty high price for these improvements because of deteriorating governance and living conditions in so many major cities. One glaring manifestation is the sight of the freeways at rush hour. Suburban sprawl has become a two-edge sword; but, it continues for all races as the cities become dysfunctional and dangerous ghettos. My personal analysis is that the government went a step or more too far when they not only outlawed segregation, but also dreamed up the concept of coercive “Affirmative Action”. I frequently opine that the most likely outcome of any government initiative will be “unintended consequences”.
Although I cannot verify the numbers, based on personal observation in Virginia and, now in California, I tend to agree with the 70-40 thesis. Of course, in 2014 most of the Black students that I see in predominately White schools are there because their parents have succeeded to some extent.
Most of the white liberal enclaves are all white. Others only have a few children and families from high level black families, like Hussein O’s family in their private schools while denying voucher access to other poorer black families.
Democrat or even liberal (liberal in what, though) policies aren’t designed to raise up or equalize the differences with minority enclaves. They are to separate the enclaves out, to ensure caste uniformity and separation.
Marin, for example due to one source, has almost all conservative family style values, but is very liberal and very white. And they want to keep it that way, keeping the Oakland black barbarians out. Yet the higher level policy of their leaders only makes inner city gangs more powerful.
The Old South justified slavery as being a natural difference in the races, with blacks being happy to serve and whites born to be educated to lead other poorer whites and inferior races. This removed the guilt of personal sins to a large extent, and religious organizations were made to back that new dogma up. For the modern Left, their ideology serves a similar goal and provides a similar benefit. A white liberal need not feel guilt for anything they personally do against a lower caste, so long as the white liberal agrees to Obey the Democrats. In all things, for every act and thought commanded of the social consensus, for the social consensus. Obedience clears up the sin of environmental devastation, funding wars, supporting criminals, and keeping the blacks out while aborting everyone in sight.
Ymar @ 7:20pm:
a) I don’t have any Democrat pals, and
b) My 7:17 comment was directed at Sgt. Mom’s $64,000 question. Your answer proves my point: No one wants to go there (Go where? Back to separation).
I read various proposed solutions and sadly shake my head, or chuckle ironically.
We all know that there is no solution short of cataclysmic upheaval. We are too far down the road. There are too many vested interests on the high end as well as the low end of he spectrum; or to put it in other terms at the “power wielding end” and at the “free lunch end”.
There are a few things that could be done to assuage the situation; but, neither are they likely. The politics are in direct opposition.
As one sage above said, quit importing the lower end of the intelligence and economic spectrum to further swell what is already a very large underclass.
Another action–not likely to happen- would be to make welfare seriously less attractive for the able bodied. Along those lines, the concept of “voluntary” sterilization as a requisite to receive aid to dependent children (or whatever the euphemism is) after a modest number of births, doesn’t seem as morally repugnant as it once did.
Could we not modify the educational system to train those who do not have the intellectual capacity and/or motivation for college to perform useful work? Vocational schools and vocational classes in mainstream schools were common in my youth. And again, quit importing foreigners to take the jobs that lower end of the middle class desperately need.
We now have layers of laws against hate speech. Although I am not a fan of new laws, I do believe that we need some prohibition against deliberately inflaming racial and class tensions. It is now a one way street and it operates very much to our detriment as society.
Gangs are terrorizing cities and neighborhoods across he country. Intolerable. Gangs are brutal. At least for a time, society must be as brutal in defense of itself. Prison must once again be dreaded. Sooner or later we will need to sweep the streets. Better sooner.
Did I mention that I don’t expect any of these rather modest proposals to come to pass?
“I do believe that we need some prohibition against deliberately inflaming racial and class tensions.”
Oldflyer, if that were a law they’d have to put the entire Democrat party in jail. Starting with Obama and Holder.
Oldflyer Says:
April 19th, 2014 at 7:51 pm
It’s that “honest discussion about race” that Eric Holder wanted.
Be careful what you wish for, Eric.
At some (early) point in my career, I found it useful to distinguish between
– Black professionals, and
– Professional blacks.
The black professionals I knew (and know) are folks with whom I worked as well as any, folks I respected as much as any, folks as fine as any, folks I’d be *honored* to have as neighbors and/or as dinner guests.
The professional blacks are the Al Sharptons, the Jesse Jacksons, the Elijah Cummingses, — dare I add Oprah Winfrey (the Oprah Winfreys) to the list now? And I *easily* include among them the present tenants of the White House, both of ’em: professional blacks. Lucrative work, if you can get, and if your principles are decrepit enough.
No more need be said.
“Lucrative work, if you can get IT”
I’m up late cooking in preparation for tomorrow’s dinner with all 3 children, their spouses, and 7 grandchildren. I am fortunate. I have lived a good and prosperous life although I started from humble beginnings without the boost of affirmative action or other government efforts to put me at the head of the line. We, wife and I, worked hard, saved, invested, postponed enjoyment, and come out, after 40+ years of hard work, with a relatively well off status in today’s world.
I recognize others have come from similar beginnings and have not prospered. However, in America, for the last 50+ years, those who have not prospered have not prospered because they lack the will to try to achieve a better life. This is true without regard to race, creed, or color. Those people decided to give up and accept the table scrapes. They do not deserve pity. They deserve scorn and ridicule. When the great collapse arrives they will be best served by not showing up on my property.
Democrats want to go back to separation. That point’s been pretty well proven by now.
They call it by another name, class warfare I believe, but it’s the same ideology dressed up in different clothes.
Unless the castes are separated, there’s too much chances that they will ally and stick together. The Democrats, at least, cannot have that. And the Leftist alliance is full of factions that don’t like seeing such alliances form as well.
People are paid to be black (latino, poor, single mothers, african, asian, hispanic transgendered, other, etc.). In fact, people are paid to be everything except white. You can look it up. People are paid to live apart and complain apart and above all to vote apart from the mass of humanity that we all are.
You pay for something you get more of it.
Segregation? Hey Man it’s a job!
All the rest is total, 100% unadulterated BS.
Ten years ago the NAACP held the 50 year anniversary celebration of Brown vs. Board of Education and Bill Cosby was the keynote speaker. Well, Dr. Cosby read them the riot act. He said look at the the high crime rate, the high illegitimacy rate, the high school drop out rate, etc. After Dr. Cosby finished, the head of the NAACP went to the podium and said these problems were not the fault of the black community. He implicitly declared blacks to be victims, presumably of the evil white man. Dr. Cosby got lots of criticism for his speech but he didn’t back down. In a later interview he said that blacks have to stop blaming whites for their problems. The head of the NAACP exhibited what I call the blatant racism of no expectations. Blacks have no responsibility for their problems and can’t do anything about them.
Dr. Cosby’s speech is online.
Ray:
Here’s something I wrote on Bill Cosby.
Ray: “Blacks have no responsibility for their problems and can’t do anything about them.:
Isn’t that the essence of tribalism? That it’s up to the chief, not to the indians? (sorry to mix indians in, but enhances rather than harms my point IMO).
Democrats pretty much said the same thing about Reconstruction, that it wasn’t the fault of Southern culture which was superior and stronger than Northern culture, but because Tyrant Lincoln, Sherman, and all the rest did created the problems with their carpetbaggers.
It became a convincing argument when money for food only came from the white land owners and KKK, while people kept on starving due to the war destabilization and infrastructure damage.
When blacks started voting in the Old South, the Southerners couldn’t even blame them, they could only blame the Northerners because the idea that blacks can actually vote on their own interests or using their own judgment was so alien, it was rejected as even possible.
Any group of people under Democrat control will begin to resemble such things. It’s almost a law of nature by now.