America's Education system is screwed up. This probably isn't helping.

[Buffy]

This link was tweeted by J.A. Adande, which is how I came to read it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/...on-now/359813/

The article is really long, but completely fascinating to me.

TLDR version: Some southern cities have redistricted their cities so that essentially blacks and whites are in separate schools again. Black school are getting less funding and worse teachers, including teachers fired from other districts. Predictably, test scores are dropping.

[Correction]

Not a huge surprise. The right has worked extremely hard to dismantle all the gains made since the civil rights movement, claiming they're no longer needed or introduce 'reverse racism,' meanwhile ignoring the declining quality of life this imposes on poor, largely minority communities.

[kuronosan]

And no one is going to do anything but +1 and share on Facebook.

[Cantih]

And no one is going to do anything but +1 and share on Facebook.

Because trying to look into a solution only gets grief piled on you.

[Meresgi]

Not a huge surprise. The right has worked extremely hard to dismantle all the gains made since the civil rights movement, claiming they're no longer needed or introduce 'reverse racism,' meanwhile ignoring the declining quality of life this imposes on poor, largely minority communities.

They get a lot of support too from poorer white people which has always fascinated me. Where i'm from was a large poverty black hole and mostly Caucasian, people were mostly republican and rightwing even though the right doesn't give 2 fucks about them. They just see that the left tends to focus more on minorities and resent it. The right takes advantage of that and stirs up the 'reverse racism' hornets nest. I mean you even have fuckwits like Michael Savage on air now talking about how white people are discriminated against more then blacks.


Can we just disown most of the south and begin to actually move forward as a country while they turn into the new middle east?

[Blubbartron]

So let's be completely honest when we're discussing this topic - programs like affirmative action are racist, but they're well-intentioned racism. Personally I think they shouldn't exist because they make the false assumption that people are going to be roughly equally distributed in all potential career paths, but that's obviously not true. Culture will play a large part in determining what a person decides to do with themselves.

That said, what is effectively gerrymandering segregation back into schools is beyond fucked up, and these people should be ashamed of themselves. I'd really like to see a map of the school districts to see just how bad it is. If the segregation is self-imposed (as does tend to happen - that's why there are "little cities" of specific cultures in various larger cities), then I have less of a problem with it, but I'm imagining this is probably as bad as the voting district boundaries that are absolutely ridiculously drawn.

[Serra]

I've never known where I stand on affirmative action. I understand the intent of such policies, but I agree with the criticism of quotas. I don't even think it's "fair" to use the grounds of affirmative action to select between two equally qualified applicants, but again, I also see the benefit of such a policy.

They get a lot of support too from poorer white people which has always fascinated me. Where i'm from was a large poverty black hole and mostly Caucasian, people were mostly republican and rightwing even though the right doesn't give 2 fucks about them. They just see that the left tends to focus more on minorities and resent it. The right takes advantage of that and stirs up the 'reverse racism' hornets nest. I mean you even have fuckwits like Michael Savage on air now talking about how white people are discriminated against more then blacks.


Can we just disown most of the south and begin to actually move forward as a country while they turn into the new middle east?

I think it's a couple things. The first is the idea that the democrats are the party of the minorities who are "takin our jerbs!!!" and so you can't support them. Another big one is the fact that the Republicans the religion argument -- if you're religious, you have to support the right and their convoluted misreading of Christianity. A friend of mine thinks a large part of it stems from the fact that a lot of people want that American dream that the Republicans are always talking about -- ignoring the fact that many of their policies prevent those who haven't achieved it from having a chance.

But on topic.. shit like this is ridiculous. It'd be great if it got more attention, but it won't. It's just like Bomani Jones said -- the NBA got rid of Sterling, so society has done it's job in terms of racism for the next six months or so.

[BaneTheBrawler]

i thought this was common knowledge. been going on for ages, and not just in the south, though in the north it more often takes the form of political/economic (which often results in a fair amount of racial) segregation instead of racial segregation.

thats how you end up with good schools and bad school.

[Edelweiss]

I've never known where I stand on affirmative action. I understand the intent of such policies, but I agree with the criticism of quotas. I don't even think it's "fair" to use the grounds of affirmative action to select between two equally qualified applicants, but again, I also see the benefit of such a policy.

I've been in the same boat too. Affirmative action policies that utilize socioeconomic status as the metric would be a better and more equalizing approach.

I think it's a couple things. The first is the idea that the democrats are the party of the minorities who are "takin our jerbs!!!" and so you can't support them. Another big one is the fact that the Republicans the religion argument -- if you're religious, you have to support the right and their convoluted misreading of Christianity. A friend of mine thinks a large part of it stems from the fact that a lot of people want that American dream that the Republicans are always talking about -- ignoring the fact that many of their policies prevent those who haven't achieved it from having a chance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%2...with_Kansas%3F A decade later, the legend continues, although at least the national anti-gay crusade is going nowhere but to fringe-status.