Segregation, Then and Now
I just read this article on the New York Times website, about one of the many public swimming pools closed in the 1960s. The article's tone was so funny to me, funny strange not funny ha-ha, because it talked as if the covering over of pools and the taboo on "race-mixing" is a relic of the past.
But the truth is, when they open that pool, only black people will go there. All the white kids will go to the pool at the local country club or other unofficially segregated entity. Just like all the public schools in Mississippi educate mostly the black children, while the white children attend "Christian" segregation academies. In most nominally integrated Mississippi high schools, the school-sponsored prom is attended by the black kids, while the parents of the white kids throw them a separate prom at the country club.
Probably not a lot of people outside the South know this. Here in DC, it would be thought outrageous -- and yet, the schools here are just as segregated. There just isn't the same overt racism here as there is in Mississippi, where teachers at the seg academies use the "N-word" with impunity and Dixie flags are everywhere because, you know, it's our heritage.
Segregation doesn't have to be enforced by law. People will always find a way to flee from what they fear. Digging out a pool can't make racism a thing of the past.
But the truth is, when they open that pool, only black people will go there. All the white kids will go to the pool at the local country club or other unofficially segregated entity. Just like all the public schools in Mississippi educate mostly the black children, while the white children attend "Christian" segregation academies. In most nominally integrated Mississippi high schools, the school-sponsored prom is attended by the black kids, while the parents of the white kids throw them a separate prom at the country club.
Probably not a lot of people outside the South know this. Here in DC, it would be thought outrageous -- and yet, the schools here are just as segregated. There just isn't the same overt racism here as there is in Mississippi, where teachers at the seg academies use the "N-word" with impunity and Dixie flags are everywhere because, you know, it's our heritage.
Segregation doesn't have to be enforced by law. People will always find a way to flee from what they fear. Digging out a pool can't make racism a thing of the past.
posted by Sandi | 8:10 AM
4 Comments:
Excellent post, Sandi.
The Confederate battle flag thing has always perplexed me. Southerners -- white men, especially -- tend to be very victory-oriented. Nothing counts more than winning, and a loser is a loser is a loser. This is true in contests of any kind: sports, bar fights, elections, arguments, business dealings, "scoring," drinking, or anything else. Yet, for some reason, they are dead set on celebrating the outclassed, vanquished CSA as their heritage. "We're the people who got our butts kicked! Woo!!"
It makes no sense. Which is why the "our heritage" rhetoric is so easy to see through. They aren't celebrating their losing heritage. They're saying what Trent Lott momentarily forgot has to be encoded: "This country would be better off if Strom Thurmond [or the CSA] had won."
The libertarian view of associational freedom is utterly at odds with any commitment on the part of our society to ensure equal opportunity (itself a loaded term, but let's just assume I don't mean equal results) for minorities. Period. I'm not saying that I blame each individual personally for sending their child to whatever school they send them to -- I will probably end up doing the same thing every other well-educated white parent in D.C. does -- move to a suburb into a "good" (read: white) school district since I'll be damned if I pay for private schools. It's a collective action problem -- no one is going to do something that could negatively impact their child's life chances. I would prefer to home school, but that's a separate story. However, the fact that I will do it doesn't mean I'll feel good about it. It hurts me every single time I see examples of segregation (residential, educational, occupational) in my everyday life. I feel so powerless and wrong for being in the position I am in -- the white lawyer in the conference room ignoring the African American woman who comes to clear our lunch dishes.
So I'm not going to go out of my way to say "oh, that's just the way it is and everyone does what they have to do" as if it's okay. It's not okay.
JU, I agree about the Dixie flag -- that is precisely what they are saying. It's really a sick message. There are some who would admit to it (Trent Lott and his ilk, a bunch of backwoods crackers with no teeth who don't know any better -- and I can say this because I am related to some of these folks), but most probably wouldn't. That's why I made a very big deal in both high school and college of telling people who flew the flag or had a bumper sticker or whatever that, no matter what they said to try to rationalize it, yes they were big old racists.
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