When it comes to this issue, history doesn’t inspire much confidence. Why integrated schools evoke so much resistance “Broadly speaking, White Americans and other people with socio-economic status have to be willing to give up something to have a more just and equitable society.” “The sign that change is real as opposed to symbolic is that people are making real changes to things close to them in their own backyards, such as supporting more affordable housing in their neighborhood, or programs that would integrate schools,” says Delmont, a history professor at Dartmouth College.īut many Whites, he says, have never been willing to take that step. There can’t be real change until White people are willing to give up some power and resources where they live, says Matthew Delmont, author of “Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation.” How ‘good White people’ derail racial progress.A war hero who was a stranger in his own land.Two enemies discover a ‘higher call’ in battle.Democrats are on the verge of repeating a voting rights blunder that led to the rise of Jim Crow.The look in Derek Chauvin’s eyes was something worse than hate.Conservatives actually love critical race theory – when they turn the subject to ‘oppressed White people’.A commentator said the George Floyd protests that erupted this spring may lead to “audacious steps to address systemic racial inequality - bold, sweeping reparative action.” People are buying so many books on antiracism that booksellers are having trouble keeping them in stock. In 2020, White support for the Black Lives Matter movement is at an all-time high. “There have been cases of Confederate flags at high school football games, racial epitaphs.” “I’m from Alabama and I thought I was escaping that type of nonsense,” says Flowers, who is president of the NAACP Maryland State Conference. He says it was a flashback to the type of racism he encountered attending schools with Whites in the South. Willie Flowers, the father of two eighth-grade boys in Howard County schools, was stunned by the ferocity of the resistance. It was there that progressive White parents mobilized with other groups to try to stop a school integration plan that would bus poor students, who were mostly Black and brown, to more affluent, whiter schools. This took place last year in Howard County, Maryland, a suburban community that prides itself on racial integration.

People making death threats and a piece of hate mail reading “ Blacks destroy school systems.” Community panic about school desegregation orders.īut this wasn’t archival footage of White Southerners from the 1960s. It was a scene that seemed like it came from another era.Īngry White parents gripping picket signs.

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