JFK816 Forum Member

Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Cleveland Posts: 36

The Social Experiment Of School Desegregation Desegregation of Public Schools



The desegregation of the public school system in the 1970s has left an adverse impact on communities that is irreversible. The ideals of desegregation had good intent. Unfortunately, that good intent had major consequences. Segregation is a social issue, not a political issue. Once politics took over the task of desegregation, it broadened a serious social climate. Its human nature that blacks feel more comfortable living in a predominantly black community. The same goes for whites being more comfortable living in a predominantly white community. It is true that the two communities differed in economic development, crime, and wealth. Wealth is a by-product of hard work and pride, it is not a privilege. Pride in ones neighborhood is emulated through the upkeep and cleanliness that one can consider a community standard. The quality of education in the neighborhood schools is indicative of that community standard of pride. Neighborhoods had a special social balance that was as strong as the community itself. Unfortunately, the social chain is only as strong as the weakest link.



Politicians decided that the social differences between the two communities could be buffered by allowing each community to experience education outside of their own community balance. They idealized that an inner city student exposed to an upper class education would emulate that attitude to their community to strengthen the moral balance of that community, therefore increasing the quality of life to that community. They also idealized that a student from an upper class community would emulate their strong moral attitude to the lower class schools, therefore increasing the quality of life in the lower class communities.



What the politicians did not understand is that they have disrupted the social balance of the two communities, therefore disrupting the total social ecosystem of the entire city. Upper class white people did not feel comfortable with the fact that the city was introducing blacks to their community in bus loads. The blacks, although, figured that this was a positive step towards progress in their communities. Maybe, the presence of upper class white students in their schools would emulate a sort of community pride to their existing students. What happened was a social disaster that cannot be repaired at any cost.



Upper class white people fled their homes to the suburbs. They sold their properties at such a discount, it destroyed the property values of the surrounding homes. With property prices that low, it allowed the lower class blacks to purchase the properties. The social balance of whites living with whites and blacks living with blacks was now disrupted. Whites fled their neighborhoods with alarming speed. The quality teachers of the once upper class schools fled to suburban public or private schools. The upper class neighborhood was experiencing a change.



As opposed to increasing the quality of life and social structure in the lower class neighborhoods, the cities started a downward social trend in the whole city. Now the once upper class neighborhoods have declined to middle and lower class. The lower class students brought drugs, sexual assaults, and weapons into the once upper class schools. The term white flight is not an urban legend, it is reality. This social experiment created a terrible outlook to the future of the city.



This social disease is now spreading to bordering suburbs of the major cities. These suburbs are not willing or ready to watch their communities suffer the same consequences. They attempt to strictly enforce provisions that are not politically correct. Unfortunately, as the borders of the city become diseased, the whites flee their bordering suburban homes. These homes become subject to state funded assistance programs that the suburb cannot legally object to. Therefore, these homes become subject to the same lower class demise that their city neighbors have endured. Then, ultimately, it spreads to the public school system. One question I would like to ask is where is this going to end? It cannot end as long as there are politics that control our schools. The damage is done and there is nothing that can be done about it.









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