The modern day NAACP has lost its way.
They now believe that the 1954 era "School Segregation" - where a Black student who met the residential requirements for attendance in a neighborhood public school is akin to what is happening today.
Today they have no evidence at all - ANYWHERE in the United States that a Black or Hispanic or Aleutians person who otherwise qualifies for school attendance by residential requirements are being denied access to the qualifying public school. (More on the legacy of Aleutian discrimination in Alaska later)
Today with all of the low hanging fruit having been picked they are left in their desperation to argue that a Black child that does not have the "privilege" to sit in the same classroom as a White child is a victim of racial discrimination and "segregation"
Some one needs to go to the board of the NAACP and ask them one question for them to ponder:
"Do You Believe That Black People Are Inferior Or Equal?"
I would objectively give NAACP lawyers Houston and Marshall the benefit of the doubt in that Blacks had suffered from "de jure" segregation and this was a gross violation of everything that the US Constitution had guaranteed per the newfound willingness to appraise the equality of the creation of God transparently.
Fast forward to today, however and Ms Hurston's arguments ring more true than ever before.
Today with the "mission accomplished" banner unfurled upon every high school which hosted a protest march against the ruling school establishment from 40 years ago the results that they struggled to obtain have proven to have failed to produce the academic excellence that the Black community was promised as a product of our unified support for their leadership in the struggle.
Notice that the NAACP of 2010 is pushing the notion that the grand fix for what ails Black children today is based in the policies of the school board and its decision around "class based integration". I challenge the NAACP to document with great specificity the details of the ailment which infects "The Least Of These" where too many of them aggregated in one school is a THREAT to the chances of obtaining academic excellence.
I noted previously that then candidate Senator Barack Obama gave an ominous warning to America about the damage done to the academic interests of Black kids IF they were left alone in "urban schools". As the media heralded this "race speech" few called out the senator for this tacit inferiorization of "The Least Of These" students.
Text of Senator Obama's 2008 "Race Speech"
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
I am made to wonder if the "schools" are INFERIOR or if Mr Obama believes that the people attending them are?
My personal observations are that when it comes to the Black Progressive Establishment Overlay coming face to face with some of the critical flaws in their cultural, social and economic theories as a key contributing factor in the "inequality" that persists between Black and White - they are more often than not inclined to PUNT the issue, attributing it to:
- White Supremacy
- The Lingering Damage From Jim Crow and Slavery
- Capitalism
- Injustice
It matters not that they now have "favorable people" in power controlling the key institutions that were to fix these issues. It is far easier to tap into the standard elements on the list above than to make note of their baseline of victories in what vectors that they had focused upon yet the shortfall that still exists.
Again - President Obama received an "A" from the readers of Essence Magazine on his educational policies. It would be a mistake to assume that the opinions of the jury which gave their favorable person an "A" can be correlated to any point of reality as experienced by the inner city school student inside a school system that has a "favorable portrait" hanging on the wall of the school board and superintendent.
Those who have the power to define the agenda have little intention to do a "self-indictment" - suggesting that THEY be held accountable for their failures to deliver. That any criticism against them will be accepted and won't be labeled as "anti-Black".
Sadly the people who defined the priorities from the last interval of time in "The Struggle" are positing themselves to set the terms for the next struggle. They not suffering any particular consequences or loss of confidence in having failed to deliver as promised.
It might be more healthy to assume that the "racist Whites" in Raleigh North Carolina would prefer not to go to school with poor Black people. The law as it stands prevents them from denying any Black who qualifies due to residency from attending their "White schools".
Such an acceptance that the present policies of "education through the osmosis" that takes place as a Black person has the "privilege" of sitting in the same classroom as a White child would be translated into a recommitment to the notion that "education is the great equalizer" and thus all of the educational operations that transpire within the Black community need to have the full commitment from:
- The Parents
- The Students
- The Adults In The Community
- The Adults Running The School System
If there was ever a notion that I would "unify" behind it would be this struggle in inner-space.
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