I don’t know where these people live who claim we live in a “post-racial” society.  My guess would be they live in all white, gated communities, there kids go to private, somewhat diverse schools, and  where they run into brown people at the grocery store and think “isn’t that great.”  I know they don’t live in an urban center where a deep seeded, dirty, history of segregation and bigotry that still lurk just below the surface as along as everyone stays where they belong.

Where I live (and so many other people), there is nothing that resembles anything closet to “post-racial” at a systemic level.  There are plenty of day to day examples that might lull people into thinking we have moved beyond race being a factor.  I love my city but I will admit that when it comes to issues of race–it is often lost and the racist ideals the surface still piss me off and make me fear for my two brown children.  My city isn’t alone in this.  One only has to look at the trial of Trayvon Martin and question why no one is talking about Trayvon’s right to defend himself against someone following him in the dark of night with a gun.  There has been a lot of discussion about George Zimmerman’s right to defend himself.  But as the facts have illustrated, if he had just stayed in his car and not pursued Trayvon all would have been fine.  This isn’t a post about Trayvon, but I use this lack of discussion around Trayvon’s rights as an example of the privilege and systemic racism that continues to erode our society as well as working to keep the status quo.

Currently, my city is dealing with a very public clash that clearly exposes privilege and systemic racism.  We still have a pretty segregated school system.  Our city schools (which actually aren’t the focus of this) are about 85% minority and there is a very definite line that separates north (county and city) from south (county and city).  The north/south line represents a blurry color line as there is a constant ebb and flow over the line during our daily activities.  What this line really represents is the segregation that is inherent within society and is based on both socioeconomic status and race.  This line is easy to forget as we live our lives without giving much thought to the many nuances of our city.  Then something happens and the coded racism that is so prevalent in our society becomes less coded.

Our state supreme court came to the decision that students in unaccredited school districts had the right to transfer to accredited school districts in the same county and/or adjoining county with the unaccredited school district paying the tuition bill.  The law is very ambiguous and this has been litigated for years.  The legislature failed to find a “fix” to this legislative provision (or band-aid, or passing the buck, or not really addressing the issue).  I have been avoiding comments on newspaper articles that discuss this as we all know who comes out to comment in the anonymity of cyberspace.  There have been some voices of reason, by students and sadly most of the response from adults has been appalling (like the parent who demanded metal detectors).

This is when Facebook becomes the place where one realizes someone’s true character.  One of the people with whom I am friends on Faeebook (we haven’t seen each other since high school) wrote the following post.

These crappy schools up north dumping their problems on good county schools will accomplish nothing. If you have student’s that give no effort and parent’s that do nothing, it won’t matter where they go. Its like watching the NFL draft. “And Riverview Gardens selects…..Mehlville School District” what a joke.  –facebook post

I had to respond.  I HAD TO.  I know these kids.  I have taught in their districts.  I have visited their homes.  I have been apart of their community.

_____I taught in Riverview for years–this is not about kids who don’t want an education or parents that don’t care–it’s about the systemic failure of adults to do what is right for kids. The kids in Riverview and Normandy deserve very opportunity to get a great education. I don’t think transfers is how we fix it– but these kids and parents didn’t cause this problem–that is too simple a view.

Of course more of this person’s “friends” had something to say.

Ummm….I’m going to agree with _____ on this one. I will agree about the systemic failure. No argument here. But if you have a student in a school with a problematic administration, that should not stop that child from trying to excel. Thats a proven fact. The core of the problem lies at home with the parent/parents motivating their children to do better than they did. Riverview Gardens and Normandy was mentioned. I’m going out on a limb and I’m being generous here. I bet 5% of the class of 2013 strived to be a good student, hope for scholar ships and stay away from the other BS and actually graduated meeting their own goals. My point. These children are products of their environment. But only a very small percentage has what it takes to see past that and realize what an education means to their future. The solution starts at home. My .02$

Another (stereotypical) response from my “friend”

I think it has a lot to do with the parent’s. I see it all the time. Kids running around at 10 pm on school nights, no parent’s sitting down helping their children with homework etc. That answer is typical of todays society. What or who can I blame my problems on instead of taking responsibility for your own actions and the actions of your kids. If your going spit them out then do everything possible to raise them right, educate them and teach them they are responsible for their own actions.

Then there was this response….

True _____. Shitty parents make shitty kids. Product of their environment. Strong patents that give a shit show them the right path and do whatever it takes to keep them on it……interesting debate. Could go on all night.

I had so many things I wanted to say to this person.  But I didn’t.  Because it was very clear that this person would not have heard anything I said.  Then one of the school districts that will be receiving students from one of the unaccredited districts had a town hall meeting and over 2500 people turned out.  There were some horrible things said.

 “a man at the mic rebutted that the outcry isn’t about race. But shrouded by the anonymity of the crowd, another man yelled out “No, it’s about trash.” –-St. Louis Public Radio.

Again the only voice of reason from the (nearly all white and republican) school district came from a student.  The students are the only ones who give me any hope.

“We haven’t seen a lot of students here today,” one of the seniors said. “But we would be happy to have these new students at our school. It would be a great opportunity for these kids. There have been a lot of assumptions, but I don’t think we can assume that these Normandy kids are going to cause a lot of problems.”--St. Louis Public Radio.

While I have conflicting views on this whole idea of transferring large amounts for students out of a district to the cost of the district, I do know that everyone one of those children, ALL CHILDREN, deserve a quality education.  I don’t believe that the only way for that to happen is to buss students over 20 miles away to another district that may or may not have room to effectively educate the children.  But the choice of districts that are over 20 miles away are suspect for other reasons.  The unaccredited districts claim test scores and tuition as deciding factors in their decisions.  I believe part of it is the idea that families will not want to sent their kids that far way; therefore, more students will remain in the district.

It is so easy for those of us with privilege to protest and want to “protect” what we see as ours.  It is so easy for those of us with privilege to turn a blind eye to the systemic racism and bigotry that has allowed for these districts to fail as they have.  I don’t have the answers, but I do know that until we start to have honest conversations about race, equity and money, we aren’t going to solve anything.  Until we start talking about not just what we perceive our rights to be but the rights of all humans, we will continue to jail bury black teenage boys before their time (and without a second thought) and sanction the un-education of our poor youth.

Until we admit that we still carry around prejudices that takes away the humanity of others, we can’t move forward.  We can’t begin having conversations about solutions until we confront the problems.  Until we admit that we have bought into the racial stereotypes that have been part of the rhetoric of our country for years.  While the current situation in my city is ugly–at least it exposes the ugliness so that there isn’t any ambiguity around how people view black youth and black families as a whole.  I use to believe that if we exposed the disease we could treat it.

In the early 1980’s when we had a voluntary desegregation program that bussed students in from the city to our county schools–the same ugliness was exposed.  I remember the outrage in my own district–I was in high school at the time.  It saddens me to see the same ugliness again but people of my generation.

How do we move forward?  How do we get people to realize that one’s skin color isn’t a predictor of academic success?  How do we convince others that skin color is no more of a factor that hair color?  Yet it is because we have made it so.  We have socially constructed skin color to matter (all the way back to slavery we go).  At some point we made the decision that dark/brown skin color make someone less of a person.  How do we undo that?

I don’t know and it makes me so sad and angry.