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The Daily OrangeFifty years later, segregation still alive
By Stephen Clark
Posted: 4/19/04, 2:23 AM EST Section: Opinion
Next month marks the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. We should be celebrating in the streets. But if our schools are any indication, blacks would be on one side with whites on the other.
According to a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 70.2 percent of black students attend predominantly minority schools and on average, whites attend school where more than 80 percent of enrollment is white. As the minority population increases, so does segregation. Apparently, old habits die hard.
But statistics don't tell the whole story.
After the American Civil War ended, racism gave birth to legalized segregation, a monster called Jim Crow. It fed off of our attitudes toward race. As it grew to behemoth proportions, it claimed the hearts, minds and lives of countless people who tried to fight or defend it.
This monster survived the Brown decision as white flight began in the post-war era. It survived court-ordered bussing, too, as many whites threw bricks at busses carrying black children to integrated schools. It survived different generations of desegregation efforts as urban decay slowly set in.
But the monster continues to survive as it mutated into the more dangerous form of racism we face today: de facto segregation.
The most popular weapons used against this are diversity practices. Attempts such as affirmative action and diversity training are noble, but superficial. The more difficult task is penetrating what lies beneath the surface to where racial attitudes gestate.
Suspicion, distrust and ignorance lurk inside the mentality of the races and are creating fragile race relations. When insensitivity collides with hypersensitivity over racism, the ensuing fire isolates the races from one another further.
Examples can be found at Syracuse University. A black freshman in Lawrinson Residence Hall last semester was outraged by white students next door playing hate music demeaning blacks. Black organizations across campus united for a plan of action against bias-related incidents that are common at SU.
A plan never materialized, but more bias-related incidents did.
More than 50 bias-related incidents were recorded by SU for this academic year, ranging from blackface to racist remarks written on residence hall message boards.
Whether or not the monster of segregation can ever be killed is up to us. But first, we must destroy its creator, racism. Indeed, it's a daunting task - but not an impossible one. If we can reclaim our hearts and minds from the sins of the past, then we can move forward with a clean slate.
We must be willing to change, however. And that's the hardest part to do.
Stephen Clark is a graduate newspaper student. E-mail him at sclark01@mailbox.syr.edu.
According to a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 70.2 percent of black students attend predominantly minority schools and on average, whites attend school where more than 80 percent of enrollment is white. As the minority population increases, so does segregation. Apparently, old habits die hard.
But statistics don't tell the whole story.
After the American Civil War ended, racism gave birth to legalized segregation, a monster called Jim Crow. It fed off of our attitudes toward race. As it grew to behemoth proportions, it claimed the hearts, minds and lives of countless people who tried to fight or defend it.
This monster survived the Brown decision as white flight began in the post-war era. It survived court-ordered bussing, too, as many whites threw bricks at busses carrying black children to integrated schools. It survived different generations of desegregation efforts as urban decay slowly set in.
But the monster continues to survive as it mutated into the more dangerous form of racism we face today: de facto segregation.
The most popular weapons used against this are diversity practices. Attempts such as affirmative action and diversity training are noble, but superficial. The more difficult task is penetrating what lies beneath the surface to where racial attitudes gestate.
Suspicion, distrust and ignorance lurk inside the mentality of the races and are creating fragile race relations. When insensitivity collides with hypersensitivity over racism, the ensuing fire isolates the races from one another further.
Examples can be found at Syracuse University. A black freshman in Lawrinson Residence Hall last semester was outraged by white students next door playing hate music demeaning blacks. Black organizations across campus united for a plan of action against bias-related incidents that are common at SU.
A plan never materialized, but more bias-related incidents did.
More than 50 bias-related incidents were recorded by SU for this academic year, ranging from blackface to racist remarks written on residence hall message boards.
Whether or not the monster of segregation can ever be killed is up to us. But first, we must destroy its creator, racism. Indeed, it's a daunting task - but not an impossible one. If we can reclaim our hearts and minds from the sins of the past, then we can move forward with a clean slate.
We must be willing to change, however. And that's the hardest part to do.
Stephen Clark is a graduate newspaper student. E-mail him at sclark01@mailbox.syr.edu.
