Wyatt Emmerich Hates to Talk Race, But If He Has To …
Written by admin on May 29, 2009 – 9:20 am -
Lots of folks are talking about Wyatt Emmerich’s endorsement of Crisler in the Northside Sun this week in which he says he hates to talk about race. BUT:
As far as I can tell, Johnson created resentment for two main reasons: First, many perceived Johnson as being a man of inaction. He would form a study committee and nothing would get done. Second, there is some sense that Johnson would play the race card. One thing in Crisler’s favor is that he attended an integrated school. Being younger, he is not as burdened with many of the old racial stereotypes from the older generation.
One of the great tragedies of Jackson and the Delta is that integration has failed. Whites go to private schools and blacks go to public schools. Sadly, this was partially caused by an ideological federal justice department that shut down successfully integrated neighborhood schools.
Now that Jackson is no longer under the thumb of the justice department, the Jackson school board should try to bring whites back into the public system.
The way to do that is guarantee whites a racially balanced path all the way through to high school graduation. Pick an elementary, a middle school and a high school. Guarantee that the white-black ratio will never get below 50-50. Do this and whites will return. […]]The problem is the JPS board doesn’t see recruiting whites as a high priority. “Who cares about a bunch of white racists?†is the attitude and I can’t really blame them.
That attitude ends up hurting the Jackson public school students. We live in an integrated economy. Most businesses are owned and run by whites. Blacks need to learn how to work and interact fluidly with whites. Otherwise, they will be disadvantaged.
As I write this, I am cringing, for I hate to think or write in racial terms. But as long as we have this huge white elephant of school segregation sitting in the room, it’s hard to simply ignore it. The Jackson private schools are doing a better and better job of integrating, but our Jackson public schools are way behind.
I am reminded of a study I read several years ago. The study found that both whites and blacks would prefer to live in integrated neighborhoods and attend integrated schools – as long as they were in the majority. That, of course, is impossible.
This is probably the money quote:
We have begun to accept the reality that segregation is not the same as racism. We can prefer to live among our kind and still treat each other with respect. That’s sort of where we are in Jackson right now.
posted by ladd on 05/15/09 at 04:13 PM.
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