Keith M. Woods at Poynter Online
Disentangling Desegregation Discourse
Here's a linguistic pop quiz: If you integrate a school, have you desegregated it? And if a school that was all-black in 1954 has come to be all-black again today, does that mean we're experiencing re-segregation? And given those demographics, wouldn't logic hold that busing was a failure, inasmuch as the goal of all that driving was diversity?
…That's important not just because excellent journalism should be precise, though that's reason enough to pay attention to words. It's also important because in retelling history, journalists can easily distort the roots of a problem and send citizens off in odd directions as they try to solve it.
Look at the language. Segregation. Integration. Desegregation. Diversity. Re-segregation. There are no synonyms there. Behind each word is an era of our history, each distinct from the others, each capable of radically reframing the way we understand the story of public education.
So know what you're saying.
[P6: I'm not giving you Mr. Woods'…correct…definition. Consider this an invitation to check out the site in general, as well as to read the specific article.]
Here's why it makes a difference.
When language slips from the moorings of context, history is set adrift. We forget where we've been, how we got here and where we were trying to go. Stories get distorted and conflated so that the simple goal of the Brown decision –- outlawing state-sanctioned racism in public schools -– gets folded into every spin-off movement meant to fix the damage bigotry has done to the education of black children in particular and to race relations in general. Desegregation becomes busing, which becomes integration, which becomes diversity.
So 50 years later, we find journalists describing the history-altering decision to rout "separate but equal" from the American lexicon by using the word diversity. The "Brown" ruling was not about diversity, that feel-good ideal of racial utopia. It was not about black children wanting to sit next to white children. It was about demanding that states honor the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and provide black children with equal protection under the law.
[P6: Emphasis added, because there is no topic to which this does not apply]
Because the 1st Amendment makes journalism the only profession with Constitutional protection, journalists owe a special responsibility to the public to get this right. A nation that forgets the roots of its public school problems might squander years, even decades, trying to solve the wrong problems.
So tell the story of "Brown" and its legacy. Look critically at the NAACP's dogged pursuit of school integration decades after the court ruling. Tell the public how local school boards have failed their children. Write about race relations and the lingering aversion so many white parents have to letting their children attend schools with a black majority. Delve into the push by many black parents away from integration. Report boldly on what some sociologists say is a thread of black culture resistant to academic achievement because it looks too "white." Investigate the economic inequities born in segregation and haunting public schools to this day.
And remember that there's a difference between diversity and justice; between re-segregation and the countless forces that frustrate integrationists; between the right to choose a school in 1954 and school choice in 2004.
Words matter. That's a timeless lesson courtesy of the public schools.
Posted by P6 at February 5, 2004 08:01 PM
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Comments
Like you, I thought Woods had some important things to say. I actually posted some comments to that effect on the Poynter site. I just wanted to add here that journalists of color often end up doing double and triple duty on these kinds of stories. That's who often has to advocate for doing the Brown anniversary or Black History Month - type story in the first place. Then you become the resource person and advocate when it comes to making sure the story's done right. Sometimes you become the scapegoat. Years ago, I remember approaching an editor about the way a story about Africa had been edited to play up stereotypes about its "exotic" nature. The editor's retort was, "Well X (the other black writer) thought it was fine...."
Posted by Kim Pearson at February 5, 2004 08:36 PM
To me, this illustrates a case where individuals behaving in understandable ways can lead to disaster. I suspect a lot of white parents can't be sure if it's racism or mere conflict avoidance when they pull their children out of schools with a demographic shift (away from predominantly whte). They may feel ashamed of the way our society has shortchanged African American children, but they may hear of episodes of racial conflict and withdraw their children to spare them that.
Similarly, it's very easy for me to sympathize with an African American parent who is fed up with, or wearied by, trying to make it outside of her African American enclave. My friends of color often express great relief at returning to such enclaves, much like removing a painful back brace. This, even when their relations with whites are seldom acrimonious. In cases where racial tensions persist,..
And yet these understandable, inevitable reflexes, in the aggregate, are damaging.
Posted by James R MacLean at February 6, 2004 07:13 PM