Slate has a 10 page slide show of which this is page one. The picture is linked to the slideshow.
In his recent speech on race, Barack Obama spoke about the legacy of racial hatred and resentment in America. One of the events he probably had in mind was the controversy over busing that erupted in Boston in the mid-1970s. A single photograph epitomized for Americans the meaning and horror of the crisis. On April 5, 1976, at an anti-busing rally at City Hall Plaza, Stanley Forman, a photographer for the Boston Herald-American, captured a teenager as he transformed the American flag into a weapon directed at the body of a black man. It is the ultimate act of desecration, performed in the year of the bicentennial and in the shadows of Boston's Old State House. Titled The Soiling of Old Glory, the photograph appeared in newspapers around the country and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977. The image shattered the illusion that racial segregation and hatred were strictly a Southern phenomenon. For many, Boston now seemed little different than Birmingham.
In 2006, when Deval Patrick became the first black governor of Massachusetts, the Boston Globe expressed hope that his inauguration would "finally wash away the shameful stain of that day in 1976." Last June, however, a Supreme Court ruling forbade school districts from assigning students based on their race, and Patrick's administration has been forced to find ways to avoid dismantling desegregation programs throughout Massachusetts. The issue, and the photograph, continue to haunt Boston, and the nation.
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MAN! I remember this was a front page photo in a lot of the newspapers when I was in high school.
(And I was a paper boy having to deliver this to some 60 odd people on MY route!)
This photo STILL messes me up everytime I see it.
The riots and violence were
The riots and violence were despicable.
But, forced busing is one of the stupidest ideas ever advanced by mankind.
A novel approach to school "inequality" would be to have inner city schools teach the following:
Logic and Mathematics
Critical Thinking and the Scientific Method
History
Economics
Liberalism (classical): free speech, property rights, right to self defense, due process, limited government
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You don't even need computers to teach that stuff.
Agreed. Now, why do you
Agreed.
Now, why do you think they never have done that?
Equivalence
Yes, because limited, complex court decisions are exactly like stabbing someone with a flag.
Poignant photo. I was not
Poignant photo. I was not familiar with it.
Wrong
The failure to teach inner city (and, in fact, all) Black students predates any busing decision by any court. Predates the 1964 civil rights bill.
Try again.
That photo, and the symbolism..it was like
DAMN
Just powerful. Never fails to punch in the gut.
My most succinct answer:
My most succinct answer:
I believe the education bureaucracy is interested in creating activists; not literate, self-made skeptics.
I believe they favor "creativity" over science, not fully appreciating the creativity of science.
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There is certainly enough money (I believe Boston has over $6K per student) to provide a safe, reasonable environment for learning.
In addition to my previous curriculum requirements, schools also need to teach responsibilities: self sufficiency, the work ethic, and goals.
And, they need to remind and inspire their students daily by pointing out pathways to adult success.
Yet you haven't answered why
Yet you haven't answered why urban students don't get that training when others obviously do. And the pattern goes all the way back to slavery days.
"Yet you haven't answered
"Yet you haven't answered why urban students don't get that training when others obviously do. And the pattern goes all the way back to slavery days."
Of course, past racism limited black students.
Now most urban schools are administered by blacks, and white racism is greatly diminished.
So, to the question of school failure, racism is not the answer anymore.
I blame a school bureaucracy that doesn't embrace the pursuit of middleclassedness ;)
Now most urban schools are
Personal animus isn't necessary to continue the damage.
Funding issues (real estate tax being school's funding), staffing issues, the physical building and outdated books...
Much of that is caused by residential segregation. Which was caused by racism.
Why it's stupid for Black people to try being "colorblind"
Hence
...your smiley face. There's a difference between doing better and doing well.