Federal Judge Tom S. Lee of U.S. District Court of Southern Mississippi., had to order a rural county in southwestern Mississippi to stop segregating its schools by grouping black students in all-black classrooms and allowing white students to transfer to the county’s only majority -white school, the U.S. Justice Department announced.
The order came after Justice Department civil rights division lawyers moved to enforce a 1970 desegregation case against the state and its Walthall County system.
Walthall has a population of about 15,000 people that includes about 54 percent white residents and 45 percent African American residents, according to the U.S. Census and, for years, the local school board has permitted hundreds of white students to transfer from its Tylertown schools, which are about 75 percent African American and serve about 1,700 students, to another school, the Salem Attendance Center, which is about 66 percent white and serves about 577 students in grades K-12. The schools are about 10 miles apart.
At first glance, the practice seems like a throwback to the days of Jim Crowism, which essentially is equated to racism, but taking a closer look raises the question of what’s really wrong with birds of a feather flocking together? If our institutions could truly be separate, but equal, would it be so wrong or far-fetched for society to be OK with it? We do it, generally speaking, when not under some legalistic mandate. Look at our churches, where we socialize, etc … It just seems to make sense that we gravitate toward “our own,” unless forced to blend in a manufactured harmonious environment where blacks get the short end of the stick via having to assimilate. Seems that the latter breeds resentment or loss of identity.
If you peel the onion back, what’s really at issue are resources, namely money. With there being such a gaping gulf between the wealth of black versus whites, anything that’s all-black seems to be substandard in comparison to what whites have. Sad, but true. And not only that, that reality or perception, whichever makes you more comfortable with the concept, has even spilled over into the very essence of things black; it seems that other races, even blacks themselves, view products and services from black sources as lower in quality.
So, do we need to join forces with whites in order to have at least some chance of not being viewed as the bottom of the barrel in the things we do and produce? Are we afflicted with a permanent limp that requires us to lean on validating white crutches for the rest of our lives, tolerating what some consider unnatural? Is the practice of forced communing, largely having to lay down of what makes us colorful and unique, political correctness gone too far? I’m just asking …
I recognize there’s much gray to what I’m saying, but let’s just deal with the “black and white” of it for the sake of argument. Share your thoughts. –gerald radford
