Racist Liberals?

Racial discrimination was not uniquely a regional problem in the South. Racial segregation was and continues to be a problem throughout the United States. Although the same laws were implemented from the north to the South, both had ways to avoid following those laws. The article states, “New York celebrated the importance of the Brownn decision but then the Supreme Court’s mandate as not necessarily applying to the city’s schools.” (page 37). The north had many ways of continuing racial discrimination. Among those ways was redlining. Redlining was a system set up by banks on whether or not to give housing loans to people living in certain areas. Redlining pinned people of color in areas of lower-quality housing. Within these communities, their children would attend schools predominantly of the same skin color as them, continuing segregation.
Just like Bown in Brown v. Board of education, parents in New York fought against the unfair treatment of their children. Their children were facing horrible environments in the classrooms they were supposed to be learning in. Parents in Boston called the NAACP. Parents were even victimized as they were said not to be caring when they were the ones fighting for their children. White liberals used carefully cultivated language to appeal to their equally racist population while still avoiding accusations of racism. They portray students of color as delinquent. White parents feared what they didn’t know. They didn’t know what diversity can bring to a community. White democrats and politicians played on the fears to continue the cycle of oppressing non-white people living in the north.
I wish I could say the article surprised me, but racism is so deeply ingrained into every aspect of our society. I wish someday it would be shocking to learn about all the covering of racism and segregation. Institutionalized racism runs rampant in our society. It’s so ingrained into our lives that companies have that they are an equal opportunity employer on their websites or job applications. It should be given for those things, but it’s not. In my high school sociology class and in an education class for college, I learned about studies on bias. A study was given to children of all ages and races, asking them to describe pictures of children of different races. The children described white children as smart and good and non-white children as dumb and bad. I think the study was done over ten years ago. Although I’m sure the bias testing has improved, there is still racist unconscious bias. With education and inclusion, these biases are broken down. At least in South Dakota history, state standards are being changed to be incredibly patriotic and pro-United States. We need to teach about the full history of what the United States has done, not just the good. Showing our past with racism and segregation gives context to where our country is now. With the state of the education system, progress will come in slow strides.