Why Alec Should Move to Greece

or Tehuateneho... say it with me....

From NYTimes, Friday, June 29

"WASHINGTON, June 28 — With competing blocs of justices claiming the mantle of Brown v. Board of Education, a bitterly divided Supreme Court declared Thursday that public school systems cannot seek to achieve or maintain integration through measures that take explicit account of a student’s race.

Voting 5 to 4, the court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., invalidated programs in Seattle and metropolitan Louisville, Ky., that sought to maintain school-by-school diversity by limiting transfers on the basis of race or using race as a “tiebreaker” for admission to particular schools.

Both programs had been upheld by lower federal courts and were similar to plans in place in hundreds of school districts around the country. Chief Justice Roberts said such programs were “directed only to racial balance, pure and simple,” a goal he said was forbidden by the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. "

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” he said. His side of the debate, the chief justice said, was “more faithful to the heritage of Brown,” the landmark 1954 decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. “When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard,” he said."

Goddamn it folks, I just don't know what to do with myself and this country we're livin in sometimes. all the time. I just dont fit and it starts to hurt right below yer chest and right above yer stomach. that hollow ache like when a girl dont call ya back, ya know?

People throw around words like "quotas" and the logic cited above (“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,”), because at first glance, at first thought, at first consideration, it all makes sense. Of course quotas are bad. Of course discrimination, positive or negative is bad. Color blind is good. Equality = everyone being treated the same, right? Right?

And damn, if it were only so simple.

On issues of race, particularly when it comes to education, the lines are far more blurried, the history's far more complex. You've got to take structural barriers to equality into account. When you've had a system that's been biased and prejudiced against a people for hundreds of years, exceptions have to be made to level the playing fields. It's like a Keyensian approach to socio-economic policy., Yeah, it'd be great if the invisible hand worked on it's own, but sometimes the government has got to help push it in the right direction.

Living at 1906 it has become glaringly, starkly and disturbingly apparent as to how significant the racial divide is in this country. It's so much bigger than a boy from Bucks County, Pennsylvania could ever have imagined. It makes it so i wonder if we can ever be fully integrated.

I'm a cynical man in a cynical time and nothing i've seen so far in these 25 years has led me to believe that the good works and the good workers are really out there. not any more. folks are angry. folks are tired. folks are hungry for something, anything. and when children under 8 shout "white boy" to me from the slides and swings on their playground, well, that's a damn hard pill to choke down, folks. damn hard. and i'm tired of keepin it down.

We're not there yet. We've still got to push. That's why affirmative action is not inherently bad. That's why quotas are still necessary. We haven't made it yet. Post- the civil rights movement, laws were brought in line to tear down the structural barriers, but we need more time to let them settle. we're not ready to peel back those layered laws just yet.

sometimes the world takes on a rosy hue that's not really there, that makes it hard for someone sittin on their supreme court chair to see. I wish roberts could hang with us at 1906 and talk to Wayne. And talk to the kids around the corner throwing their football, riding their bikes... maybe he'd see that we're not ready to get rid of active-integration policies. my heart gets so sick sometimes, it's all i can do but to drown it in spanish wine.