In ‘Separate and Unequal,’ Tom Brokaw Presents a Sadly Familiar Picture of Life in the Deep South
By ANITA GATES
“Separate and Unequal” has very little new to say. It notes that when school integration came to Jackson in the 1960’s, resistant whites created private schools for their children and fled to the suburbs, and that many black households don’t include a father, setting an example of irresponsibility for boys.
Mr. Brokaw talks with Randy Agnew, the black executive editor of a local newspaper, The Clarion-Ledger; a white daughter of the segregationist Governor Ross Barnett, Ouida Barnett Atkins, who taught at Lanier; Charles Norton, a white teacher who came to Lanier young and idealistic and has stayed for 36 years (he blames hip-hop for the young people’s problems); and other concerned adults. All agree the situation is dire.
That's the whole show right there.
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Rather than focusing on the
Rather than focusing on the obvious pathologies related to southern racial practices AND ITS ONGOING EFFECTS ON BLACK AMERICANS, it would be nice, and helpful for Mr.Brokaw to break some new ground and take a new look at his "Greatest Generation" work in light of Ira Katznelson'S book, "When Affirmative Action was White." In that way, he could show how the racial exclusive practices by the "Greatest Generation" and their govermental benefactors, disadvantaged Black WWII vets and their families and subsequent descendants. The failure of these people to even acknowledge such agregious practices and their results on certain groups, is what makes their works so disingenious, for the most part.
Fat Chance, HUH?