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author: Douglas A. Blackmon asin: 0385506252 binding: Hardcover list price: $29.95 USD amazon price: $19.77 USD |
In March 2007, People Magazine published an article titled The Last Slaves of Mississippi? which told the story of Mae Miller and her family, who were said to be held as slaves until the early 60s. I heard of the article when it was published but didn't read it. Honestly, I wasn't sure I believed it. I felt there was only an outside possibility it was for real and truthfully I may not have wanted proof.
I just read it. In light of the information in Slavery by Another Name, it now sounds plausible.
Slavery by Another Name is subtitled The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, and the title is literally correct. We're not talking sharecropping, Jim Crow or even Klan raids, rapes or riots (though all of those things came into play). We're talking full-on chattel slavery, Black bodies purchased in local courtrooms for a couple of dollars rather than the hundreds of dollars needed pre-Civil War. We're talking worse than chattel slavery because the owners had no real investment in the slaves' survival. It is very well written, which I find a mixed blessing in this case. You will see the lineage from which the legal establishment in Jena, LA and Paris, TX descended. You will see the system might well still exists were it not for the need to counter...I would call it Nazi propaganda, but that would imply it wasn't true.
This is not the kind of argument you want to set forth without serious documentation. Mr. Blackmon does not fail.
I was also troubled by a sensibility in much of the conventional history of the era that these events were somehow inevitable. White animosity toward blacks was accepted as a wrong but logical extension of antebellum racial views. Events were presented as having transpired as a result of large—seemingly unavoidable—social and anthropological shifts, rather than the specific decisions and choices of individuals. What’s more, African Americans were portrayed by most historians as an almost static component of U.S. society. Their leaders changed with each generation, but the mass of black Americans were depicted as if the freed slaves of 1863 were the same people still not free fifty years later. There was no acknowledgment of the effects of cycle upon cycle of malevolent defeat, of the injury of seeing one generation rise above the cusp of poverty only to be indignantly crushed, of the impact of repeating tsunamis of violence and obliterated opportunities on each new generation of an ever-changing population outnumbered in persons and resources.
Yet in the attics and basements of courthouses, old county jails, storage sheds, and local historical societies, I found a vast record of original documents and personal narratives revealing a very different version of events.
In Alabama alone, hundreds of thousands of pages of public documents attest to the arrests, subsequent sale, and delivery of thousands of African Americans into mines, lumber camps, quarries, farms, and factories. More than thirty thousand pages related to debt slavery cases sit in the files of the Department of Justice at the National Archives. Altogether, millions of mostly obscure entries in the public record offer details of a forced labor system of monotonous enormity.
Instead of thousands of true thieves and thugs drawn into the system over decades, the records demonstrate the capture and imprisonment of thousands of random indigent citizens, almost always under the thinnest chimera of probable cause or judicial process. The total number of workers caught in this net had to have totaled more than a hundred thousand and perhaps more than twice that figure. Instead of evidence showing black crime waves, the original records of county jails indicated thousands of arrests for inconsequential charges or for violations of laws specifically written to intimidate blacks—changing employers without permission, vagrancy, riding freight cars without a ticket, engaging in sexual activity— or loud talk—with white women. Repeatedly, the timing and scale of surges in arrests appeared more attuned to rises and dips in the need for cheap labor than any demonstrable acts of crime. Hundreds of forced labor camps came to exist, scattered throughout the South—operated by state and county governments, large corporations, small-time entrepreneurs, and provincial farmers. These bulging slave centers became a primary weapon of suppression of black aspirations. Where mob violence or the Ku Klux Klan terrorized black citizens periodically, the return of forced labor as a fixture in black life ground pervasively into the daily lives of far more African Americans. And the record is replete with episodes in which public leaders faced a true choice between a path toward complete racial repression or some degree of modest civil equality, and emphatically chose the former. These were not unavoidable events, driven by invisible forces of tradition and history.
By 1900, the South’s judicial system had been wholly reconfigured to make one of its primary purposes the coercion of African Americans to comply with the social customs and labor demands of whites. It was not coincidental that 1901 also marked the final full disenfranchisement of nearly all blacks throughout the South. Sentences were handed down by provincial judges, local mayors, and justices of the peace—often men in the employ of the white business owners who relied on the forced labor produced by the judgments. Dockets and trial records were inconsistently maintained. Attorneys were rarely involved on the side of blacks. Revenues from the neo-slavery poured the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars into the treasuries of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina—where more than 75 percent of the black population in the United States then lived.
This is not a Black history book. This is White History, from the introduction to the epilogue. Yet no Black person will walk away from the book untouched because damn near all our families went through it. Not necessarily the enslavement...not enough people survived it for their descendants to be a big part of the gene pool. But the terror of it. My father was born in 1928, my mother three years later, right in the heart of this mess. I understand some of my parents' mannerisms better now, like the way my mother doesn't give orders but only asks questions. (my gratitude to my parents for getting me the hell out of the South, where the laws are different to this day, knows no bounds. But I digress.)
I think the evidence presented by Mr. Blackmon requires a rebalancing of the way the history of the United States of America is taught. It should inspire people to look at the current prisoner leasing systems in a whole new light, because it is obvious people still have no objection to the principle.
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Thanks for the review. I
Thanks for the review. I have leafed through it at local book stores but have yet to read it in its entirety. I have it on order through Books-A-Million. Thanks too for the additional P Joseph link.
I'm halfway through the
I'm halfway through the book. Besides the slavery, one thing I find curious is the arguments used to undergird the system - blacks are morally inferior, blacks are intellectually inferior, blacks only need to start accepting personal responsibility. Then there's the denial of how widespread the slavery was but at the same time fear of how Judge Jones' ruling would undo Alabama's economy. There's the righteous indignation white southerners had in response to accusations from the North. And to top it all off, white southerners swearing they aren't racists and in fact, act kindly towards their negroes.
If you haven't read the book or aren't finished, don't worry. I haven't spoiled anything for ya. I'm only halfway through myself and couldn't actually spoil anything even if I told you exactly what Judge Jones' ruling was about.
That said, it's hard to be convinced that people dislike the Obamas for reasons other than race (Sorry. I read the comments section of an WashPo essay titled
Black. Female. Accomplished. Attacked. I know I shouldn't have.) when white people and their enablers-of-color keep trotting out the same lines from over a century ago.
Still today
We are still plagued by this to this day, hour and minute. Here is a link to the prison industry website called UNICOR
http://www.unicor.gov/index.cfm
They openly market slave labor to private businesses and brag on how their labor is cheaper and superior than offshore ( foriegn ) labor, like its more patriotic to use U.S. slavery then send jobs overseas. They have no shame and no longer even play like prison labor is taboo. Hypocrites.. for decades they shook their finger at China talking about immoral prison labor,
What is the difference between this and what the book is describing? By sabotaging the economic and educational systems in our communities they all but ensure a home grown source and continual fodder for the prison system.
Also while we're at it....
For the record Ward Connerley better watch his back
Yes, it is still an issue.
Yes, it is still an issue.
I have to stay reasonably on topic when I write an article, but I had to make a reference to the current prison labor system.
On the positive side, at least they give the slaves clothes nowadays.
My apologies
Members, please accept my humble apologies for hijacking the subject but it struck an open wound
"On the positive side, at
"On the positive side, at least they give the slaves clothes nowadays."
Bodily nakedness is frowned upon in the age of religious fanaticism.
No apologies necessary,
No apologies necessary, Sandman. I thought about it when I was commenting, but just didn't feel up to dealing with two blatant examples of racism.
Another difference, though, is in the first half of the 20th century, everyone knew the laws were made to work against blacks and that tens of thousands who ended up in post-Civil War slavery had broken absolutely no law at all. Now, a high percentage of people in jail are their on drug charges and many Americas have been doped into the thinking marijuana should be illegal. Even though it has medicinal properties and leads to far fewer deaths than tobacco products or alcohol. But I digress - before, the people involved knew that the blacks hadn't committed any crime. Now, at least drug posession is a crime. However dubious and discriminatory it's enforcement.
Another link from past to present is the idea of black pathological criminality. Those not aware of the system assume everything up and up because, after all, blacks have a propensity towards crime.
Which brings me to my original points - it's hard to take all these claims of not being a racist, but "fill in the blank" seriously since they're repeating lines from the 19th century. White people have always argued America was a meritocracy and any disparity was do to black failures. They argued this during slavery, after slavery, before the CRM movement, during the CRM, after the CRM. When is it going to dawn on people that if they're arguing the same old arguments to the same old problems, then they're wrong. They're not just a "broken clock," they're a broken clock whose hands have fallen off. They're never right!
It's like, white people have never grasped how great a negative impact had on black, even during slavery. What makes them think they're right now? How arrogant of them to dismiss black claims of racism and get indignant at black push back/resistance all the while their oblivious to the fact that they're maybe, the only reason they're not believing black descriptions of the black experience is because they are racist? Like the soooo many who are sooooo tired of being told they're "racist but don't know it." Do they not see the problems inherent in their defense against charges of racism?
I'm sorry for ranting, but I stupidly took another look at the comments section of the WashPo to see if anyone had responded to my comments. . . . No one had.
ptcruiser
Bodily nakedness has always been frowned upon. Then, they just used it as a way to dehumanize men and women. And I get the feeling that if it weren't for visits from families, communication being allowed inside and outside the camp, or Dateline coming to do an expose, there would be some naked/near naked workers being whipped for not working fast enough. I'm willing to bet there is some of that going on.
And again, let me apologize. Not only did I read a number of comments on WashPo, I read an article from George Mason's History News Network (hnn.us) that basically argued that should Obama win the election, that blacks would have to rethink arguing that so many disparities are do to anti-black racism. My opinion of white America and its enablers-of-color has dropped from not fair to low.
I am going to have to work
I am going to have to work up slowly to Blackmon's book, P6. Living in the post-racial era of Barack T. Washington is beginning to have a deleterious effect on my mind.
Interviews with the author
On Bill Moyers Journal:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06202008/watch2.html
Democracy Now!:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/11/slavery_by_another_name_author_douglas
Book TV:
http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=9259&SectionName=History&PlayMedia=No
Members, please accept my
That wasn't a hijack. Save your apology for someone else.
As a side note that will probably piss off a lurker or two, but I only obsess about staying on topic with folks who obsess about hijacking my shit. We had a few whose whole purpose in life seemed to be to deflect conversation whenever it went in useful directions.
I am going to have to work
Understood and understandable. There's a chapter named The Indictments I felt it was better to skip altogether.
Time is Money - Truth or Sour Grapes
When black people point out racism, white people are quick to say its a crutch or bitterness and a excuse for not succeeding in a "free" competition society. ( that was a very succinct point about a meritocracy in word only No1kstate ) One can never mention a jew with out being an anti Semite or reminded of the Holocaust. When black people state the obvious truth about historic racism that still affects black people to this day we are told to pull ourselves up by our boot straps ( fake ass Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice and Ward Conerely et al ) and everything is equal. Let's be straight.. how does 12 years of watered down affirmative action equate to 400 years of free labor? Especially when the program was created to fail by white people.
In my opinion it would be easier to start with Jim Crow it is provable state sanctioned disenfranchisement for 100 plus years after so-called emancipation, making it constitutionally illegal. We even have historic documentation of white people destroying black prosperity in Rosewood, Tulsa black Wall Street and NC Wilmington to name well documented events that can be roughly calculated for lost wealth as a people multiplied by decades in todays dollars equals billions on just these three events. The monumentally impossible task of truly compensating us for centuries of slavery will keep any meaningful movement stalled for the few decades. When white people snarf at reparations it makes me want to smack them in the face with a brick to even think that dollars could come close to rectifying their impact on us as a people makes their ignorant blindness a reason for humane euthanasia as a people. .
The issue as I see it becomes who is competent enough or trustworthy enough as national black leadership to negotiate a "fair" settlement for us as a people. No politicians and no preachers who is left?
People die. Money gains
People die. Money gains compound interest. Pay. Up.
But money is only part of the "reparations" package.
We need to teach true and unvarnished history in schools. Have students read more books by minority authors. We need to teach code-switching rather than condesension towards Ebonic, as it would properly be called, or, rather African American Vernacular English.
Maybe a holiday for the day Rosa Parks kept her seat. It would be like turning solstice into Christmas, I know, but something! We need more than one "black" holiday. We can start taking Kwanzaa seriously. I'm not Jewish, but I know Chanaka is the "Festival of Lights" and last 12 days in December.
For every Confederate Memorial, we either take it down or put up a memorial for the local Civil Rights hero(in)s.
And, of course, improve inner city neighborhoods and let the residents stay there. Improve all poor schools.
I'm sure there's more. But money is only part of it, and with the money should come free or possibly mandatory lessons in financial management and planning. No giving black communities money and allowing sharks to steal it back.
100% on point
Your correct money is not the complete answer because the very true saying is " A fool and his/her money are soon parted" which segues into the Dave Chappelle skit where the day after reparations Cadillac stock went through the roof, Now that's over simplifying the issue but the point is there.
I agree financial education is a very important portion of the overall investment in education that is needed. Taking back control of our educational system is imperative. Ever since we gave our education away to our enemy, why are we surprised with a 40% graduation rate ( if you believe their number ) then compound that number with mis and under education and the product being produced is right for them ( prison, military, death ) and wrong for us.
Liberals that oppose "school choice" force us to attend sub par "public/reservation" schools based purely upon where you live. Giving the financial backing of a voucher system will enable community based schools run for us by us to be financially viable and able to pay the teachers that look like us to teach the subjects we need.
If I thought the voucher
If I thought the voucher system would support community based schools and not just even worse nonsense than what children have to learn, I'd be all for it. As it stands, I'm not. Those of us who oppose the voucher system would rather see more money poured into poor schools.
If school funding is based solely on the property value of the surrounding community, it's no wonder that poor communities, black and white, have poor schools. You're essentially investing in a cyclical system when poverty begats poverty. Dare I say, "Duh." Vouchers aren't going to solve that problem.
But, I understand your point about taking our schools back. What's interesting to note about the movement to integrate schools is that parents wanted better educational opportunity for their kids; they wanted access to the resources spent on white schools. They weren't looking for the black schools to be closed. They were looking for the money.
Liberals that oppose "school
Don't blame that on liberals.
School choice is a scam to perpetuate segregated schools...do some research, check out who started that crap.
Remember too, the South lies whenever it deals with race. This book, White Flight, is very enlightening.
Respectively Disagree
My great grandfather was a principal of a all black school in Oklahoma and my Grandfather was a product of black education. He said the big trick was the Black educational system wasn't unequal in quality of teacher it was unequal in amount of funding and resources. Black teachers colleges turned out some of the best teachers in the nation, later folded into the white system. He said the most respectful students come from schools where the teacher looks like them and lives in their community and taught their parents. He said we controlled our education and the worst possible thing that happened to black people was handing our future ( our children ) over to another man to educate. Look where we are today..judge a tree by the fruit it bears.
We have a education based business and an educational 501 c3 - I have dedicated my life to "urban" education for the last 9 years that's both public schools and private community schools. I was also the Chairman of Technology for the National Ministry of Education for the Millions More Movement. The public U.S. school system in theory is a good idea, free "tax payer funded" equal education for all, but in reality Brown v BOE 1954 replaced race based inequality with economic based inequality. Still separate and still unequal. The same can be said about the theory of Affirmative Action vs. the white slave master's execution of it
If a black single parent struggling to pay bills can choose to send her child to a quality black school that teaches them they are kings and queens and can do anything. With proper funding we can set up our own school system. I'll be dam if I give my baby to a cracka to prepare them for competition (life) in this society. All bullshit schools will go out of business, If a parent has the choice between a school graduating 95% or 40% the 40% school will close from lack of students and the 95% school will flourish.
Just because your poor and live next to a crappy public school don't mean you should be forced to send your child there. that makes the public school system a corrupt slave system based upon politics. Every time they tweak the system we lose 5 plus years of black students before they admit that they failed and scrap that bull crap idea and try something else based upon some 6 figure white consultant firm hired to "diagnose" black education. (fake corporate charter schools included)
giving them more money and time is something we as a people can't afford. Give us equal resources to educate our own.
I hear you. But it was not
I hear you.
But it was not liberals that fucked it all up. Be clear.
And you won't fix it by working a plan designed by your enemies. You can get a couple through but you lose one whole hell of a lot more than you save.
In fact, right now I'm in a
In fact, right now I'm in a shit mood because it just dawned on me just how much of our national debate takes place in Confederate terms and concepts.
In fact, right now I'm in a
And we're all taught that the Confederate lost. But, now, the South's patriotism is making sense - they did win the ideological war.
Bizarro world.
For the record... We have a
For the record...
Mad props here, and don't stop. I ain't saying you're wrong, just incomplete. It is a bitch trying to decide which is better, change or adaptation. And I can't blame folks for working on the collective they can fit their arms around...a national solution probably isn't possible since we've taken the Confederate position that education is strictly a local affair.
A national solution does NOT include privatizing education, though. No society has ever become or remained literate with strictly private education.
Who do I trust?
" The research showed that private schools for the poor are superior to government, schoolteachers are more committed, the provision of important inputs are better, and education outcomes better even after controlling for background variables. All this is accomplished for a fraction of the per-pupil teacher cost of government schools."
Integration destroyed the black economy and the black education system with it. No one complains about China Town where they are 99% segregated, Shops, schools, banks etc.. yet intertwined in the general economy. They called that cultural based differences when Asian.... they call it separatist when its black people.
Let me be clear, when I say liberals, I generalize, I mean people that hear something and make a decision based upon how it sounds like it would benefit or harm black people, people who have never lived in our shoes. In comparison conservative crackas are very clear that they are dedicated to benefiting their people, everyone else be damned. I don't care what either one does, as long as they don't actively try to stop me or mine.
We have been studying educational systems, Its the people that don't have a choice that I defend, the ones forced to send their children to slave factories. All black people need to go in these schools, where they share books. This has created the largest prison population in history. If more people actually see how they are treating our children they would be incensed too. I don't trust them to fix anything "for" us, well intentioned people argue about how to fix a public system that never worked for black people in the first place. Everyone else doesn't even know where to start to fix a 50 year old obsolete system. Right now White people by far are getting the best education in the U.S. and the U.S. is at the bottom of the world educationally. Where does that put us?
Confederates
Oh yeah, As far any debates that are outside conscious black leadership getting together and discussing a National Black Agenda.... I live and work in Oakland Ca, so called 5th most dangerous city and I also work in Richmond Ca. 9th most dangerous city so I don't give a dam about National white people confederate debates, that's a luxury we don't have.. there's a war going on and people are really dying in the streets out here. Men Women and Children. This is Baghdad here everyday Cerebral think tank theories and opinions don't mean shit to a man under fire,
We need a radical solution not a 10 year turn around plan. The white public educational system is a bureaucratic monolith ( 18 out of 24 in the world ), a trillion dollars wont address the entrenched broken mentality that's marking black children ADD and putting them on Meds or putting them on half days to collect the attendance dollars. These people care about their jobs.
In the whole nation how many predominantly black /Latino school districts are comparable or competitive with base line white public education? That's the real measure of equality, Is it a coincidence that the percentage doesn't even register? What's needed is the resources to pay the people a living wage that love these children and I guarantee the graduation rate and more importantly the quality of education will rise.
What this prison factories
What this prison factories need are resources. But unless the children are going to a KIPP school, I don't think the right answer is use public money to send them to a private school. Plus, I don't like the idea that other children are left behind while a few are selected for a better life.
Okay, so school funding is localized. Let's go to one of Obama's platform meetings and have federal money, instead of dividing it however they dividing it how, make up the difference between what suburban, upper/middle class schools receive and what the poor schools receive.
I live and work in Oakland
Your intent is flawless. I don't know your immediate tactics so I won't try judging them.
My intent is to find clarity, and share it. The way you raise some issues obscures them.
If that's a liberal I don't think there are any, anywhere.
I understand using the tools at hand to address the immediate need, but you have to step back from the war periodically at look at your general heading. Just as I and my ilk have to look into the reality on the ground periodically to keep our considerations from becoming empty and worthless.
I got issues with the utility of the "integration destroyed the Black economy" thing too, but fact is that's no but so important. The question, to me, is, do you aim at where we are or where we're going to be?
I got issues with the
Integration didn't destroy the Black economy, anyway. Building new highways by destroying centers of Black economic achievement, building new highways by bulldozing through Black communities destroyed the Black economy. Not "integration" but govt active agenda.
Thank you, no1kstate. And
Thank you, no1kstate. And YOU are going to LOVE the next book review that's coming up.
Integration did not destroy
Integration did not destroy black communities but it is certainly true that many people identified as political and social liberals were hugely supportive of the sort of social engineering impulses and beliefs that gave rise to urban redevelopment programs.
You're welcome, P6. What's
You're welcome, P6. What's the next book review. I've had to take a break from reading Slavery by a New Name.
and ptc, I just don't think you can trust white people of any political stripe to keep their racial feelings ruining their intentions.
Next is White Flight,
Next is White Flight, Atlants and The Making of Modern Conservatism.It documents, step by step, the reaction to desegregation in The City That's Too Busy To Hate, and the transition of the rhetoric from hard-core Klan to civil defence of "ouah culchuh" without changing the intent one whit.
Sometime later comes In Search of Another Country, which covers the same turf, but in Mississippi.
Cheap-ass me bought used copies of Sundown Towns and Buried in Bitter Watersto ship the cheap way, which takes a while. One of them should come after White Flight if they get here in time.
"I just don't think you can
"I just don't think you can trust white people of any political stripe to keep their racial feelings ruining their intentions."
I don't know what you mean here.
I guess my point is, even
I guess my point is, even white liberals get it wrong when it comes to issues of race. You mentioned how even liberals today are in favor of re-gentrification that pushes black people out of their homes and doesn't provide any other shelter. It sounds like a good idea when you first here about it, but in reality, it doesn't live up to the billing. Yet, people keep doing it, and with support from people who are supposedly on the side of blacks.
"You mentioned how even
"You mentioned how even liberals today are in favor of re-gentrification that pushes black people out of their homes and doesn't provide any other shelter."
Redevelopment and neighborhood gentrification are generally speaking two different processes. In the former case, the government uses the power of eminent domain to seize properties from their owners and turns these properties over to developers for their private use. Residents of the neighborhood, whether homeowners or renters, are forcibly displaced. In the second case, there is an influx of new residents of a higher income class into neighborhoods occupied by a lower income class. This process may be abetted by policies of the local government but it does not entail the use of eminent domain. Existing property owners are not forced to sell their property as a way to aid this process.
Ok. Thanks ptc. Then
Ok. Thanks ptc.
Then government redevelopment really damaged the black economy and not a few million black homes. When I start calculating reparations, I always add that in, as well.
But anyway, even liberals sometimes act like redevelopment is great when it's not. The redevelopment that built the new highways and roads for the suburbs went through the middle of lots of black communities. The bridge in NOLA they wouldn't let anyone cross cut through a booming black community.
Anywho, now you get my gist.
Redevelopment destroyed many
Redevelopment destroyed many working class neighborhoods and communities, not just ones where blacks were the predominant residents. Generations of Mexican-Americans were driven out of the Chavez Ravine area of Los Angeles County to make way for the Dodgers' baseball stadium and other so-called improvements. The Italian-American enclave in Boston was decimated by highway construction and redevelopment.
Ima Say this n Drop it as a sub-subject
The aim is to go from the reality of now to where we need to be in a well thought out program to be executed in phases and adjusted as we go. We have been studying this on a national collaborative scale for some time to address solutions for black education, this is not personally off the top of my head or an emotional reaction.
I will say this about privatizing the education system and leave it to basic differences of opinions. Nationalists, Muslim and Christians have been operating successful private schools in the hood producing disciplined college bound students from the same streets as the failing schools, for decades. The only reason more can't be done on a larger scale is because poor parents can't afford to pay and schools can't afford to subsidize. More competent black teachers and administrators currently drowning in the slave system would be hired. The only thing missing is funding. ( Witness Catholic school system )
Any defense of the public school system should be predicated upon a viable solution, which no one has enunciated nationally to this day beyond the "throw more money at it" mantra non solution. This doesn't address the good old boy procurement systems entrenched in the billion dollar education industry or the board agreed upon educational material contracts, Education is big business controlled by white people, producing an inferior product resulting in decimation of our community. The most critical age range of 15 - 23 represents 85% of violent crime and murder in our community, these are the current and recently departed products being produced by the public school system.
KIPP is a national education management corporation making millions of dollars providing education to black children in our communities, KIPP's successes are based upon mimicking and incorporating proven successful discipline based small private school techniques for educating urban school children. We have a KIPP in West Oakland, this is how they feel about privatization.
Oakland Tribune
" By the end of the month, the Oakland school district is expected to decide whether to allow the five-year-old middle school to leave the district and operate independently. KIPP leaders say the conversion will mean more money for its programs and more control over whom it hires and fires. KIPP officials say that if they controlled 100 percent of the funding, they could minimize the overhead costs and channel more money to the students."
Explain this
You have a thriving independent black economy going back to reconstruction where the black dollar circulated upwards of 10 times then you have integration and now you have no cohesive black economy with the black dollar leaving in less than one turn.
There's a difference between integration and equality, people fought and died for civil rights which addresses equality of opportunity under the law for all people regardless of race or economic status. Instead of equality and justice we got affirmative action and integration ( and now we don't have affirmative action )
Integration didn't address the racial and economic caste system it just allowed the economically able to live in white neighborhoods, which created a professional and entrepreneurial economic vacuum, compounded by the elimination of available blue collar jobs which killed the remaining middle class, Now just add drug economy in vacuum...
The Golden Age delusion
I'm not sure I want to explain that. For now I'll say
...your premise is incomplete as a matter of physical fact. Everyone that harks back to a Golden Age is wrong, so nothing personal. And since those worldviews based on incomplete data are motivating I don't generally chose to address them.
If you want to leave this, too, as an agree to disagree thing...like Christian and Zen monks...cool.
Sandman says
Peace Love n Prosperity