Desegregation Decisions Do Not Only Apply To Areas Where Racism Is Overt

VIEWPOINT

Desegregation decisions do not only apply to areas where racism is overt

By H SCOTT PROSTERMAN 

"Liberal Ann Arbor?" The headline seemed an incredulous reaction to the city’s reputation. The story (Connection, March 11) was a self-searching analysis about the city’s inability to facilitate a racially integrated school system, despite a long-standing court order to do so, and the 1980 vote of a liberal school board. The most common stumbling block to this achievement has been twofold: an ever-appearing cop-out of appointing a committee to do nothing, and a smug attitude which deems the current situation to be optimal for the most students. Implicit in this attitude is the notion that Brown vs. Board of Education and subsequent decisions need be applied only to communities in the South where a history of racial turmoil exists.

Since that landmark decision more than 30 years ago many southern communities have made tremendous strides in improving racial relations in their school systems, in neighborhoods, in the work place; and on a personal level. Meanwhile it was the mid-western and eastern urban centers that saw the most violent racial turmoil 10, 20. and 30 years after the Brown decision. Why?

Because the Brown decision drew nationwide attention. Arkansas and her neighboring states were placed in a fishbowl for the rest of the nation to observe how the “backward” communities of the South handled their racial relations. Up to a certain time, it was entirely appropriate for Arkansas. Mississippi. Alabama and other southern states to pave the way for integrated educational systems. It was two violent events in those states that galvanized the civil rights movement and desegregation efforts throughout the country.

Were it not for the blood spilled on a bridge outside Selma, Alabama and a large presence of army troops at the University of Mississippi in the early ’60s. the nation’s attention may have never been clearly focused enough to address the social disease bred by racism.

With the exposure of the emerging electronic media, Selma and Oxford graphically depicted some of the ugliest forms of racism, brutal abuse of police power to intimidate and discourage blacks from seeking their right to vote, and the unwillingness of a major state university to accept a black student. Racism was clearly institutionalized in those states. Ironically, the case of James Meredith at Ole Miss might never have drawn the attention it did were it not for a grossly reactionary move by one of the nation’s most avowed right-wing military leaders, Gen. William Walker.

Meredith was accompanied to campus by National Guard troops at the request of Gov. Ross Barnett. The Ole Miss Board of Trustees voted to deny Meredith admission on the basis of technicalities. Only after Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy threatened to rescind the university’s accreditation was Meredith admitted. Because of the overwhelming presence of troops 10,000 regular army and National Guard troops, the only real violence said to have occurred were rock and tear gas exchanges between students and troops when a tear gas cannister was fired ‘by accident.'  Time magazine was alleged to have paid students to pose with bricks to substantiate a false AP wire story about a major confrontation initiated by Gen. Walker, who was in New Orleans when he ordered an increased presence of 30,000 troops.

It would be three years before the long hot summer of 1967 would bring racial violence to Detroit. Chicago, Watts, and other urban centers. Twenty years after the Brown decision, many communities in the South were struggling with school integration. Court-ordered busing plans led to the unfortunate rise of segregation academies throughout the country. But while many southern communities implemented their busing plans with relatively little violence, the community of South Boston saw the ugliest racial violence of the decade. Was this an accident waiting to happen?

What are the consequences of a segregated society, particularly a segregated school system. Here is where the situation in Ann Arbor is revealing. The Connection article stated that the absence of any initiative from the black community contributed to the status quo. It is a two way street.

Albert Wheeler, former mayor and former NAACP president, reflected a rational viewpoint of black attitudes toward desegregation in saying, “We were interested in desegregation, but not just for desegregation's sake. Our primary goal was a better academic learning environment. If desegregation could help that, fine.” A viewpoint of subtle contrast is offered by former Trustee Wendy Raeder: “I support - I even promote - integration. I hope one day all schools will be racially balanced. But I do not support desegregation as a tool.”

To some, Raeder’s statement offends one’s sense of double-speak. Many politicians have professed to promote integration while denying the most viable tools for accomplishing that end. It would be as if I said “I support neighborhood schools, but only in racially mixed neighborhoods.” Wheeler’s statement implies a logical question of does desegregation lead to a better learning environment? The issue of what is “better" in this case lends itself to an open-ended value judgment.

Does better mean creating learning environments for children that overcome barriers of racial and ethnic paranoia? Or is this more important than children going to schools in their own neighborhoods, where they will be exposed primarily to children raised in the same lifestyle and value structure? If so, is anything sacrificed in terms of cultural enrichment for the child, and will this negatively alter his ability to cope with people of different backgrounds when he grows up?

Racism most often manifests itself in subtle ways. To many, we live in a time when one’s political persuasions reveal more than ever about a person’s values, and sense of humanity (or the lack of it). In a community such as Ann Arbor racism rarely takes on violent forms. It can be read into people’s statements, it is evident by eye contact, implicit gestures, and various political and commercial decisions made by the city. It manifests itself sometimes in the quality of a service performed, or an overt unwelcoming coldness in business situations. And a surprising number of people in the university and business community enjoy sharing abusive and racist jokes without regard to who’s within earshot. Among other diseases, racism breeds an abusive form of humor which deprives those who enjoy it of any real sense of humanity. I am not amused

H. Scott Prosterman has followed integration problems for many years, beginning in his youth when his mother was a school board trustee in Memphis, Tenn. A free-lance writer, Prosterman holds a master's degree from the University of Michigan's Center for Near East and North African Studies. He has lived in Ann Arbor for over six years.