60 years after 'Brown v. Board of Education' it looks as if 'Brown v. Board of Education" never happened

In Tuscaloosa today, nearly one in three black students attends a school that looks as if Brown v. Board of Education never happened.

According to a new report just released by the Civil Rights Project called "Brown at 60," "Black and Latino students tend to be in schools with a substantial majority of poor children, but white and Asian students are typically in middle-class schools."
This double segregation doesn't just condemn these precious children to an often inferior education, it also strips them of their humanity and their dignity. Race and poverty shouldn't matter more than shared humanity.

 Today, however, the very states whose segregated schools, poll taxes, and Jim Crow laws necessitated federal intervention in Brown are once again limiting the educational opportunities for people of color. Rather than explicitly refusing to admit students of color into school, these states have found new, more clandestine ways to marginalize people of color. In this new segregated system, states disadvantage students of color by providing fewer resources to schools serving the highest concentrations of students who need them the most. By perpetuating this inequitable system and rejecting powerful and effective education reforms such as the Common Core State Standards, these states effectively reclaim their legacy of systematic racial discrimination.

 This residential isolation of the most disadvantaged children – a product of migration patterns and economic trends that have occurred since Brown -- points to one set of strategies that’s been given little attention over the last 60 years. What if we made a more concerted effort to integrate schools by integrating neighborhoods? What if we tried to improve the educational prospects of low-income minority students by breaking down barriers to affordable housing in the communities where good schools exist? What if we wielded zoning laws and housing vouchers as levers of education policy?

A new secessionist movement, anchored in the South, provides yet another reminder that “separate” still means “unequal” when it comes to the racial dynamics of the nation’s public schools.
The small middle-class town of Gardendale, Alabama, outside Birmingham, voted on November 12 to secede from the Jefferson County school district and then to raise taxes on themselves to finance the solo venture. Then, in March, Gardendale’s 14,000 residents finally got their own Board of Education. Soon after his appointment, one new board member, Clayton “Dick” Lee III, a banker and father of two, said he aspires to build a “best in class” school system “which exceeds the capabilities of the system which we are exiting.”

 Freed from court oversight, Tuscaloosa’s schools have seemed to move backwards in time. The citywide integrated high school is gone, replaced by three smaller schools. Central retains the name of the old powerhouse, but nothing more. A struggling school serving the city’s poorest part of town, it is 99 percent black. D’Leisha, an honors student since middle school, has only marginal college prospects. Predominantly white neighborhoods adjacent to Central have been gerrymandered into the attendance zones of other, whiter schools.

 “We know that today in America, too many folks are still stopped on the street because of the color of their skin, or they’re made to feel unwelcome because of where they’re from, or they’re bullied because of who they love,” she said. “So graduates, the truth is that Brown vs. Board of Education isn’t just about our history, it’s about our future.”

We Shall Overcome One Day.

The Shirley Sherroding of Rep. Joe Mitchell (D. Mobile)~Edit

Here we go again....you know the drill....leak an email exchange between Rep. Joe Mitchell and a constituent about gun control to the press and Viola!.... The media enabled spin from substance to rhetoric is in!  Instead of talking about gun control and our constitution we are talking about racial rhetoric.  Sigh

Let's recap.  Retired coal miner and Jefferson County resident Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to all Alabama Legislators "warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law."  Oh really?     
  
Instead of ignoring Maxwell's email, or, sending out the standard thank you for contacting my office blah, blah, blab, blab  auto reply, Rep. Mitchell chose to exercise his first amendment right and respond in the following manner; "Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk."

It is unfortunate Rep. Mitchell chose to respond in this manner because the point he was trying to make got lost in the rhetoric.   Call me cynical, but could the reason the media won't let us have a conversation about gun laws is because they like massacres for ratings? 

Now don't get me wrong, I am not condoning Rep. Mitchell's response, but I understand where he is coming from.

Copies of the email exchange were provided to AL.com by state lawmakers who were included in the correspondence. The emails are printed below, edited only to remove the specific addresses.
Mitchell, who is black, did not respond to email and telephone messages from AL.com seeking comment this week. He told the Associated Press today that he was explaining that citizens who descended from slaves and were disenfranchised by the state constitution have a different view of history and the constitution than white citizens.

So, now we have the Alabama Democratic Party,  some democrats, and  some democratic lawmakers falling over themselves disowning Rep. Mitchell, and Mobile republicans calling for his resignation over the racially charged email.  And who wins if Rep. Mitchell resigns?  Not the people who elected him, that's for sure.

• During an intense debate over the public display of the 10 Commandments in 2004, Mitchell walked to a state House window, stuck his head outside and yelled, "Mitchell calling Earth."
• During a heated debate over same-sex marriage in 2005, Mitchell threw conservatives for a loop when he introduced an amendment that would have banned divorce and another that would have made adultery a crime. Both proposals failed, but not before Mitchell made his point that they ought to be supported by a legislative body bent on "protecting the sanctity of marriage."
• Mitchell donned a gas mask on the floor of the state House last year in protest of Alabama’s controversial immigration law. “This bill stinks,” Mitchell said, when asked about the stunt .

I expect republicans to make hay out of Mitchell's response  and some even trying equate them with Rep. Scott Beason's (r. Gardendale) Aborigine remarks for partisan political gain, but it troubles me when democrats fall for the media enabled weapon of mass distraction.  It's about gun violence control, not racial rhetoric.

It is also troubling to me that the same people who reject Rep. Mitchell's response applaud Alabama Democratic Party Chair Judge Mark Kennedy for emasculating  Alabama Democratic Party Vice Chairman Dr. Joe Reed on his facebook page.

It's impossible to have a unified party when the party is not unified.  Is the Alabama Democratic Party trying to return to it's roots?  Will the republican party take advantage of this rift and return to it's roots?

Time will tell the truth.

Glory Glory Hallelujah!

Alabama State Senator Scott Beason (r. racist Gardendale) has been stripped of his power to exercise racism in the Alabama Legislature!
H/T The Locust Fork News-Journal

One of the main sponsors of Alabama’s strict new immigration law, Republican Senator Scott Beason of Gardendale, was quietly ushered out as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday in advance of the next session of the Alabama Legislature.

Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh said Senate Majority Leader Jabo Waggoner of Vestavia Hills will lead the Rules Committee for 2012, according to the AP.

Marsh claimed the Republican leadership made the change for “the most efficient operation of the Senate,” although there is little doubt the move came in the wake of all the ongoing controversy since Beason wore an FBI wire in the gambling corruption case and referred to customers of a casino in a predominantly black county as “aborigines.”

Now if only the voters in Gardendale would quietly usher Scott Beason out when they go to polls on election day we will be well on our way to having a more perfect state legislature.

Well it looks like Scott Beason has job security

Remember when I said Scott Beason shouldn't resign his Senate post he should be fired by his constituents? Well it doesn't look like that will be happening because at least one of his constituents doesn't see where he's done anything that would otherwise jeopardize his ability to serve his constituents.

Oh really? Scott Beason must not have any African American (aborigines), or Hispanic (empty the clip) constituents.

As an Alabama State Senator Scott Beason represents ALL Alabamians, even Aborigines and Hispanics. As chairman of the powerful the Senate Committee on Rules, which is the gatekeeper of legislation in the Senate and decides which bills come to the Senate floor for debate, he has proven he doesn't have the capability of representing Alabamians.

What ADC chair Mark Kennedy said all the damn way!

“This is the second time this year Beason has made such racially inflammatory remarks, first suggesting we ‘empty the clip’ on immigrants and now calling black voters ‘illiterate’ and ‘aborigines’,” Kennedy said. “Beason has demonstrated time and again that he lacks the tact necessary to hold a chairmanship as critical as rules committee chairman.”

I find it hard to believe the people who elected him don't feel the same way. But then again, maybe not. This is Sweet Home Alabama.

There is a mean spirit on the lose.

Lord help us.