- Jan 14, 2009
- 1,931
- 119
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Private
- Politics
- US-Democrat
In making a reply to someone who made a comment about how people in Mississippi couldn't keep blacks from going to their schools even if they wanted to, I brought up the fact that in much of Mississippi, education has actually resegregated
I will repost everything here because I'm not savvy enough internet wise to link to a specific post within one of these thread things
Originally Posted by Nathan45
Natchez is about 45% white and 55% black. However, a cursory list of public schools in Natchez show that public schools in Natchez combined come out to about 89% black, and this is true for most of the public schools within the county that Natchez is constituent of, Adams.
Now, why is this? How can it be that a city that is 45% white has public schools that are 90% black. Very simple. They told the people of Natchez that blacks and whites had to use the same public schools, but they didn't mandate that they all had to attend public schools. Now, when I pull up the private school data from Natchez, would you be surprised if I told you that the private schools of Natchez seem to all be greater than 85% white.
It may not be government enforced segregation but only a fool can look at the data and not say "aha, resegregation has occurred"
http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/ind...=1&CS=1B94E30F
Admittedly, the two schools without racial data were the Catholic schools, but knowing Catholic demographics in that part of the world, I will say with confidence both Catholic schools probably are greater than 90% white.
This is not just unique to Natchez. The existence of Catholic schools....now that is unique to Natchez because Natchez has a strong Catholic old money contingent. However, the situation of white private schools and black public schools is not unique to Natchez. In fact, it is the main situation in most "plantation counties" such as you find in the Mississippi Delta, Alabama Black Belt, and so forth, as well as within the city propers of most of the major southern metropolitan areas.
I know within my area itself there is a clear divide between city and suburbs. Within the city itself, whites are almost non-existant in the public school system with the exception of a handful of selected schools, and the public schools in the city limits combined average to over 75% black even though the city itself is split down the middle. Most whites that are in the public system who live in the city go to one of two high schools, both of which are about 55-45 in favor of blacks, and most whites at lower levels are either in the magnet program or in one of the rare majority white schools that still exist in the city.
Now, don't let this trick you into thinking that this is racial diversity. They found that in the two mixed high schools, that generally speaking, greater than 75% of white students tended to primarily have classes that were 75% white or greater and that the same applied to black students. Why? Because in general, the whites were using specialized programs within these schools. When it came down to the "average" style high school classes, the results were no different than any other public school in the city. Outside of these two specialized public schools, and the other "white ones", almost uniformly the remaining public schools in the city limits are 85% black or more and several of these serve districts that are majority white.
How can this happen....well, part of it is that there is a huge Catholic contingent in the city's white population and we do have our own system. However, the Catholic system is interesting. Of the remaining schools, we have two schools that are fairly racially mixed, one that is all black (we used to have two) and the remainder are all white at a clip of 85-90% or greater. I happened to grow up in a mixed neighborhood, but in my pre-collegiate education never was in a school that was less than 85% white.
I also know that of the black students who use the Catholic system, almost all are Catholic and of those, roughly half will leave it when it is time to go to high school. They will opt to go to an honors program at one of the black regular public high schools, or to the black magnet college prep school (which was supposed to be half and half but never worked out that way because whites never showed up). The remainder will end up at the Catholic school and a very rare few will end up at one of the other two major private high schools (we are adding another one in a few years)
There is no law mandating segregation, but, because of how things worked out, education actually is fairly nicely segregated in the city in which I live. Now, leave the city limits......you will find almost bleach white public schools, and in the areas of the county that are mixed, you will actually find mixed schools.....but in the city limits itself, the existence and tradition of such an extensive private school system has allowed for the informal re-establishment of school segregation.
And I suspect my story is hardly alone. I suspect it is fairly common throughout the urban south.
And I would further say that the worst offender on this is probably New Orleans, but I will only get into detail on that if
=======================================================
I will further expound upon the points there. Basically, if you take what I said there regarding Natchez, you will find that it applies to many other southern cities and towns, such as: Tunica, Mississippi/Selma, Alabama and New Orleans for just a few examples.
I know in my home area we have a county that is 60% white and a public school that is majority black....the disconnect comes from the fact that whites in the city (and the city comprises half of the county population) don't really use the public schools. I also focus on my home county because it is the largest school system in the state, and because of the recent situation where one of our suburbs decided to break away from the county system. It is a 90% white suburb. The interesting thing is, it is in a school board district that is majority black and which always has a black commissioner, even though the schools in the town itself were as white as the town.
I think those two things had something to do with why they split and why the other municipalities in the county don't even think about trying to start their own system.
It has also made me reflect on whether Holder was right or not when he said that we are cowards when it comes to race. The idea that segregation ended in the south is one of the biggest myths that go around the country on a regular basis. In "plantation counties", almost uniformly you have a situation of white private schools and black public schools. Greenwood (Mississippi) is interesting because it does have one 50% white public school, and an all black Catholic school, but otherwise follows the pattern with the lily white private school and the remainder of public schools being black at greater than an 85% clip.
For comparison, I'll use Scottsboro, Alabama. Besides being the home of the Scottsboro 9, Scottsboro is a snow white town in a snow white county (which if nothing else, votes the right way in state elections)
Scottsboro doesn't have any private schools of any real major consequence, and all of it's public schools have demographics that equal the county demographics. Scottsboro, I should say, is 90% white, as is the county it is in.
So, why is it that white Scottsboro, where the population is primarily white, kept faith and kept using the public schools, but in majority black Natchez, whites just pulled out? Have I answered my own question and if I have how relevant is it?
I also chose Scottsboro for an example because it didn't vote for Obama, but, if you look across the south, you will notice a trend in many of the rural white counties that voted for Obama. They were either counties with very large black populations like Marengo and Russell in Alabama or they were totally bleach white counties like Jackson County, Tennessee. (subsequent review of Cookeville schools, because they are the county seat, shows that the whites are using the public schools, and that almost no one uses the small private schools that do exist)
Now, being from the region, I know why this exists. Private schools allowed segregation to keep on even though the state couldn't enforce it as law.
I will also just make brief note of the newstory I saw a few years ago where Omaha had actually decided to resegregate their schools. I don't know if they ever went through with it but as I remember they were going to segregate it with Hispanics going to Hispanic schools, blacks to black ones and so forth. As I said, I don't know if they ever went through with it
Now, I do think Holder was politically moronic for saying it and the first time that he messes up, someone will bring it up and probably crucify him for it because he violated political correctness, but I do wonder if he has a point.
Empirically speaking, education is still segregated de facto in the south. This is true of small towns like Natchez and big cities like New Orleans, who is by far the worst all-time offender when it comes to this.
So, to make a long story short, what I would like to discuss here......is the situation of race relations in the United States, and the ethical and moral issues stemming from them and as importantly, was Holder right when saying that we are a nation of cowards when it comes to discussions about race?
I will repost everything here because I'm not savvy enough internet wise to link to a specific post within one of these thread things
Originally Posted by Nathan45
No, but this has nothing to do with state's rights and everything to do with individual liberties.
If 90% of people in a state wanted to ban gun ownership, they still can't ban it without a constitutional amendment, because gun ownership is a right.
Similarly, if 70% of people in mississippi don't want blacks to attend their kid's schools, there's really nothing (legally) that they can do about it.
I take it based on the italicized statement that you haven't been in Mississippi lately. Education may not be formally segregated, but only someone with a lack of depth can take a look at the Mississippi educational system and not come to the conclusion that defacto resegregation has occurred.If 90% of people in a state wanted to ban gun ownership, they still can't ban it without a constitutional amendment, because gun ownership is a right.
Similarly, if 70% of people in mississippi don't want blacks to attend their kid's schools, there's really nothing (legally) that they can do about it.
Natchez is about 45% white and 55% black. However, a cursory list of public schools in Natchez show that public schools in Natchez combined come out to about 89% black, and this is true for most of the public schools within the county that Natchez is constituent of, Adams.
Now, why is this? How can it be that a city that is 45% white has public schools that are 90% black. Very simple. They told the people of Natchez that blacks and whites had to use the same public schools, but they didn't mandate that they all had to attend public schools. Now, when I pull up the private school data from Natchez, would you be surprised if I told you that the private schools of Natchez seem to all be greater than 85% white.
It may not be government enforced segregation but only a fool can look at the data and not say "aha, resegregation has occurred"
http://nces.ed.gov/globallocator/ind...=1&CS=1B94E30F
Admittedly, the two schools without racial data were the Catholic schools, but knowing Catholic demographics in that part of the world, I will say with confidence both Catholic schools probably are greater than 90% white.
This is not just unique to Natchez. The existence of Catholic schools....now that is unique to Natchez because Natchez has a strong Catholic old money contingent. However, the situation of white private schools and black public schools is not unique to Natchez. In fact, it is the main situation in most "plantation counties" such as you find in the Mississippi Delta, Alabama Black Belt, and so forth, as well as within the city propers of most of the major southern metropolitan areas.
I know within my area itself there is a clear divide between city and suburbs. Within the city itself, whites are almost non-existant in the public school system with the exception of a handful of selected schools, and the public schools in the city limits combined average to over 75% black even though the city itself is split down the middle. Most whites that are in the public system who live in the city go to one of two high schools, both of which are about 55-45 in favor of blacks, and most whites at lower levels are either in the magnet program or in one of the rare majority white schools that still exist in the city.
Now, don't let this trick you into thinking that this is racial diversity. They found that in the two mixed high schools, that generally speaking, greater than 75% of white students tended to primarily have classes that were 75% white or greater and that the same applied to black students. Why? Because in general, the whites were using specialized programs within these schools. When it came down to the "average" style high school classes, the results were no different than any other public school in the city. Outside of these two specialized public schools, and the other "white ones", almost uniformly the remaining public schools in the city limits are 85% black or more and several of these serve districts that are majority white.
How can this happen....well, part of it is that there is a huge Catholic contingent in the city's white population and we do have our own system. However, the Catholic system is interesting. Of the remaining schools, we have two schools that are fairly racially mixed, one that is all black (we used to have two) and the remainder are all white at a clip of 85-90% or greater. I happened to grow up in a mixed neighborhood, but in my pre-collegiate education never was in a school that was less than 85% white.
I also know that of the black students who use the Catholic system, almost all are Catholic and of those, roughly half will leave it when it is time to go to high school. They will opt to go to an honors program at one of the black regular public high schools, or to the black magnet college prep school (which was supposed to be half and half but never worked out that way because whites never showed up). The remainder will end up at the Catholic school and a very rare few will end up at one of the other two major private high schools (we are adding another one in a few years)
There is no law mandating segregation, but, because of how things worked out, education actually is fairly nicely segregated in the city in which I live. Now, leave the city limits......you will find almost bleach white public schools, and in the areas of the county that are mixed, you will actually find mixed schools.....but in the city limits itself, the existence and tradition of such an extensive private school system has allowed for the informal re-establishment of school segregation.
And I suspect my story is hardly alone. I suspect it is fairly common throughout the urban south.
And I would further say that the worst offender on this is probably New Orleans, but I will only get into detail on that if
=======================================================
I will further expound upon the points there. Basically, if you take what I said there regarding Natchez, you will find that it applies to many other southern cities and towns, such as: Tunica, Mississippi/Selma, Alabama and New Orleans for just a few examples.
I know in my home area we have a county that is 60% white and a public school that is majority black....the disconnect comes from the fact that whites in the city (and the city comprises half of the county population) don't really use the public schools. I also focus on my home county because it is the largest school system in the state, and because of the recent situation where one of our suburbs decided to break away from the county system. It is a 90% white suburb. The interesting thing is, it is in a school board district that is majority black and which always has a black commissioner, even though the schools in the town itself were as white as the town.
I think those two things had something to do with why they split and why the other municipalities in the county don't even think about trying to start their own system.
It has also made me reflect on whether Holder was right or not when he said that we are cowards when it comes to race. The idea that segregation ended in the south is one of the biggest myths that go around the country on a regular basis. In "plantation counties", almost uniformly you have a situation of white private schools and black public schools. Greenwood (Mississippi) is interesting because it does have one 50% white public school, and an all black Catholic school, but otherwise follows the pattern with the lily white private school and the remainder of public schools being black at greater than an 85% clip.
For comparison, I'll use Scottsboro, Alabama. Besides being the home of the Scottsboro 9, Scottsboro is a snow white town in a snow white county (which if nothing else, votes the right way in state elections)
Scottsboro doesn't have any private schools of any real major consequence, and all of it's public schools have demographics that equal the county demographics. Scottsboro, I should say, is 90% white, as is the county it is in.
So, why is it that white Scottsboro, where the population is primarily white, kept faith and kept using the public schools, but in majority black Natchez, whites just pulled out? Have I answered my own question and if I have how relevant is it?
I also chose Scottsboro for an example because it didn't vote for Obama, but, if you look across the south, you will notice a trend in many of the rural white counties that voted for Obama. They were either counties with very large black populations like Marengo and Russell in Alabama or they were totally bleach white counties like Jackson County, Tennessee. (subsequent review of Cookeville schools, because they are the county seat, shows that the whites are using the public schools, and that almost no one uses the small private schools that do exist)
Now, being from the region, I know why this exists. Private schools allowed segregation to keep on even though the state couldn't enforce it as law.
I will also just make brief note of the newstory I saw a few years ago where Omaha had actually decided to resegregate their schools. I don't know if they ever went through with it but as I remember they were going to segregate it with Hispanics going to Hispanic schools, blacks to black ones and so forth. As I said, I don't know if they ever went through with it
Now, I do think Holder was politically moronic for saying it and the first time that he messes up, someone will bring it up and probably crucify him for it because he violated political correctness, but I do wonder if he has a point.
Empirically speaking, education is still segregated de facto in the south. This is true of small towns like Natchez and big cities like New Orleans, who is by far the worst all-time offender when it comes to this.
So, to make a long story short, what I would like to discuss here......is the situation of race relations in the United States, and the ethical and moral issues stemming from them and as importantly, was Holder right when saying that we are a nation of cowards when it comes to discussions about race?
Last edited:
