Racial, Socioeconomic Segregation Still Rampant in Schools

The impact and history of racial segregation in America is well documented. It has moved in theory from the 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case that determined that "separate but equal" was constitutional, to the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson and ruled that segregation was "inherently unequal." Although segregation is no longer the law, it is still a very real part of America, in particular in education where the Brown v. Board of Education decision was supposed to obviate such practices.


A new study based on a new analysis of Department of Education data shows that whites are still largely concentrated in schools with other whites and that black and Latino students tend to be in class rooms mostly with other black and Latinos. The report was authored by Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. Orefield suggest that “Extreme segregation is becoming more common” in America.

The reported noted that across the nation, 43 percent of Latinos and 38 percent of blacks attend schools where fewer than 10 percent of their classmates are white. , according to the report, released last, findings suggest that blacks and Latinos are twice as likely as white or Asian students to attend schools with a substantial majority of poor children. In fact, more than one in seven black and Latino students attend schools where fewer than 1 percent of their classmates are white based on enrollment data from 2009-2010.

States such as California, New York, Georgia and Texas, and cities including include Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Philadelphia and Washington demonstrated the most defined patters of racial segregation.

The report’s authors are critical of the Obama administration failure to pursue integration policies, and noted that the Administration’s support of charter schools was helping create “the most segregated sector of schools for black students.”

Texas Systematically Removing Black Males From Public Schools

African Americans have traditionally valued and reinforced the importance of education, but recent generations serve to show the opposite. Not to abrogate personal responsibility for the lack of many African Americans noting the significance of reading and math, or even having a semblance of comprehension of the economic crisis confronting the nation, the reality is that young African American males are disproportionately the target of systematic forms of exclusion. The state of Texas provides a prime example of this and is a general reflection of practices prevalent across the nation.

The Council of States Government Justice Center just released a report on outcomes of disciplinary procedures in the school systems across the state of Texas. The results are alarming. In Texas, 6 out of 10 students across the state were suspended or expelled at least once between seventh and 12th grades. Specifically, African Americans, other minorities and students with disabilities were statistically more likely to be removed from class than white students.

More problematic was the observation that approximately 83 percent of African American males had at least one suspension or expulsion and were more often given harsher out-of-school suspensions, compared to in-school suspensions, even for their first infraction. This was the case despite the fact that larger studies with representative samples provided evidence that African American students are no more or less likely to commit offenses that require their removal from school.

When such practices are unchecked, they contribute negatively to the community in general, often resulting in African American males being held back and more likely to end up involved with the criminal justice system, especially during the year such suspensions occur.

Yes, the school systems are not servicing the needs of African American males as effectively as other ethnic groups. Many years ago, a black man who knew how to read was a threat to mainstream America, and during slavery such a skill was punishable by death. Now, education is no longer considered as a valuable, revolutionary act and we eventually victimize ourselves, just as much as the school systems our students attend.

TSA riding Metro Dallas Buses doing Warrantless Searches

Redistricting and the Electoral College: Two Reasons Why Obama May Loose in 2012

Around the media world and blogosphere I incessantly see articles suggesting how Barack Obama has assured a victory in the 2012 Presidential election after his decision to go into Pakistan and kill Osama bin Laden. Now I too, wrote a piece some weeks ago asserting six reasons why he had the inside road to winning in 2012. Although I stand by it, it was written before the raid on Osama bin Laden and more importantly, the actual redistricting of the GOP. Redistricting occurs once every ten years which just happens to be now.

Redistricting efforts will be very important in the 2012 Presidential elections since many states have become Republican dominated since the November 2010 elections which saw sweeping changes in legislations across the nation. The census shift that was documented last year will more than likely hurt Obama in 2012 since people have left traditional blue states for Red ones. Texas is one such case where it is expected to pick up three house seats and electoral college votes while Michigan, a traditional democratic state is expected to lose a house seat. In fact, census data indicate that states won by John McCain in 2009 are projected to gain six seats in congress, meaning states Obama won will lose six. New York and Ohio, also traditional democratic states are expected to lose congressional seats as well.

In North Carolina for example, the Republican-controlled state legislature looks to create new districts benefiting its party and are planning to try to re-draw the districts that would shift power to Republicans statewide by increasing GOP voting strength in non-Black regions. The reality is that November's elections put Republicans in control of dozens of state legislatures and governorships, just as states prepare to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. Republicans now control the governor's offices and both legislative chambers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Indiana, Maine and Wisconsin. They are governors' in Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Iowa.

Those that assert his re-election is assured by the raid on the bin Laden compound are missing or lack the foresight to include the aforementioned and the electoral college on the selection of the Presidency. The Electoral College, administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), is a process that began as part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution. It was established to serve as a compromise between election of the president by Congress and election by popular vote. The political parties nominate electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party's central committee in each State and often recognize and are dedicated to their political party first.

Although Obama has a good chance of being re-elected, he may just as likely lose due to the census, gains in republican dominated states and the electoral college. So if he doesn’t win and the projections of pundits based on one political/military event that he would, just remember their failure was due to a lack of knowledge of the constitution and middle school civics.

Rick Perry: A Reflection of the Neo-Confederacy in America

Republicans are a different breed today comparable to sixty years ago. Recently Texas Governor Rick Perry announced his entry in running for the Presidency of the United States. Perry from where I sit is a reflection of what is wrong with America, in particular the modern Republican Party. In many respects, they are very similar to the democrats of the pre and post-civil war era.

Perry is looked at by his faithful followers as the second coming of Christ, who will purge the sins of a nation under the leadership of Barack Obama. But dressage aside, one must call him for what he is, a throwback yahoo from the era of the confederacy who wants to see his state succeed from the union, and for god measure commemorate that time in history with a license plate honoring the confederate states and army.

Perry is a man of many contradictions. On the one hand he is an uber-globalist who has raised taxes and fees in Texas multiple times over his ten year career to the extent of massively growing the size of government, government spending and government debt in the state. A true plutocrat, he has even attempted to make young women all over Texas to be injected with the Gardasil vaccine. Although this is from a republican perspective, the same things they hate in an Obama, they can live with because the worse side of him which many applauded is his neo confederate political efficacy and locution - similar to Christian conservatives and Tea party stalwarts who continue to announce their desire to “take America back.”

This is the central premise of neo-confederates. In fact many of these patriots believe they would be better off if their states seceded from the Union. Especially in the south, where the intimation of secession is clear from Representative John Fleming to the Governor of Texas Rick Perry.

Perry made national headlines in 2009 when, during a speech to a Tea Party group in Austin, he suggested the rationale for Texas seceding from the union. This assertion is typical of the Governors political positions given his admitted being a member of the “Sons of Confederate Veterans." Evidence is noted in a document, published by the League of the South on its website DixieNet.org. Prior to his entrance into the race for the presidency, Perry rejected more than $500 million in federal stimulus funds and has been highly critical of President Obama's stimulus package.

Now some would say its all talk and rooted in historical fact, given Texas, the nation’s second biggest state was its own nation for 10 years before joining the United States in 1845. Perry is not alone; neo confederates in Georgia have also made similar assertions.

Georgia’s Senate Resolution 632, available for review online on the Georgia General Assembly’s Web site, and describes the circumstances under which the Georgia Senate believes, according to Republicans, that the state might be justified in seceding from the Union. The resolution affirms “states’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles; and for other purposes.

WHEREAS, the Ninth Amendment of the United States Constitution states "[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" and the Tenth Amendment states "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In Tennessee, Rep. Zach Wamp, a Republican House member running for governor of Tennessee, is making a strong play for the crazy portion of the Volunteer State GOP primary electorate. He told Hotline OnCall that the new healthcare law might spur some states to secede from the Union.

Perry is ridiculous at best and crazy at worse. Last I read advocating the forcible dissolution of the union is a form of treason. Strange huh, given this man described Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman appointed by his fellow Texan and former President George W. Bush as “treasonous.” I guess like many in the GOP, especially in the South, they still hold on to the wish fulfillment of the south rising again.

point of order

Just left San Diego and they say it was an hour before an earthquake hit up North by San Jose. Now I am in DC, really Bethesda, Maryland for a scholars round table sponsored by NIH. As a scientist, I often make use of higher order statistical and mathematical models for the purpose of evaluating the efficacy of my research outcomes. My personal profiecincy ranges to cover Item response analysis, structural equation modeling and assorted regression analysis techniques.

Regression allows me (at least in theory) to predict outcomes of one variable based on another. Unfortunately utility is limited to numbers and not humans nor human actions or events. In the world we reside, regression means sliding backwards in time.

Last week, Clarence Davenport Jr. was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Although he should, from this purview listed in the annals of U.S. History somewhere, chances are his story won’t. You see the retired Army Colonel was the 6th African American to ever graduate from West Point. A member of the class of 1943, he matriculated some five years before President Harry Truman ended segregation in the military in 1948.

During this time at the academy, Davenport was subjugated to a practiced referred as being “SILENCED.” It was mainly used against cadet who had broken major rules of conduct. Not Davenport, his was the result of his skin color and ethnicity. He was made to eat alone, not speak or be spoken to by anyone unless it regarded official Academy activities and lived in isolation. It has been written that other cadets did horrible things to him including but not limited to putting sht in his bed, clothes and shoes.

This was some 50 plus years ago when segregation was retro chic. It just seems that the same attitudes are prevalent now. A lot of states now like Texas and California have passed ballot efforts that have banned the use of Affirmative action for college admissions. Some states such as Florida spend more of corrections/prisons that they do on higher education annually. The Supreme Court just struck down measures in Kentucky designed to curb school segregation issues resulting in race not being viable whe trying to implement equal and quality education for all students.

They say at his funeral, some member of his graduation class attended his funeral. They also say these same men, the ones that didn’t speak to him, stood in silence again as his casket passed them and placed in the earth. I guess showing up is a form of change. If it took them fifty plus years, how long will it take for the rest of the folk to fall in line?