1st essay

4 October 2019

Segregation: Alive & Visible

(Introduction)Nikole Hannah-Jones details her experience of racial segregation in her essay “Choosing a School for my Daughter in a Segregated Society.” Her options are between predominantly white private institutions or under resourced schools for black and Latino children. Hannah-Jones resists the two-tiered system by desiring to place her daughter in the segregated, low income schools in hopes to integrate the school economically. Her and her husband Faraji demonstrate privilege because they have a choice between two structures of education. This is an opportunity many families of color do not have. Despite the Supreme Court ruling segregation as unconstitutional in Brown v. Board, economic and social segregation between white, black or brown students exists as a result of America’s racist history.(Thesis) School segregation results from ignorance towards the social wounds that remain long after a policy is overturned, housing discrimination, and a disproportion of power in the hands of a dominant race who pass laws and policies to execute systemic racism.

(Point1)Despite segregation being overruled legally, separation and discrimination still exist as side effects of racist policies. This currently affects the availability of opportunities for black and brown people in schools. (Illustration A)Hannah-Jones points out that when segregation was overruled in 1954, white New Yorkers believed in their progressivism over the “backwards” South, an example of liberal naivety. Legally segregation between white and black students was overruled. This was thought of as a victory among liberals in coastal cities. Hannah-Jones turns this victory inside out. She states that in actuality schools were strategically placed in deeply segregated areas of New York. Hannah-Jones writes,(Illustration B) “At a meeting of the Urban League around the time of the decision, he [Kenneth Clark] charged that though New York had no law requiring segregation, it intentionally separated its students by assigning them to schools based on their race or building schools deep in segregated neighborhoods” (5). (Explanation) Clark states black children were attending worse schools than other black children in the South, proving the ignorance of democratic New Yorkers. Ignorance to the disparity perpetuated and inherited by black and brown people is detrimental to the opportunities available to them. Issues are thought of as resolved because of legal overruling, but the residue lingers, left and then ignored. This leaves black and brown individuals in a liminal space between being ahead of their ancestors but not yet free. White people in power do not see or willfully do not acknowledge the side effects years of segregation and the deprival of opportunities has on the current youth of black and brown students. Segregation is still perpetuated despite the removal of the policy and it is retained through social means for reasons rooted in racism.

(Point 2)Racial segregation correlates directly with housing discrimination towards black and brown people. (Illustration A)Hannah Jones interviews the Macbeths, a veteran family who moved into the Farragut Buildings in 1952. The Farragut buildings were initially set up to house veterans returning from war and their families. At the time the project housed both black and white people. By the 1960s, white people had the advantage of using Administration insured loans to buy themselves out of the projects. Black people were prevented from buying homes, even after discrimination became illegal in 1968, because provisions in deeds prevented the sale to black buyers. Hannah-Jones states, (Illustration B) “They [the McBeths] continued to rent while many of their white neighbors bought homes and built wealth. Scholars attribute a large part of the yawning wealth gap between black and white Americans — the typical white person has 13 times the wealth of a typical black person — to discriminatory housing policies” (14). (Explanation) Housing discrimination prevents families and people of color from moving out of impoverished neighborhoods. In turn, children are born and raised in those same neighborhoods their predecessors were unable to leave or fully own. Black people are unable to build profit from their assets for their descendants to inherit. From the beginning, the housing system was designed for black people to stay separate as well as unable to build wealth to expand beyond their assigned parameters. This means the residential system and the economic system denying financial help to black families has inherently black and white people are not equal, and therefore do not deserve fair treatment.

(Point 3)In America, the people in power are historically white. The policies and laws being passed are to the advantage of those in power. (Illustration A) Hannah- Jones details a rezoning she attends at a Brooklyn elementary school. The education council holds a meeting to vote on the integration of schools in the district. Parents of students attend the lower income schools worry about their kids who were there from the beginning being forgotten in the wake of white children being hurriedly accommodated by the council. A petition was signed for half of the seat to be guaranteed for children of lower income to ensure that the school would be truly integrated. The rezoning was approved but the seats held for 50 percent low-income was set-aside. Hannah-Jones states:

(Illustration B) This rezoning did not occur because it was in the best interests of P.S. 307’s black and Latino children, but because it served the interests of the wealthy, white parents of Brooklyn Heights…the plan would send future students from the only three Farragut buildings that had been zoned for P.S. 8 to P.S. 307, ultimately removing almostall low-income students from P.S. 8 and turning it into one of the most affluent schools in the city. (17) (Explanation) The rezoning was seen as a success on the road towards integration, but in actuality its white children that fill the seats that black and brown children once filled. The president of the council David Goldsmith, a white man, didn’t see the value of holding low income seats for students in one school. The black and brown body once again is displaced in favor of the white body. Under the guise of progress towards integration, minority children suffer the disadvantages of white policy makers in power. Black and brown children are unable to receive the same education and priority as white children. Their future selves are placed in further social, economic and financial inequality— perpetuating

the cycle of systemic racism.

(Reintroduction)Nikole Hanna-Jones explains how the segregation is perpetuated by society even after policies are removed. She expresses the impact segregation has not only on her daughter, but the lives of all black and brown children who are subject to an education system rooted in racism. American social, economic, and financial systems were created in favor of the white body and white people inherit this power. Black and brown people inherit social segregation and policies that place them at an inherent disadvantage. The wounds black and brown people carry must be repeatedly recognized by those in power in order to be repaired. (Restatement of the thesis)True integration means low-income children of color must have an equal number of seats in any space they have with white children, then opportunity is truly shared. Otherwise, the basis of America’s democracy remains fractured and its values a lie.