School busing is back in the news. I hope my story gives a more nuanced view on the subject and allows you to understand the motivations of Trump supporters more. Also, Biden is a doofus, I’m glad Kamala Harris got a better education as a kid and racism is bad.
+++++++++
I am white and I was bused in the 1980’s. My city had a black and white side. A federal judge came in and said the schools needed to be integrated.
I went from an OK middle-class white school to a bad school on the poor side of town. I had some run-ins with other kids, but what shocked me were the teachers. I came to realize they just treated everyone badly because they thought we were all poor kids from the projects. In math class, we spent our first two weeks learning how to write a check and getting yelled at for doing it wrong. I sat there and thought “I need to get out of here. I want to go to college.” (They should really bus the teachers, not the students)
My saving grace happened soon after that. I was beaten up badly by 3 girls. Humiliating on many levels. The upside is that once that happens, pretty much everyone is in agreement that I get to transfer schools. And so I did, I went to an integrated Gifted and Talented School. I made friends of all colors here and had a good time.
I get why the NAACP fought to integrate the schools. I have no problem with their efforts. They fought for better schools for black people in that city and got them. Good for them. Except it came it at my expense. I put that blame on our system that is driven by the interests of the wealthy.
In a better world, there would have been better solutions than busing. Here are some:
- Make ALL schools better
- A high minimum wage so kids didn’t go home to broken down parents
- Enforce housing laws so anyone can live anywhere
- Reparations
- Health care
- Socialism
But the system doesn’t work that way. The system works to find a solution where those who pay for policies are those who have the least amount of power. In 2008, The banks got bailed out and the homeowners got stuck with the bill. We know the story. In healthcare, it’s the sick who make the profits.
So if a city has a black and white side, who has the least amount of power? The kids. Make the kids do all the work! Ship the white kids whose parents can’t afford private school to crappy schools. If they protest then we can call them racist and we have a nice scapegoat.
What “liberals” don’t get about racism is that often people resisting racial progress are simply trying to preserve their little lives in the face of a terrible system.
Was it racist to resists school busing and giving kids of color better schools? YES! Should all parents try to put their kids in the best schools? YES! Both things can be true. Life can be complicated.
I believe that there are millions of Trump supporters who aren’t motivated by hate as much as wanting to preserve their white privilege in the face of capitalism. They see the “liberal” politician whose dream is simply to have Walmart not discriminate in who it hires for its low paying jobs. Bill Clinton had NAFTA and a diverse set of friends. Hilary was on the board of Walmart. This isn’t made up. They have kernels of truth.
I once met a former lefty union organizer who got his political awakening as a black steelworker fighting against official company hiring based on race. The black steelworkers won their case. Great! But what the company did was devious: instead of giving the black steelworkers access to the better jobs, they demoted some of the existing white workers and replaced them with black workers. He told me that it was only at this point that the KKK and the “white rights” movement sprang up.
School busing is a divide-and-conquer strategy made to have us working dopes fight amongst themselves for the scraps. Let’s think bigger and not get stuck on those crappy solutions imposed on us by Clinton and other wealthy liberal types. Or at least, let’s stop using the word “racist” to mean people who have comic book type “evil” motivations and see them as regular people doing bad things to stay afloat in a bad system. It’s more ugly and nuanced this way but also more accurate.