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Notes -
How can you prevent segregation and why would you do it?
I was spurred to ask this question by this article and especially this paragraph where author builds logical sequence connecting segregation with various social ills:
"These segregated schools ruined children's educational and economic opportunities. They achieved much less academically. Because of this segregation, many more dropped out. Many fewer went to colleges. Those that did were disproportionately likely to enroll in less rigorous institutions, like for-profit community colleges. Because of this segregation, they earned lower incomes as adults. They were more likely to end up in jail. Their health was worse. In the end, these 100,000 are much more likely than their peers to emerge as the most economically disadvantaged members of society — whereupon the cycle will likely repeat with their own children."
Author doesn't spell out what is the main cause here but we can guess. It can't be money related issues, because they could be solved without integration with a different tax scheme. It can't be some institutional racism cause he does provide examples of black charter and views them as failures. No, in my understanding the single most useful benefit that black children lose out here is diversity in itself. Obviously there is a question of white and asian kids faring pretty fine without it and also the counterargument along the lines of DR slogan "you don't have right to a white people", but let's accept their premise as true. There are after all many instrumental benefits to your populace not being concentrated into the ethnic enclaves, assimilation is useful and if Romans could do it with the Gauls why Americans can't. What you can do to integrate schools once and for all?
The solution preferred by author - the repeat of the policies of forced integration doesn't work in the context of liberal democracy with freedom of movement and widespread desire to avoid "bad" schools i.e. schools with poor black people in them. 60s policies just kicked the can down the road and led to the white flight. Modern one that tries to do the same will end up similarly, maybe with much stark division in the end.
Successful desegregation should make resegregation not illegal but not desirable or simple. In the search of the solution, I think it's wise to try to emulate post-soviet conditions, because despite large immigration from much poorer countries generally Russian cities were resistant to segregation, the most ethnic districts in Moscow range from 20 to 50 percent of immigrants and not for the lack of them. What causes this? Multi floor apartments/soviet block housing allows for diverse quality and quantity of housing at the same place. Poor migrants often rent or buy small one bedroom flat to retrofit it into something more fitting for the Hong Kong, working class citizen or a student will live in similar one if alone or slightly bigger when married and/or with kids, middle class can afford to have good amount of square meters per person and each child will always have their own room, upper class will have can easily have double the space of a middle one and has option of uniting several flats into one. And all of them can live in the one building, use the same parking space and their children will go into the same school(private schools that cater to rich people exist but not everybody cares enough to opt for them).
Then we have widespread public transport that by existing devalues personal car infrastructure and makes getting into the city from some suburb much harder even in the smaller towns. And what maybe considered the most important part by people here is the law enforcement that while far from perfect for example both in Poland and in Russia(still much worse in the latter) does work at keeping streets safe, public transit clean and gangs non-existent(apart from the ones that get in with the government but that's a different story). I think democratic politicians can achieve this kind of integration and they have reason to do it, YIMBY i.e. urbanist faction becomes more powerful by the day in the local elections and I can see some of the people affiliated with it succeeding in the desegregation maybe without even make it a goal. But ideological solutions from people who do make it a goal can sink it all again.
The author doesn't build any connections, he just asserts them. To that extent there is no reason to make any assumptions based on what he writes as being true. It could all just as well fall under the umbrella of baseline brown inferiority and white supremacy when it comes to the gaps between the groups.
More to your question: There is no world in which parents accept placing their children into worse education facilities than they have to. The only way 'desegregation' is done is through direct or indirect coercion. It has long been the case that the poorest and worst off whites have to suffer living with the browns. Nothing about this will change. It's only now, as is evident in the comment section of the article, that the white middle class is feeling the heat it once left the white lower class to sweat in.
There is certainly justice involved in the disintegration of the white middle class in America. But it's not to anyone's benefit. Schools will still have to segregate the bad browns from the good. And for every brown that might be uplifted by white excellence, there might just as well be a white child dragged down by brown inferiority.
On a final note, something about this topic always strikes me as disturbing. Maybe it's a personal problem but I find it hard to tease out some cosmic righteousness through the suffering of children. If the fine folks in favor of these policies want to volunteer theirs to make things right, so be it. But if they want to volunteer other peoples children for this sort of endeavor I would find it more right those same people be thrown off a cliff. Because there is an inevitable increase in suffering coming the way of children that would otherwise be free of it, if not saddled with browns. I don't feel like anyone owes society their children in an effort to facilitate some devils bargain to differently distribute suffering amongst children. But considering the support for desegregation across the board, I'm not surprised the discussion crops up from time to time. People accept the suffering in the name of social justice.
The argument from on high is that this forced integration will ensure skin in the game. By forcing rich parents with the means to affect the institutions to have their kids attend dysfunctional schools, they'll have no choice but to address the root causes of the dysfunction.
Except what actually happens is the middle class gets punished and has hardly any more recourse than the poor, while the rich do as they do and find ways to escape the consequences of their luxury beliefs.
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