Key Issues

Desegregation

I first learned the meaning of this word from the inside of a private school's classroom. I think the entire school (K-12) had maybe 1200 students, two of whom were black.

During my tenth grade year, I made a huge move. I moved to Clarke Central High School in Athens, GA, which was "desegregated" back when my parents were in attendance.

I then learned the truth behind the would-be meaning of the word.

The truth was that the master plan to desegregate had about as much ingenuity as a half-baked idea to combine water and oil...which is exactly how it went down.

By the time I was in attendance, twenty-five years later, my previously sheltered and quite culture-shocked ass was not quite grasping their latent acceptance of an obvious failure.

Don't get me wrong. It was 50/50, but it was like this: Black people parked on one side of the parking lot, white on the other, black people sat on one side of the classroom, white on the other, black people sat in the cafeteria for lunch, white people sat outside on Beta Hill...I could go on.

Now. Aside from the occasional hall fight, everyone got along, everyone friendly, but when it was time to park, take a seat, or eat lunch, this is the way it was.

S-l-o-w-l-y...over the duration of my time there, I began to see very subtle changes. Of course, I have no doubt in my mind that these lines can still be drawn today, so I do stress that the change is slow...but constant.

By my senior year, I saw more and more of my black friends - who continued to sit on the other side of the room from me in class - wander outside to Beta Park for lunch.

See that makes sense. Pretty day, eat outside. Crappy day, eat inside...Now I'll admit it's a difficult hurdle. In fact, I'm glad they came out, cuz I wasn't going in. (I'll admit that the only time I ate in the cafeteria was one particular day when I attempted to go "out" for lunch, and was met and escorted to the cafeteria by the principal.)

You see the teachers were still fighting segregation. They looked at us as though we were freaks because we thought we had to eat outside. And they applauded every little baby step we made to overcome these hurdles.

Now. How strange would it have been had the teachers NOT encouraged the progress? How strange would it have been had the teachers - after all that desegregation talk - run outside and told my black friends to get their asses back into the cafeteria where they belonged?

Can you imagine the screaming, the gnashing and the litigation? It would have been a holy uproar. And before it even went that far, I think we would have all bonded over some teacher ass-kicking.

And yet, look at us on a larger scale... Many black Americans no longer have use for a liberal agenda, which, admittedly, my biased-in-favor-of-less-government ass is lovin'!

What I'm not liking so much is that these people are reaching out and crossing party lines, only to be told by many members of their former party to get their asses back into the cafeteria...and I ask WTF?

It seems some liberals - in all of their double-standard-heart-of-a-mercenary glory - would have them believe that by crossing over, they are somehow betraying their heritage. Well, bullshit.

Why is this being tolerated?