Boston mayor Thomas Menino – the guy who most recently made news by refusing to eat Chick-fil-a – is now fighting back against the public school busing plan which spends over $80 million annually in order to ensure a proper level of classroom diversity. Problem is, in a white majority city, Boston public schools are only 13% white. From the New York Times piece:
“Children are being bused now because they have been bused for 40 years and no one has had the political courage to dismantle it,” said Lawrence DiCara, a former Boston city councilor who supported busing in the 1970s and is writing a book about the city in that era. “Now, there are no white kids to be integrated. Everyone is being randomly bused. It doesn’t make sense.”
Before we hold up Menino (whose shares DiCara’s view) as some sort of hero for the cause of meritocracy and free choice, it should be noted that his decision now is only about money. There are basically no white people for him to infringe upon in order to earn political points across the rest of the city. This is the opposite of the Field of Dreams approach. Instead of “if you build it, they will come”, it’s now “if they leave, you will tear it down.”
One suspects that the proponents of busing and aggressive desegregation didn’t see that coming. Back when busing and desegregation was being pushed, activists and organizers pushing such measures based their proposal on idealism: that individuals don’t find ways to maximize utility for themselves and for their families. To that end, they will move or they will inconvenience their family budget.
Bring in Good Men Project founder Tom Matlack. He’s a Bostonian:
I’m the son of civil rights workers who risked their lives in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. That doesn’t mean much in terms of my racial sophistication other than the topic has been on my mind since the time I could walk. But the data in the article made me want to puke.
…
The real question is what happened to all the white kids? They still live in the city. They just no longer go to public schools. Antidotally (sic), I have a partial answer. My son goes to Boston College High, a Jesuit school, in South Boston along with 1,600 other boys. Where the public schools are 87% minority, BC High is 87% white.
I realize the hypocrisy of what I am saying here. But I am not about to send my son to public school when he has the option of going to a school where he can learn how to be a good man (“a man for others,” as they say there) and receive a first rate education. But then if I, a guy who at least thinks about the implication of that fact, is unwilling to support the public system who else is going to?
I don’t pretend to have the answer here other than to say that busing didn’t work. The data here in Boston, and I would expect in every major city in the country, shows that we have a two-tiered educational system between that haves and the have-nots which all too often breaks down on racial lines. And as long as that is the case we are all in a heap of trouble.
I really don’t understand the mindset wherein a person behaves a certain way on the micro level but then becomes nauseous when that behavior or choice goes macro. I guess I’d prefer people who own their NIMBYism and acknowledge that it i s a natural human behavior. And I can’t really give Matlack any bonus points for acknowledging his hypocrisy. He pays money into a system that his family does not immediately benefit from. It is not his fault that other parents aren’t as conscious about these issues as he is.
This creates a Minority Children Left Behind scenario that vexes progressives. What to do about it, though? The push is on to undermine elite education, whether at private schools or at places like the prestigious public Boston Latin School. Some academics have published research suggesting that elite schools don’t offer academic benefits to their students. No marked increase in SAT scores or college attendance. The flaw in such studies is that they ignore the other benefits to attending elite institutions – safety, for one. But also, better schools help the top end of the spectrum achieve even more. That fits in with the ideal of the parents and students buying into the system. Rather than egalitarian mediocrity, they uphold the ideal of unbridled human achievement. They are comfortable with the inequality which exists because high achievers ruin the curve.
Some have proposed
banning private schooling. Another “solution” would be a “sin tax” placed on private school attendance. This would be added on top of the local taxes parents of private school students already forgo using when they pay their taxes but don’t use a public school slot. On top of that, local governments would have to enact heavy-handed
regionalist policies, unless they were somehow able to convince voters at the national level to support much higher education funding.
The only “real” solution is the bottom-up approach. The question is how far back do we have to go?
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I think it’s a little ridiculous to say his parents risked their lives as civil rights workers. As far as I know, only three civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi, out of how many thousands?
Of course, the end result of what they did was to endanger the lives of his kids, which is why he pulled them out of public school. It would have been nice if he had acknowledged that.
I am confused about what you mean with that last line. What would a bottom up solution look like? What do you mean by going “far back” to find such a solution?
If you’re an HBD’er like me, don’t you have to kind of suspect that there isn’t a solution to the problem of minority kids being left in the dust? To me, this is kind of like looking at the roster of Nick Saban’s football teams at Alabama and wringing your hands about how terrible it is that good white southern boys can’t seem to get scholarships to play wide receiver or cornerback anymore in the SEC.
Jeff,
If you don’t buy into innate racial differences, you’d still have a critique of busing policies and affirmative action policies. Those are end-game solutions when what would be needed is investment at the root of the problem. Shore up differences as they arise at the earliest levels before throwing kids w/ 90 IQ in with kids with 110 IQ and expect there to be a fluid interaction between them.
I left open the possibility that the gap could be closed even if there are innate racial differences (I’m not fully convinced either way, to be honest, but I lean towards believing that racial differences are innate) because, theoretically, something could be done if there was political willpower to do it. I’m not saying that it should be done. I’m definitely in favor of letting differences exist and forcing the black community to try harder to shore up the differences. All of that would probably take hundreds of years to overcome. And if it was overcome through such determination that would be a good thing. Otherwise governments are just forcing whites into submission under the guise of justice and other such nonsense.
I am not looking for any points. If you don’t understand why I send my kid to a good school while being deeply troubled by where we are as a country that’s fine with me. I appreciate your addressing the issue.
If you don’t understand why I send my kid to a good school while being deeply troubled by where we are as a country that’s fine with me.
We Southerners have “understood why you send your kids to good schools” for quite a long time.
Looking at the MA school test results posted here: http://www.boston.com/news/special/education/mcas/scores11/10th_top_schools.htm
It looks like Mr. Matlack sends his kids to one of the best schools in the state. Good for you for valuing your children’s education to such an extent that you would send them to such a good school. Now look at all the schools at the bottom of the list and you will see that they are mostly the Boston and other urban public schools.
the only soultion is the elimination of the white race
if People of Color are not reaching their potential then we know whose fault that is
and i am not a racist. being anti-white is synonymus with pro humnaity
plus white girls CRAVE Black Cock
It isn’t just a southern thing, its all over the country. And I’m sorry to report, if it isn’t where you are, it soon will be. When a group of people is so vilified that being properly educated and behaving in civilized manner is seen as being like “them” and therefore a negative. When engaging in out and out self destructive behavior- acting out, breaking the law, and living off the government teat is seen as a act of rebellion against your “oppressors”. If your culture is such that the consequences of poor personal choices are expected to be blamed on someone else. when you spend most, if not all of your life sleeping in the “social safety net” like its a hammock at the beach. What do you expect, honestly what?
All blaming aside,if a person is never allowed to fail and learn to pick THEMSELVES up and better themselves from the experience, what do you expect!
Give a man a fish… STOP giving the losers any more damn fish, throw them a pole and tell them no more free lunch. make it or break it, and if you think your gonna live off me by theft, I have a 25 cent solution to all your life’s problems.
Even people who are retarded can understand the pride in a job well done, and a wage justly earned. Its not that they cant understand it, its that the wont.
There is no “equality” in life. Life is and always has been pass or fail.
busing ,,, geez,,,
rant concluded.
Anti-Racist you are right as usual. white boys hang themselves on racist logic while you dismantle them with Hip Hop logic. Busing is good because it brings us closer to the racists for stomping Justice on their skulls. Also now tell us how you and our Soldiers can hasten the elimination of whites.
Tom,
thanks for responding. i do understand why you feel this way. you feel this way because you are trying to balance two irreconcilable wants. you want your kid to get a good education, and you want kids like your kid to go to school with more minority kids. the only real solution here is for you to pull your kid out of private school and put him back in public schools. i’ll be straightforward here, anything else is just talking out of both sides of your mouth. you are part of the problem which you lament over. there are even some progressives and activists who would call you racist for pulling yourself out of public schools and putting them into private schools.
Oh and one other thing.
Anti-promoting-racist-justice
Just stop with the false flag opp, OK. Its getting way transparent, and pretty annoying. For some odd reason my gut is telling me you are a Firepower sock-puppet.
your all frosting and no cake.
white boy stickman if we frighten you then stop reading us
“u want kids like your kid to go to school with more minority kids”
I’ve had SWPL acquaintances express a similar wish. What is the benefit of this? I’m assuming we’re talking minority kids who are common NAMs, not foreign diplomats’ or researchers’ children.
Oh, I misread Chuck’s text as “you want your kids to go to school with more minority children.” Excellent and thoughtful reply BTW.
Speaking of Menino, this is some of the funniest audio I’ve ever heard in my entire life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wW8GAAo34Q&feature=related . It’s a clip from this year’s DNC.
@PA –
A small sprinkling of NAMs, like maybe 10-15% in an otherwise white and Asian school, can be a useful educational tool.
That was my junior high school’s demographic breakdown — in a suburb of Boston, actually, where the blacks were bussed in from the inner city. (I don’t know whether this was state-mandated busing or a sacrifice to local white guilt.)
There weren’t so many that they prevented the rest of us from getting an education, but I had enough firsthand experience with black misbehavior that even in my most SWPL college-activist days I never bought into the whole “anti-racist” thing.
Of course, I’m sure that’s not what the policy was supposed to do, but hey…
@totalesturns:
In what sense? In the sense of academic learning? I’m not aware of any actual evidence to point to that.
I can see that having exposure to NAMs might be a useful life skill, but lets be real here, it’s not going to be particularly useful when it takes place in a modern school environment of constant lies and political correctness.
I would just like to see Tom Matlack answer this question: why are the schools bad? You say we need to “invest in education” – but you do realize that all those white parents are paying taxes to pay for the public schools IN ADDITION to the tuition they pay for the private schools, right? And that it is almost certainly true that the public schools spend more dollars per student than the private schools do, probably twice as much if not more. So clearly the problem is not a lack of money i.e. financial “investment”.
So what is wrong with the public schools? And what is the solution?
The answer is that what’s wrong with the public schools is the students. Those white parents who are paying taxes to pay for the public schools IN ADDITION to the tuition they pay for the private schools are not paying for “schools”, they’re paying to send their good kids to school with other good kids. They’re paying to keep out the bad kids.
The only “solution” is for all the white parents to send their good kids to public school with the bad kids. Their kids will suffer as a result, and the minority kids won’t benefit much, but the “schools” will appear to be better. That’s the only thing that will make the public schools better. In case you don’t catch my drift, let me make it explicit: THE ONLY THING THAT CAN “FIX” THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IS EXACTLY THE THING YOU ARE REFUSING TO DO.
Please, tell me where I’m wrong.
“I really don’t understand the mindset wherein a person behaves a certain way on the micro level but then becomes nauseous when that behavior or choice goes macro.”
i don’t understand why you don’t understand this. there are plenty of behaviors that are personally advantageous to individuals but harmful in the aggregate.
HERE IS an hour-and-a-half video of Jared Taylor speaking at Towson University in Maryland a few days ago, talking about race to a room that appears mostly black. Worth viewing – it’s interesting. One thing I’m pleasantly taken by is Taylor’s poised, vigorous, and humorous delivery and engagement with mostly (but not always) hostile questioners.
jimmy,
i don’t know why you focus on a very unimportant part of this post. i’m sure you can imagine in a fluid conversation someone saying “i just don’t understand him.” in reality, the person who says that probably does understand the other person, but they sum up their annoyance or frustration with that person by saying that they don’t understand them. people say things like that not thinking that they are going to be taken literally. that being said, it’s ridiculous for matlack to say that he wants to puke. certainly, he doesn’t want to puke. i doubt he even comes close to puking. it’s a figure of speech.
At 1:24:10, a black chick in the audience (dark blue jacket, thin ponytail) goes into genocide convulsions. It’s quite rhythmic, andvery mesmerizing to watch. Maybe she is one of the Soldiers of commenter Promoting Justice?
At 1:26:20, another black girl (light grey sweatshirt) asks a direct question about Towson U.’s White Student Union. Watch game concept “reframe” in flawless action — Jared Taylor defers the question to the young WSU leader, who fields it brilliantly.
Mr Matlack understands quite well what a “good school” consists of or else he would not burden his family financially with the decision to send his children to one in addition to the sizable contribution he makes through taxes (assuming he is a home owner).
He is conflicted because all of the good intentions of his family in regards to egalitarianism cannot fix a problem that is based in nature rather than ideology.
I’m a farmer not an intellectual. The solutions I seek to my daily problems are not resolved through theory, but rather through actual outcomes and practices. I could make a fortune raising fresh watermelons in January, but the weather in New England prohibits me from doing so and so I have learned to live with that as a fact of nature rather than to try repeatedly to overcome it through sheer force of will. I would be equally frustrated if I, like Mr Matlack, wished for such a harvest.
Of course there is no sympathy in me for such frustration, borne as it is in ideology untethered to Nature. Mr Matlack will either comes to terms with reality or he will spend the rest of his life in perpetual disquiet wondering why his intentions are insufficient to the task of living an honest life.
If wishes were horses than beggars would ride…
hardscrabble,
through modernism, people are detached from nature and its constraints. because they only interact with “society”, they think that there are no constraints there. this is realism v. idealism; constrained v. unconstrained; conservative v. liberal.
@hardscrabble: the sizable contribution he makes through taxes (assuming he is a home owner).
Renters pay too, though they are unaware of it, as the landlord just rolls it into the overall cost of rent.
This has been a great read for this here Anti-justice Privilege-promoter, both the original post and subsequent commentary. The only thing I have to add is cough”Sidwell Friends”cough.
PA,
The reframe of the question about what white people would discuss in a white student union was excellent. I could tell by the look on the black woman’s face it was effective. She knows a white person would never tell black people what they could and could not talk about among themselves. When you frame it as our basic human rights are being infringed upon, I think that’s a powerful argument. White people are mostly indifferent to other races having their own organizations. I don’t think we should expect the same indifference from them.
This will hold true especially with African Americans, who will always feel hurt from being excluded.
Glad you watched the clip Lara. It’s very instructive, especially to anyone who can set aside 90 minutes to watch the whole thing.
I’m reminded of 1997′s Promise Keepers rally, which I had a great interest in at the time and attended, while in my mid-20s and not yet having a coherent way of understanding things.
In retrospect, PK’s frame was extremely beta as Patricia Ireland and NOW incessantly attacked them in the run-up to the rally. PK’s frame was supplication, reassurance that they really mean web to women… one bemused liberal op-ed writer at the time mused on how neanderthal sexists no longer want to put you on the kitchen, they want to hug you.
Taylor’s presentation was very different. While he was a class act the whole time, he projected an unwavering sense of being in the right. He was friendly, confident, respectful but firm with intelligent critics and amused with stupid ones. He looked and sounded strong, and had a downright rakeish alpha vibe.
An evolution is happening on the Right. A decade+ ago righties were still under the spell of the Left’s narrative completely. This is why George Wallace repented for racism on his deathbed to avoid going to hell (he said so himself) when he should have looked back on his legacy as a tragic and heroic defense of Southerners’ right to exist as human being and as communities.
Today, the Civil Rights (inclusive of feminism, et al.) is losing its grip on our minds. Like all top-down ideologies, it is effective as a juggernaut but its half-life is not long.
@Reym –
Looks like the sarcasm didn’t translate. I don’t literally believe in using blacks as an “educational tool.”
I do think that given present circumstances, it’s probably better for middle-class white kids to get a small amount of firsthand exposure to NAM misbehavior at an age when they still trust their own impressions. A 100% white environment is more likely to leave them defenseless against PC indoctrination. But for obvious reasons, there aren’t any peer-reviewed studies testing this hypothesis.