Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010
Don't assume racism
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closeAmid the pot shots among leaders bickering over the education of our children, I'd like to stand in calm defense of the many decent parents who favor neighborhood schools and are not motivated by racism.
Wake school board Chairman Ron Margiotta was wrong to call white and black opponents of the board's move away from busing for socioeconomic diversity "animals." No citizen who comes before the government to discuss public policy deserves such contempt.
NAACP leaders William Barber and Curtis Gatewood, both ministers, are right to stand up for what they believe. They might be correct that Wake should keep its diversity busing policy. We'll see. But they, too, have gone too far.
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Barber coldly impugned Wake's elected school board as "a dictatorship," "a gang," and "the mafia" in one fell swoop.
Gatewood called Margiotta a hell-bound "white racist."
Such mature examples, all!
Gatewood and Barber, like many school board critics, imply that anyone who favors neighborhood schools is a racist clamoring for the return of forced racial segregation.
That's preposterous, unjust, and unbecoming of us all.
Legally, students aren't supposed to be assigned to schools based on race anyway.
Yet many parents I've talked with want good neighborhood schools and diversity. Achieving that will, of course, be easier some places than others.
To hear busing proponents tell it, every neighborhood is a Wakefield or a slum. But many of us live near poor, middle-class, and rich people alike.
Keeping poorer inner-city schools healthy will be harder and cost taxpayers more than busing. And everyone who favors neighborhood schools has a moral obligation to support quality in all schools.
But surely there's more than one good way to achieve that. Wake's old busing practice can't be the only legitimate one.
Most of all, supporters of neighborhood schools want excellence and stability. They want to be more involved in closer schools. They want their kids to get normal sleep.
Like parents everywhere, they want the best for their children. That's not racist.
If it were, then who would want them in their schools?
Grace comes in many hues.
