Sportsdude wrote:
I have no problems with assisted suicide.
Yeah the de-seg schools thing was a landmark supreme court case. The de-seg program which is still used today. Buses black kids into the white suburbs to the all white schools. The problem with it is that if you are white and live in the city you are SOL. Another problem is that it only makes racial issues a bigger problem. Out of a 1,500 student high school for example about 200 or so are black kids. And they don't mingle during lunch hours. Heck I was only one of a few people to actually sit with the 'city kids' during lunch mainly because the rich white kids didn't get along with me.
That's sad to hear, SD. I worked with a couple of women who were in high school in the 70s: one in Seattle, one in NM. The one in Seattle was part of a voluntary busing program--the school district created all sorts of new programs in the historically black schools to attract white students, so she ended up attending a high school that was about 80% black. She graduated a year early, and said that she learned a lot more about black culture than she would have otherwise, but that students from the two races did not mix--even on the sports teams she was involved in. The one from New Mexico was at a school that was predominantly "Spanish"--descendants of settlers who had been in the area for about 300 years (they used the term to differentiate themselves from more recent Mexican immigrants). She was white and had a Spanish boyfriend, which was unusual, as the races pretty much kept to themselves in her school as well.
It's sad to see that's still going on.
From what I've seen here, even though racism is pretty well entrenched here, the younger kids I've known split more on class lines--like what you're describing. Mind you, that doesn't stop their parents from getting all freaked out and thinking they're getting caught up in gang activity.
I'm just curious to know: what do you think is responsible for this state of things? Is it the media? The government?
I can certainly attest to the fact that crimes against hate speech have significantly improved what I've seen around me, at least as far as public discourse goes. The sort of behaviour that most people would have turned a blind eye to 20 years ago is in many places considered unacceptable now.
Why do you think that it's taking so long for things to change?
