School Segregation Past and Present

Hi Friends!

Our meet and greet with Parisa is scheduled for Wednesday, August 14. Thank you so much to everyone who offered to host! The purpose of this event is to allow any group members who have questions about Parisa’s platform to come and discuss with her. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Washington Post had a wonderful article about Pr. William County students who fought against school segregation during a high school boundary process — some inspiration and lessons for our activism in Arlington. It takes intentional effort to prevent our schools from being racially and economically segregated because of the long history of housing segregation. It can be done, but we need to educate our communities so that they understand how their choices/advocacy for their individual students can lead to furthering systemic racism rather than dismantling it. It’s going to take dedication and creative solutions and in order for them to succeed, we must build support and buy-in in our community.

Related to that, Jay Mathews wrote about how districts have found ways to integrate schools without using mandated busing policies.

Also related to that, NPR ran a story about the court case that undermined Brown V Board and has a wonderful summary of segregation in our schools nationally.

I thought this Op Ed in the Washington Post by a group of 149 African Americans who served in the Obama administration was inspiring and painful at the same time.

A friend shared a graphic with me from a recent South Park game that included a difficulty slider that went according to the race of the character you played (white was easy, the darkest skin color was most difficult). I thought this was, on the surface, a cool way to show racial disparities. Unfortunately, the game didn’t follow through on changing the gamer’s experience based on the race of their character (which could have been an amazing tool).

One of our group members shared this article about a recent Yorktown High School grad whose parents are undocumented and how that has impacted her life and experiences growing up in Arlington.

William Wan wrote an article about a Mayo Clinic study showing that burned out doctors show more racial bias.

Take a step every day to unlearn white supremacy.

Emily
Listen. Amplify. Follow.