Busing Updates
[Reprinted from Issues & Views , Fall/Winter 1996]
[By now, most Americans are aware of the futility of forced busing, and the
damage it has done to the education system--but not black leaders.]
A heinous process
In our Summer 1995 edition, Issues & Views reported on Genevieve Mitchell,
who, with other parents of Cleveland, Ohio, is striving to put an end to the
forced busing of the city's school children. The good news is that, in November,
Mitchell was elected to a four-year term on Cleveland's Board of Education.
In testimony before a special hearing, Mitchell called compulsory busing,
"the most heinous and politically invasive process ever initiated to
undermine quality education for all children who utilize the public education
system." She told of "repeated and unnecessary school reassignments to justify
race ratios." She then suggested that, considering the depletion of white student
enrollment, busing proponents might next resort to "kidnapping white children to
maintain the practice."
Mitchell also heads the Black Women's Center, which supports parental choice and
school vouchers. For information, contact: Black Women's Center, 1419 E. 80th
Street, Cleveland, OH 44103; (216) 881-6637.
News from a Congressman
A letter from Rep. Martin Hoke, who represents Cleveland's 10th District,
comments further on the subject of mandatory busing. He informs us that,
because of rules established in the 1970s, when the city's racial composition was
different, Cleveland's bureaucratic machinery (which, apparently, can't be turned
off) is now busing black children away from schools in their neighborhoods, to
black schools in other parts of the city. "Children are now bused from a
predominantly black school on the east side of town to a predominantly black
school on the west side of town. More than half a billion dollars has been spent
on desegregation activities since 1978-money that could have been used to buy
textbooks, upgrade science laboratories or purchase new computers."
Congressman Hoke asks, "When kids attend schools miles away from their
homes, what working parent is able to attend sporting events, parent-teacher
conferences, and home-room parties?" Although he does not attribute all of
Cleveland's social ills to mandatory busing, he believes that busing "has
contributed significantly to the decline of our urban centers." He is introducing
a bill in Congress to limit or end the practice. For further information, call
his Washington, DC office at (202) 225-5871.
Heretic 1
And the NAACP remains in its groove. When the president of the Yonkers, New York
chapter of the NAACP dared publicly to declare his opposition to continued
forced busing, he was summarily suspended by the organization's national
headquarters.
The NAACP, the organization that devised the country's first busing plans,
would brook no nonsense from Kenneth Jenkins, who simply stated the now
familiar story about demographic shifts in population, that make it harder to
locate predominantly white schools to which to bus black children. Jenkins
complained about what he considers senseless busing of children all around
Yonkers. After his suspension, he commented, "It's a principle of our country to
be able to question decisions and determine if they are still effective." Not in
the NAACP.
Heretic 2
Another heretic and dissenter from the party line is Robert Robinson, head
of the Bergen County, New Jersey chapter of the NAACP. For the past year, a
busing battle has raged over the desegregation of Englewood, New Jersey's
Dwight Morrow High School. Actually, for at least a decade, Englewood has
been entangled in desegregation battles with neighboring communities.
Robinson publicly stated that racial balance should not be an imperative when
looking at school districts, and claims that he supports separate education for
black children, "as long as that education is equal."
Claiming that, "The NAACP is committed to the issue of integration," Earl
Shinhoster of national headquarters, in November, indicated that the national
board had not yet decided how to respond to Robinson's defection from NAACP
policy.
The grassroots shall win
The NAACP and other organizations, that have possessed the power to impose on
the country the will of black and white liberal elites, soon will be forced to
reverse their obstinate position on busing. Thanks to pressures from ordinary
blacks at the grassroots, as represented by people like Genevieve Mitchell, these
sacred organizations will no longer be able to claim that they speak for all
blacks. Of course, these elites will deny any capitulation to outside forces, as
they employ their rhetorical trickery, to make it appear that the retreat from
busing was their idea all along. Not a word will be said about the years of waste
and the diversion of black energy away from constructive pursuits.
Copyright 1996 © Issues & Views
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