Blog #5

  All good things come to an end. This is the last installment of my blog on The Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol. I want first to thank my loyal readers and especially those who have provided comments along the way. In this last post, I want to congratulate Kozol for shedding light on a terrible societal problem. But I also want to criticize him for not thinking more critically and creatively about the problem that he has identified.

I do not doubt after reading this book that there is tremendous segregation in the American education system and that the current system has done immense harm to minority students. I am also convinced that our education model of standardized testing followed by telling minority students and teachers in their schools that they simply are not trying hard enough is a discriminatory practice. Our unwillingness to fund these schools is shocking as is the approach to encourage teaching without creativity. Even though Kozol, at the end of the book, describes some good teachers and administrators working in these segregated schools, I did not leave the book with much hope.

Kozol throughout the book says that the problem is that society turned its back on Brown v. Board of Education. I think that is only partly true. Brown is about not segregating schools by law. We don’t do that anymore. We now segregate schools because we (whites) have chosen to live separately from minorities. And because we link school assignments to location, our decisions to live in a segregated manner cause segregated schools. In other words, the law is not causing segregation, we are causing it by our own choices.

Kozol’s solution seems to be that people need to take to the streets to fight to integrate the schools. I am not sure that this is the solution. The majority of white people would have to want to have integration. Having a vocal minority take to the streets will focus attention on the problem for sure. But if most white people think that the protests are seeking to force busing their kids to far away and inferior schools, these protests are only going to create more division. Even last summer’s protests about police violence, which in some ways is a racial issue that is easier to tackle, have not yet led to major change. Thus, I do not think that a protest movement is by itself the solution to the segregated school problem.

I think that Kozol touched on the real solution at the point in the book when he discussed the Metco program in Massachusetts. He described how the integration of blacks and whites at an early age had the effect of breaking down stereotypes by allowing kids to see that people of different races were all the same way once you got to know them personally (229-231). 

This kind of mixing seems to be the long-term solution. We need ways to require people, at an early age, to have experiences where they spend substantial quality time with people of other races. That kind of contact is the only way, in my opinion, to get people to overcome the fears that lead to segregation in housing which leads to segregation in schools. 

One idea that I have heard along these lines is to have a mandatory two-year service requirement for people when they turn 18 years of age. In such a program, people would be forced to mix with a wide array of people from all different sorts of backgrounds in a 24-7 way for an extended period. Hopefully, just like in the Metco program, friendships would form across racial and socioeconomic boundaries and over time break down irrational fears around race.  This would create a more just and equitable society over time. 

Having a society in which we break down racial divisions by encouraging interracial contact would eventually fix the problems that Kozol highlights.  Enforcing a service requirement would be controversial because we historically have not placed such requirements on citizens.  But, unlike Kozol, I don’t think we can protest our way out of the problem.  Protests can change laws but something more is needed to change people’s attitudes.

In conclusion, after reading Kozol’s book, I have a feeling that the situation is bleak. On most racial issues in America, we are so far away from a solution, and the reasons run deep. We need a complete cultural rebuild.  It will take time and brave leadership but we should start.

Works Cited: 

Katzenberg, Lauren. “One Year of Mandatory National Service For Every American?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/magazine/mandatory-national-service.html. 

Kozol, Jonathan. The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Three Rivers Press, 2005.