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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (9583)	2/4/2017 8:07:34 PM
From: one_less	2 Recommendations Recommended By i-node Katelew Respond to of 357286

Koan prides himself on refusing to consider perspectives outside his own, especially conservative perspectives, information, contributions. Then, remarkably, he notes the contributions of conservatives. The single most admirable characteristic of liberal thought is the willingness to consider all things with an open mind. Koan does not qualify. He is completely in the dark on most issues of any complexity. His level of depth is, 'protest Trump.'

To: i-node who wrote (9583)	2/5/2017 7:00:38 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 357286

<< The idea you think African Amercans were Ok with segregation takes my breath away.>> Actually, Koan is kind of wrong here. In Arkansas, blacks were more OK with segregation than one might think. Integration began with Central High in Little Rock in 1959. I was in junior high school there and followed it closely on the news. What most people didn't know and probably still don't know its that it was one sided. By that I mean, the public schools were ordered to admit black students if black students wished to go there. It wasn't an order for the schools to merge such that everyone went to the same school. African-Americans could keep their own schools if they wanted and the state would fund them as they always did. The unexpected surprise was that so many chose to remain separate. There were all black schools all over the place--mainly in smaller towns and rural areas, where one black school served a consolidated area. Later it was determined that there were many reasons for this, and oddly enough one of the main reasons was sports. These schools didn't want to give up their football and basketball teams, their cheerleaders, their out of town trips to other black conferences. They also didn't want to give up their own proms and own social clubs. Black teachers were afraid they would lose careers they had decades of experience in. Truly, if you think about it, blacks were facing a lot of major changes by integrating into a white school. They would become the minority, sometimes a tiny minority. Would they get picked for the teams? Would their teachers be asked to stay on? Not to mention would they be bullied and ostracized? The Supreme Court ruled very wisely, in retrospect, when it have blacks to option to proceed at their own pace. The problem was that so many didn't proceed. So in 1971, I got a phone call from my sister in Hazen, Arkansas. She was taking a position in a school in Stuttgart which was being forced to integrate. By that I mean the nearest black schools were being forced to shut down and switch to Stuttgart High School. The federal government had finally ordered the actual end to segregation twelve years after the first ruling in 1959. The order came one month before the start of school, and it was a mess. Some of the black kids were looking at hour long bus rides from places close to the delta regions. Black teachers lost jobs, just as they had feared. Class sizes grew, and trailers were brought in as portable classrooms. Protests kept delaying the opening day of school. The first two weeks saw groups boycotting certain classes. They would gather in the halls and open and slam shut locker doors that drove everyone crazy. It all came to a head when some black kids stole a box of the arsenic pellets that were used in rice graineries and sprinkled them in the overhead ductwork of the school. My sister said right in the middle of a class she had students suddenly vomiting on each other. By the time the school was evacuated, whole classrooms were lying on the grass and holding their heads in pain. Her room was at the very end of the building and the fumes were the lowest. She, herself, never felt anything. The school was shut down and everyone went into a huddle. I've forgotten all the details, but remember that some of the black teachers were brought in as teachers and others were hired as well-paid assistants. Black boys were quickly recruited for the sports teams. One of the most successful things was that the school started hosting dances which are always popular in small town. The students actually got along just fine, and things settled down by Christmas.