PHOTO: Hazel Bryan, one of the nine black students to attend Little Rock, Arkansas' Central High School in 1957 after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that "separate but equal" segregated schools were unconstitutional.
Photo by Ira Wilmer Counts, Jr.

As public school segregation increases, what are the consequences?

According to a study published last year by the UCLA Civil Rights Project, nearly 50 percent of African-American students in New Jersey attend schools where less than 10 percent of the student body is white. And the typical white student attends a public school in which two-thirds of the population is Caucasian.

Racial segregation is not a problem that exists only in the past. Despite widely documented progress in U.S. history to limit racism, studies suggest that segregation is still an issue in today’s world. Especially right here in the schools of New Jersey.

Yes, it’s true.

Within minutes of the longest government shutdown in United States history coming to end on Friday, January 25th, the major media headlines in concert began to read: “Trump lost, Pelosi wins.” Even a hashtag (#PelosiWins) began to trend on Twitter.
While we can give credit to the Democrats in Congress for holding out from providing a single penny or capitulating to anything else ‘in the name of bipartisanship’ to appease a Trump-tantrum, the major media narrative misses much of the actual story as well as an opportunity entirely to mobilize citizen activism.

It's been said that if President Barack Obama were a dark-skinned black man, he would not have been elected president. This is debatable to some while others believe it wholeheartedly. In comedy circles, President Obama is referred to as someone who had the complexion for the protection and the connection. The idea that there is prejudice or discrimination, often among same-race people based solely on skin tone is called colorism. Essentially, it means that the lighter your skin tone, the prettier you are seen to be, the more value you are attributed, and the better you have it in life. It stems from the belief that beauty and desirability increase with the proximity to whiteness.

This election will bring many different types of individuals to the polls. Like many young people, I never considered politics to be something I needed to pay attention to before the 2016 election; my family was loving, stable, and we were fortunate to have a good economic foundation to rely on. I voted for Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential Election and considered myself a right-leaning independent when I came of voting age. Then Donald Trump announced his bid for the White House, and all my perceptions of what I thought was morally righteous and dignified went right out the window.

We asked women in NJ07 to share their thoughts about the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing. This is what they wrote:

Having known and worked with US Rep. Leonard Lance since 1992, it was not easy deciding to run against him last year.

Nearly three decades ago both Lance and I were newly promoted to jobs in Trenton, he as a member of the NJ Legislature having worked for the quintessential bi-partisan moderate Gov. Tom Kean, me in my mid-20’s, as a public interest advocate before the same legislature.

For most of the next two decades Lance served with honor in the Legislature. He was a champion on the environment and fiscally responsible, even when that wasn’t popular in either party. He successfully took on Governors. Whitman and McGreevey for their poor borrowing habits and bad land use decisions.  In 2000, he was one of only two NJ legislators (the other being Senator Loretta Weinberg) to score a 100% on Clean Water Action’s scorecard. He took on the precursors to the Tea Party wing of his party to champion the 2004 Highlands and 2007 Global Warming Response Acts. These actions often came at considerable risk to his career – he lost a promotion to chair the Appropriations Committee at one point.

Honesty, humility, integrity, the pursuit of knowledge, consideration of others, and hard work. These were the values my parents and teachers instilled in me as I grew up in the 1960s and 70s. They were presented as American values.

Sadly, as a teacher, I see each of these values seriously endangered in today’s America—even in my classroom.

[NOTE: Following the enactment of racist border policies, the discovery of white supremacist flyers and posters throughout our congressional district, and the lack of leadership from Congressman Lance on this issue, we have solicited blog posts from activists and concerned people about the issues. If you would like to add your voice to the discussion, please contact us.]

What does it mean for a white person today to look at white onlookers in an old photograph of a lynching? One piece in the recent Racial Imaginary Institute exhibit in New York City On Whiteness asks us this very question. I just visited this exhibit during its final week, and while there were many thought-provoking works, The Wonder Gaze (St James Park) by Ken Gonzales-Day has stayed with me (see his website for the image http://kengonzalesday.com/on-whiteness/). It is a giant photograph of part of an original photograph of a lynching, and we only see the people who attended, or perhaps even participated in the lynching, not the person who was lynched. White people who stand in front of this giant photograph are forced to look in a mirror of sorts. We ask: who are these people? The answers present several challenges that white people must confront if we are to dismantle white supremacy.

People in America are at shock of what is happening at the Mexico-United States border. Images, especially of a 2-year-old girl from Honduras crying while a U.S. border agent pats down her mother has been seen by millions throughout the country and our world. Families being separated, children placed in detention or sold to human traffickers being combated by the slogan #KeepFamiliesTogether. But this is just the latest iteration of the crisis at the border. A crisis that has its foundation established centuries ago, and now, it’s apparatus well maintained into the 21st century. Washington D.C. need not look past a mirror to see how that monster had been created.

One of my favorite movies is "The American President." (For those unfamiliar, Michael Douglas plays a progressive president fighting moral and political battles as he seeks reelection.) In it, President Andrew Shepherd (Douglas) begins an impassioned campaign speech by saying, "America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, cause it's gonna put up a fight." Some of us only entered that fight for democracy following the 2016 presidential election, and are just waking up to the reality that we are not the country we thought we were.