unfortunately, the naacp long ago transformed itself into an organization that relies almost solely on rent-seeking, publicity-seeking behavior. this example might as well be exhibit a. this situation was taken up because it was easy to selectively distill down to a single issue and propagandize.

my two cents - there are valid arguments on both sides. some would prefer busing for diversity, both via magnet schools and much more commonly through busing students away from lower income neighborhoods. some would prefer the advantages of attending school close to home. for the purposes of experimentation, to each their own. if a parent of a student who would have been bused away from home wants their student bused away, fine, no change. if a parent of the same student instead wants their student to attend the closest school to their home, fine. study the outcomes. this may be wrong, but i seem to remember reading some sort of report of studies which essentially had concluded that busing doesn't help the students who are being bused. in this case, a similar study could determine if a lack of busing actually hurts these student's outcomes.

7/21/2010 11:56:11 AM

for page 3:

Quote :

"if all you've got is a race card, then everything begins to look like it's racist"

Quote :

"if all you've got is a race card, then everything begins to look like it's racist"

Quote :

"if all you've got is a race card, then everything begins to look like it's racist"

Quote :

"if all you've got is a race card, then everything begins to look like it's racist"

Quote :

"if all you've got is a race card, then everything begins to look like it's racist"

7/21/2010 12:14:36 PM

I'm not sure what that means, but I find it amusing that you're acting like it's some huge revelation that the NAACP has a goal of advancing the rights of African Americans. I mean... it's like literally in the title of their name, bro.

7/21/2010 12:19:23 PM

God really ruined this thread.

7/21/2010 12:26:02 PM

Quote :

"I'm not sure what that means"

Really?
You're telling me that you've either never heard this phrase:
"If all you've got is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail."
or, that you don't know what it means?

REALLY?

Quote :

"I find it amusing that you're acting like it's some huge revelation that the NAACP has a goal of advancing the rights of African Americans."

Advance their rights? What?

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

Quote :

"God really ruined this thread."

7/21/2010 12:52:14 PM

Quote :

"NAACP has a goal of advancing the rights of African Americans."

Please provide a list of rights that African Americans do not have that other races do in the US.

7/21/2010 1:12:40 PM

^

7/21/2010 1:14:12 PM

Quote :

"my two cents - there are valid arguments on both sides. some would prefer busing for diversity, both via magnet schools and much more commonly through busing students away from lower income neighborhoods. some would prefer the advantages of attending school close to home. for the purposes of experimentation, to each their own. if a parent of a student who would have been bused away from home wants their student bused away, fine, no change. if a parent of the same student instead wants their student to attend the closest school to their home, fine. study the outcomes. this may be wrong, but i seem to remember reading some sort of report of studies which essentially had concluded that busing doesn't help the students who are being bused. in this case, a similar study could determine if a lack of busing actually hurts these student's outcomes."

That is because of the cultural norms within the different races. No matter where you bus people the African Americans who are failing in the classroom will still come from the ghetto where drugs and gang violence is common. Some black guys that went to grade school with me came to class laughing one time because they thought it was funny that they saw someone get shot by the bus stop over drugs. Busing doesn't change this lack of expectations. Obama was right when he spoke to the NAACP last year and said something like, "It is time for the African American community to pick it up. Put away your Xbox's and study. Aspire to do more than become the next Kobe Bryant, or lil wayne."

Asians on the other hand are the total opposite. I know someone who has a Chemical Engineering degree from NC State and a Harvard MBA. He has met lots of Asians in the classroom. He said they come from a culture that expects them to go to college. It's just the norm. That is part of the reason you see so many smart Asians.

Until the African American community changes their attitude about life and education nothing is going to change.

[Edited on July 21, 2010 at 1:43 PM. Reason : .]

7/21/2010 1:41:09 PM

Quote :

"Please provide a list of rights that African Americans do not have that other races do in the US."

Just because they're granted by law doesn't mean they actually happen. You do know that, right?

7/21/2010 1:44:17 PM

^
1) Rights aren't granted by law. Every human has always had them in full. Governments may not recognize them, though...
(You do know that, right?)
2) Rights "not happening" or not being fully applied/recognized is not the same as not having them.
3) I'll answer your question, so answer mine:

Quote :

"Do you deny Black people have it worse than White people even today?"

No.

Quote :

"Do you deny that an organization with the sole purpose of advancing only those people with certain skin colors is racist?"

and this one, too:

Quote :

"Really? You're telling me that you've either never heard this phrase: "If all you've got is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail." or, that you don't know what it means? REALLY?"

(I'm waiting....)

7/21/2010 1:54:11 PM

So you agree that Black people have it worse than White people.

Yet you oppose a group that exists to assist that disadvantaged group? Why?

7/21/2010 1:56:51 PM

^
1) No, I don't oppose them*. I may oppose certain things they do, like this school thing. Where did I say that I oppose the NAACP? (*I recall saying that I would only oppose them if they accepted public funding. Do they?)
2) I answered your questions (both of them). Now you answer mine:

Quote :

"Do you deny that an organization with the sole purpose of advancing only those people with certain skin colors is racist?"

and

Quote :

"Really? You're telling me that you've either never heard this phrase: "If all you've got is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail." or, that you don't know what it means?"

7/21/2010 2:17:21 PM

I just wish the NAACP would get as fired up about the increased crime rates in black neighborhoods, black on black crime, gang activity, degradation of women in rap videos and by a majority of black artists, etc as they are about what pretty much seems like a no-brainer decision.

If I paid a shitton for a house so my kid could go to a school close to home, then why would I want the kid shipped across wake county?

School board should be focusing on education, the US is getting its ass kicked in education. Racial diversity should be handled by the rest of (and watch I do here) the entire population

7/21/2010 4:19:21 PM

Also, it was pretty fucking stupid of him to go back to someplace where he was banned. That's being real productive, and what a message to send to youth. "Hey if you're arrested and banned for trespassing, go back again, its ok".

7/21/2010 4:20:29 PM

^Racist.

7/21/2010 4:26:45 PM

The problem with black activists is that they haven't had a strong leader since MLK was shot. Even though times are completely different they're still following their old outdated method of getting outraged over perceived racism and then getting arrested for trespassing.

7/21/2010 4:34:33 PM

^signed
^^Racist

[Edited on July 21, 2010 at 4:43 PM. Reason : yo momma!!]

7/21/2010 4:43:19 PM

Quote :

"they're still following their old outdated method of getting outraged over perceived racism "

this

Also, idiots like God do the same thing. (getting outraged over perceived racism)

7/21/2010 4:44:48 PM

^^^For real. When the other "side" of the issue is actually willing to discuss the issue and work with you to solve problems, going out of your way to break the rules and get arrested makes you look more like a stubborn jackass than a heroic martyr for your cause.

That's not to say that the NAACP are the only jackasses in this matter,though, because they certainly aren't.

[Edited on July 21, 2010 at 4:46 PM. Reason : .]

7/21/2010 4:45:23 PM

Wow.



Just wow.

7/21/2010 5:43:07 PM

^...

...what the fuck?

7/21/2010 5:48:52 PM

I know. Nevermind the fact that he represents the southeast district, not cary.

There's more. My faith in humanity is entirely gone at this point. How can these people even operate photoshop? *bangs head on desk



[Edited on July 21, 2010 at 6:20 PM. Reason : .]

7/21/2010 5:55:05 PM

evidently black people are the only people that qualify to diversify a school.

further, the busing has nothing to do with racial diversity. the discussion should be about economic diversity and how to ensure all schools get equal resources.

7/21/2010 6:24:58 PM

Haven't you heard? Poor is the new black.

7/21/2010 6:25:55 PM

It's racist to take race out of the equation.

7/21/2010 6:32:06 PM

that's racist. (but not if you're black)

7/21/2010 7:39:24 PM

My 2 cents on the issue:

Since the election and all of the hoopla began, Ive stated that Rev Barber and the NAACP are absolutely the worst champions of the pro-diversity cause. By turning this whole situation into a black-white race issue, they effectively dilute the just cause of affording every child in our community a legitimate chance to succeed. Unfortunately, busing is a necessary evil in our county due to the high concentration areas of lower income households. The children of these families simply will not have the same opportunity to succeed by attending the school closest to their home.

Plus, Rev Barber is a damned fool. BUT he does make a decent point here:

Quote :

"Barber and others fear that ending the longstanding policy in favor for one that places students in schools closer to their homes will lead to resegregation, high teacher turnover and poor students receiving a lower quality of education than their economically advantaged counterparts."

http://www.wral.com/news/education/story/8010989/

High teacher turnover and poor students receiving a lower quality of education WILL happen. Look no further than durham county to find evidence of this. Throw in the opt out clause that is currently on the table and you will find that the only kids left in our inner city schools are only the poor kids. In doing this, we will have robbed those lower income students succeeding in our current plan simply because their parents can't provide the transportation required for them to transfer schools. And this only applies to those children who have parents who care. If you think that simply allowing lower income students to go to school closer to home will result in higher parental engagement, you are either window licking retarded of a bold faced liar.

But we're getting away from the real issue here and the reality is that none of the majority coalition represents the highest concentration areas of poverty in our county. This 'neighborhood schools' model wasn't dreamed up with the intent of helping the poor children. It has been used as a crutch to legitimize changing the system so that more afluent parents don't have to send their kids to different schools every few years. Guess what, this problem will not go away with the new model. There will always be boundaries and these will shift with the population. If you live near or on one of these lines, its not going to matter what model the system is using, people will always be redistricted (or we will face massive over/under crowding).

Quote :

"We want to truly help these low-income kids that aren't doing very well in the system. No one, in the past, has gone after them"

Wait, what? Even if you argue that the diversity policy doesnt constitute going after the low-income kids, does Chairman Margiotta understand the purpose of the county's magnet program?

Now, the majority coalition's stated strategy to avoid creating failing schools (since we have none under the current system) is to throw money at the problem in terms of bonus money for teachers to come to these schools (which isn't successful at attracting the best and brightest) and increased money for educational programs as compared to other schools. I don't typically like to get into the whole Republican-Democrat pissing contest but isn't this exactly the type of strategy that Republicans berate the Democrats for doing constantly?

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 10:31 AM. Reason : mss]

7/22/2010 10:26:23 AM

How can you in one post claim that it's not a black/white issue and then say you agree with someone who claims it will lead to resegregation?

7/22/2010 10:35:05 AM

I posted his assertion in full but then only addressed the relevant portions. Reading comprehension would suggest that given my previous statements regarding making it all about race, I do not agree with him saying that it will lead to resegregation. Although if we are speaking solely in terms of black-white, our schools will become relatively segregated. But thats not the most important issue in this whole argument.

7/22/2010 10:41:58 AM

Quote :

"Throw in the opt out clause that is currently on the table and you will find that the only kids left in our inner city schools are only the poor kids."

I, too, feel terrible for the inner city poor kids living in Boylan Heights, Oakwood, Mordecai, Five Points, Hayes Barton, the Cameron Village Area, and all the pricey downtown condos. How will they ever escape??? Somebody think about the children!!!!

Seriously though, the only area in Raleigh I can think of that would possibly be affected by what you're talking about is a relatively small pocket spanning south and east from downtown. Everywhere else (that I can think of) includes pockets of affluence, so with proper district lines there should be quite a bit of economic diversity in any school.

7/22/2010 11:17:07 AM

So you're saying that it is ok for us to write off the children located south and east of downtown? You know, the kids who represent a sizeable portion of those bused for diversity reason.

7/22/2010 11:20:42 AM

It wouldn't be the first time.

See, the White middle class likes to push the "undesirables" out of sight. It can be in prison, in ghettos, or just not in their gated communities. Then they don't have to worry about them anymore. And then they can go on and on about how racism doesn't exist anymore and how Blacks should just stop complaining.

7/22/2010 11:22:26 AM

^ I agree that is has been done before but it doesnt make it right or even beneficial to our community at large.

To further support your point, it is no coincidence that Margiotta, Tedesco, et al represent the outlying parts of the county where concentrations of lower income families is less. I could get behind Margiotta's statement from my post above if Sutton and McLaurin were in support but they're not and they represent the poorest parts of our county.

7/22/2010 11:32:12 AM

Quote :

"So you're saying that it is ok for us to write off the children located south and east of downtown? You know, the kids who represent a sizeable portion of those bused for diversity reason."

No. I'm saying that the "problem" is being vastly overstated.
I'm saying that I'm not convinced that busing is the solution to the problem.
I'm saying that there are benefits to neighborhood schools that are largely being ignored.
And that if there is a problem we should consider alternatives other than busing.

Ultimately I think we're going to find that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 12:01 PM. Reason : s]

7/22/2010 12:01:15 PM

I don't live in Wake any more, and I'm damn glad I'm not caught up in this BS, but a few thoughts:

-I didn't attend magnet schools, but I always thought the program was very solid and possibly the best way to mix socioeconomic groups. Give upper class kids reason to go to the ghetto to mix with lower class kids. It's done by choice, not by force. Ask McDanger what he thought of Southeast Raleigh. My sister went there and really enjoyed it.
-As far as bussing goes: I don't like it, but that's probably because I couldn't imagine having to travel further than 5 min. away to go to school. I had the benefit of attending a school close by. However, it was one of the worst in the county. The problem to me always seemed to be the funding inequality, which was a product of the socioeconomic situation. Has anyone ever considered changing the funding mechanisms for schools away from things like property taxes? This funding inequality is the only real reason why I like a universal voucher system: give every student an equal amount of funding and let them choose where to go. It would have to be a universal system with no remaining traditional public schools (limited vouchers for poor students or what have you) to avoid it just being a transfer of money from public schools to privates.
-This Tedesco guy sounds like he's either trying to make a political career as a solid Republican, or he's being backed up by groups like the John Locke folks as a proxy.
-Quite possibly the dumbest way to get the change you want:
1. Don't vote in an election
2. Bitch about the outcome of an election
3. Show up to a meeting of the elected body and yell at people
4. Get arrested

Bonus points if you do all of this and you're not even from the county in question. Glad to see some white kids in Carrboro and Chapel Hill are so busy working on legitimate issues that they had time to come get arrested for trying to get activist cred and assuage their white guilt by hanging out with minority groups.

7/22/2010 12:03:16 PM

I got bussed and I didn't care.

7/22/2010 12:07:54 PM

-Quite possibly the dumbest way to get the change you want:
Vote.

Yeah, Babyface Tedesco quit his job in April. Today the school board, tomorrow...THE WORLD! Tedesco/Token Gay Man To Prove Republicans Aren't Bigots for president in 2016!

7/22/2010 12:17:33 PM

^^^I agree that if people had cared more about this around election time, then they could have been a lot more effective in advocating their position.

Quote :

"some white kids in Carrboro and Chapel Hill"

Quote :

"a bunch of college kids wearing Carolina T-shirts need attention"

I'm glad that we could get to the heart of this issue. A NCSU vs UNC rivalry.

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 12:23 PM. Reason : .]

7/22/2010 12:22:14 PM

Quote :

"Skack: Seriously though, the only area in Raleigh I can think of that would possibly be affected by what you're talking about is a relatively small pocket spanning south and east from downtown. Everywhere else (that I can think of) includes pockets of affluence, so with proper district lines there should be quite a bit of economic diversity in any school."

You're thinking about high schools.

Even with busing now, we still have elementaries well over the forty percent economically disadvantaged cut-off:

Barwell: 68
Zebulon: 66
Wakelon: 74
Smith: 79
Brentwood: 83
Creech Road: 69
Millbrook: 66
Fox Road: 61
Aversboro: 60
Powell: 60
Carver: 71
Hodge Road: 70
Willburn: 68
Knightdale: 63
Carpenter: 63
York: 61
River Bend: 61

This may be fine to you, whatever, but don't pretend like it will be easy to have economic diversity without busing.

7/22/2010 1:06:20 PM

Quote :

"I'm saying that there are benefits to neighborhood schools that are largely being ignored. And that if there is a problem we should consider alternatives other than busing."

I think that there absolutely are merits to the neighborhood schools model. My issue with this proposed iteration is that many of the new board members have failed to research local examples of what they propose. Many of the ideas that they have on the table were implemented not so long ago in Durham county. In many ways, these programs have failed to the point that Judge Manning has had trainers there for at least three years trying to get the schools back on track. So yes, I'm all for trying new alternatives I just think that we shouldn't be so quick to reinvent the wheel.

Quote :

"Ultimately I think we're going to find that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

I think that what we'll find is that we've already done that and we'll quickly figure out which were drinking once we take the water away.

Quote :

"-Quite possibly the dumbest way to get the change you want: 1. Don't vote in an election 2. Bitch about the outcome of an election 3. Show up to a meeting of the elected body and yell at people 4. Get arrested "

Couldn't agree more.

7/22/2010 1:21:14 PM

Quote :

" Until the African American community changes their attitude about life and education nothing is going to change."

+1

7/22/2010 3:17:47 PM

White people think all Black people are lazy watermelon eating drug users ITT.

7/22/2010 3:21:07 PM

You're the one who assumes blacks cant accomplish anything unless the whites allow them to or provide them with a path

7/22/2010 3:27:10 PM

No, I don't.

You're the one who assumes Blacks are lazy.

And they shout at the movie screen too, right!?

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 3:31 PM. Reason : ]

7/22/2010 3:31:21 PM

Quote :

"You're the one who assumes blacks cant accomplish anything unless the whites allow them to or provide them with a path"

Removing the walls should do

7/22/2010 3:32:29 PM

[Edited on July 26, 2010 at 10:00 PM. Reason : .]

7/26/2010 9:56:56 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575379630952309408.html
Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege
America still owes a debt to its black citizens, but government programs to help all 'people of color' are unfair. They should end.

Quote :

"The NAACP believes the tea party is racist. The tea party believes the NAACP is racist. And Pat Buchanan got into trouble recently by pointing out that if Elena Kagan is confirmed to the Supreme Court, there will not be a single Protestant Justice, although Protestants make up half the U.S. population and dominated the court for generations. Forty years ago, as the United States experienced the civil rights movement, the supposed monolith of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dominance served as the whipping post for almost every debate about power and status in America. After a full generation of such debate, WASP elites have fallen by the wayside and a plethora of government-enforced diversity policies have marginalized many white workers. The time has come to cease the false arguments and allow every American the benefit of a fair chance at the future. I have dedicated my political career to bringing fairness to America's economic system and to our work force, regardless of what people look like or where they may worship. Unfortunately, present-day diversity programs work against that notion, having expanded so far beyond their original purpose that they now favor anyone who does not happen to be white. In an odd historical twist that all Americans see but few can understand, many programs allow recently arrived immigrants to move ahead of similarly situated whites whose families have been in the country for generations. These programs have damaged racial harmony. And the more they have grown, the less they have actually helped African-Americans, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action as it was originally conceived. How so? View Full Image webb Martin Kozlowski webb webb Lyndon Johnson's initial program for affirmative action was based on the 13th Amendment and on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which authorized the federal government to take actions in order to eliminate "the badges of slavery." Affirmative action was designed to recognize the uniquely difficult journey of African-Americans. This policy was justifiable and understandable, even to those who came from white cultural groups that had also suffered in socio-economic terms from the Civil War and its aftermath. The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed. But the extrapolation of this logic to all "people of color"—especially since 1965, when new immigration laws dramatically altered the demographic makeup of the U.S.—moved affirmative action away from remediation and toward discrimination, this time against whites. It has also lessened the focus on assisting African-Americans, who despite a veneer of successful people at the very top still experience high rates of poverty, drug abuse, incarceration and family breakup. Those who came to this country in recent decades from Asia, Latin America and Africa did not suffer discrimination from our government, and in fact have frequently been the beneficiaries of special government programs. The same cannot be said of many hard-working white Americans, including those whose roots in America go back more than 200 years. Contrary to assumptions in the law, white America is hardly a monolith. And the journey of white American cultures is so diverse (yes) that one strains to find the logic that could lump them together for the purpose of public policy. The clearest example of today's misguided policies comes from examining the history of the American South. The old South was a three-tiered society, with blacks and hard-put whites both dominated by white elites who manipulated racial tensions in order to retain power. At the height of slavery, in 1860, less than 5% of whites in the South owned slaves. The eminent black historian John Hope Franklin wrote that "fully three-fourths of the white people in the South had neither slaves nor an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of slavery." The Civil War devastated the South, in human and economic terms. And from post-Civil War Reconstruction to the beginning of World War II, the region was a ravaged place, affecting black and white alike. In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt created a national commission to study what he termed "the long and ironic history of the despoiling of this truly American section." At that time, most industries in the South were owned by companies outside the region. Of the South's 1.8 million sharecroppers, 1.2 million were white (a mirror of the population, which was 71% white). The illiteracy rate was five times that of the North-Central states and more than twice that of New England and the Middle Atlantic (despite the waves of European immigrants then flowing to those regions). The total endowments of all the colleges and universities in the South were less than the endowments of Harvard and Yale alone. The average schoolchild in the South had $25 a year spent on his or her education, compared to $141 for children in New York. Generations of such deficiencies do not disappear overnight, and they affect the momentum of a culture. In 1974, a National Opinion Research Center (NORC) study of white ethnic groups showed that white Baptists nationwide averaged only 10.7 years of education, a level almost identical to blacks' average of 10.6 years, and well below that of most other white groups. A recent NORC Social Survey of white adults born after World War II showed that in the years 1980-2000, only 18.4% of white Baptists and 21.8% of Irish Protestants—the principal ethnic group that settled the South—had obtained college degrees, compared to a national average of 30.1%, a Jewish average of 73.3%, and an average among those of Chinese and Indian descent of 61.9%. Policy makers ignored such disparities within America's white cultures when, in advancing minority diversity programs, they treated whites as a fungible monolith. Also lost on these policy makers were the differences in economic and educational attainment among nonwhite cultures. Thus nonwhite groups received special consideration in a wide variety of areas including business startups, academic admissions, job promotions and lucrative government contracts. Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end. Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes. Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away. Mr. Webb, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Virginia. "

i'm a james webb fan now

7/26/2010 10:05:04 PM

There are white people that have shitty lives too? Does not compute. Only black people have hardships and are deserving of money and discriminatory legislature.

7/27/2010 9:46:59 AM

Quote :

"Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes. Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away."

deserves applause.

thanks for posting.

7/27/2010 11:47:48 AM

^

7/27/2010 4:54:28 PM