My latest reading of Andrew Hacker’s Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal focused on education.
Is racial integration in education a good thing, overall, for
African-American students? My impression is that Hacker is rather
ambivalent on this. On the one hand, Hacker argues that many
African-Americans do well academically at historically black colleges,
that African-American students need African-American teachers to serve
as role models, and that some have contended that the white classroom
tends to discriminate against African-American learning styles (which
focus on speaking and moving rather than sitting down and being quiet,
and stories that are not linear rather than abstractions). Even in
schools that are racially integrated, Hacker argues, many
African-American students are placed in lower tracks, so they are
segregated from white students, anyway. Hacker also appears to be open
to curricula that impart to African-Americans pride in their heritage.
On the other hand, Hacker quotes the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of
Education Supreme Court decision, which affirmed that segregated schools
are bad because they are an example of white society telling
African-Americans that they are not wanted. Hacker notes that colleges
that are predominantly African-American receive less funding than many
other colleges. And I’d say that, overall in this book, Hacker argues
that the separation of African-Americans from whites blocks
African-American advancement. After all, if whites stick with their own
kind rather than trying to understand and reach out to the “other,”
they will tend to promote their own kind while excluding the “other.”
Since white society is the dominant society, that means marginalization
for African-Americans.
I think that Hacker would prefer to make integration work. Rather
than being happy with minorities attending historically black colleges,
he would probably prefer that other universities help African-Americans
to feel genuinely welcome. Perhaps he would like for an integrated
school to recognize African-American learning styles, to have more
African-American teachers, and to teach African-American history. I get
this from my latest reading.
Hacker’s book was written in the 1990′s, and Hacker stated that 63.2
percent of African-American children are in segregated schools,
appealing to studies that the National School Board Association
conducted. I did a quick google search to find later statistics, and I
found an August 29, 2013 Washington Post article entitled, “Report: Public Schools More Segregated Now Than 40 Years Ago.”