The 5-4 Supreme Court decision Thursday banning race-based school assignments was the correct decision, after the fashion of Brown v Board of Education in 1951. It doesn't surprise me, though, that Democrat candidates for President of the United States disagreed with the decision, which re-emphasized the ban on racist government control of where children attend school.It's ironic that people vaunting to become your next president have no clear understanding of the history of one of the most well-known Supreme Court cases in American history--Brown v. Board of Education. Here's a little background:
In Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school, but the principal of the school refused. Brown went to McKinley Burnett, [of the NAACP] and asked for help. The NAACP was eager to assist the Browns, as it had long wanted to challenge segregation in public schools. ... Other black parents joined Brown, and, in 1951, the NAACP requested an injunction that would forbid the segregation of Topeka's public schools.At issue in Brown was the unconstitutionality of government controlling where people went to school based on race. At particular issue was that,
- without regard for race, families should be allowed to send their children to schools that were convenient to their neighborhoods.
- school boards could not provide better school facilities for one particular race over others.
A 5-4 Supreme Court decision (including one black justice) upheld the essence of Brown on Thursday, by specifying that neither could government compel attendance at particular schools in an effort to foster integration.
"Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin," said Roberts, joined by Alito and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. He said the districts in this case were also trying to justify "differential treatment on the basis of race."
A correct decision. Pretty simple. But not, somehow for four Supreme Court justices and not for several candidates for President of the United States.
Unfortunately, black voters have overwhelmingly positive opinions of the two presidential candidates who are trying the hardest to destroy black upward mobility in America--Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. During a Thursday night debate at Howard University, it was Hillary who outdid Obama in her incitement of a predominantly black audience to hatred of non-blacks and to blaming non-blacks for the problems they faced.
"If HIV/AIDS were the leading cause of death of white women between the ages of 25 and 34, there would be an outraged outcry in this country," Clinton said to the biggest applause line of the night, bringing the audience to its feet.
It seemed to work, as propaganda replaced reasoned logic in "inspiring" the debate crowd at Howard University.
All the candidates decried the Supreme Court ruling earlier in the day that rejected school diversity plans in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., saying it turned back the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Brown did not, nor could it ever, promise integrated schools. What it did promise, and under the Constitution could promise, was that government would not use compulsion on the basis of race to assign children to school attendance.
But people like Hillary and Obama, who decry the Court's decision, subscribe readily (and contribute) to the race-baiting tactics of the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. For them it's really all about power and control.
So for some liberals, Brown wasn't about freedom of choice. It was a confirmation of their deepest inner secret--that they don't care about the children, but rather that they will use any wedge they can find to destroy relations between the various races in America. All as a means to gain greater government control.
It's amazing how Chief Justice John Roberts can turn Supreme Court precedent on its head-- and it's only his first term. Up-is-downism triumphs!
ReplyDeleteIn his dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer concluded: “The lesson of history is not that efforts to continue racial segregation are constitutionally indistinguishable from efforts to achieve racial integration. Indeed, it is a cruel distortion of history to compare Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s to Louisville and Seattle in the modern day.”
And that is the essence of our disagreement. I think Justice Breyer is wrong, and that it is activist to think that the Constitution could be asked to do anything more. I don't mean to sound presumptuous by calling Breyer wrong. Besides, 5 other justices did as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty imperfect way to solve our country's problems--having 9 men and women battle it out. I have always been of the opinion that the Constitution is what it says it is and what the founders intended it to be, while judges in the recent past--who would agree with Breyer's assessment of this case--have said that the constitution is whatever they decide it to be. This is what I think Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia are trying to get away from. And I applaud them for it.
Go OBAMA
ReplyDeleteWe've argued before on which party presumes the role of divisor along lines of race, and we obviously still disagree.
ReplyDeleteBut to your point on candidates not understanding the historical context and the nature of the decision in the time period in which it was made is something we may agree on.
In general, it's not something best used as a campaign tactic. In specific, few understand the need for the decisions of history. Many argue the imperfections of historical rulings that, unfortunately indeed, were necessary, and unbelievably are still necessary today.
Quite actually, I think both parties divide based on race. It would be nice if everyone could get back to the fundaments of it all, and that is that all men are created equal.
ReplyDelete